Admission

California And The SAT: A Reanalysis Of University Of California Admissions Data

Rebecca Zwick
Terran Brown
Jeffrey C. Sklar
2004

As part of the University of California's recent reconsideration of the role of the SAT in admissions, the UC Office of the President published an extensive report, UC and the SAT (2001), which examined the value of SAT I Reasoning Test scores, SAT II Subject Test scores, and high school grades in predicting the grade-point averages of UC freshmen (UCGPA), as well as the role of economic factors in predicting UCGPA. The analyses in UC and the SAT were based primarily on data that had been aggregated across freshmen cohorts (1996 through 1999) and across UC campuses. In the current...

Admissions Bias: A New Approach to Validity Estimation in Selected Samples

Jesse M. Rothstein
2002

Validity researchers typically work with nonrandom samples, membership in which depends in part on the exam score being investigated. In a study of the SAT's validity for freshman GPA at a particular college, for example, FGPA is not observed for the entire pool of potential applicants, but only for those who are admitted and enroll. This sample selection biases validity estimates. Corrections for restriction of range remedy the problem only when the exam score is the sole determinant of selection, and even then do not permit consistent estimation of the exam's incremental validity....

Inequality, Student Achievement, And College Admissions: A Remedy For Underrepresentation

Roger E. Studley
2003

Large socioeconomic and ethnic disparities exist in college admissions. This paper demonstrates that by systematically accounting for the effect of socioeconomic circumstance on pre-college achievement, colleges can substantially reduce these disparities. A conceptual model distinguishes students' realized achievement from their underlying ability (inclusive of effort and motivation) and relates achievement differences to both ability and socioeconomic circumstance. The model shows that an admissions policy that systematically accounts for the relationship between circumstance and...

The Role Of Advanced Placement And Honors Courses In College Admissions

Saul Geiser
Veronica Santelices
2004

This study examines the role of Advanced Placement (AP) and other honors-level courses as a criterion for admission at a leading public university, the University of California, and finds that the number of AP and honors courses taken in high school bears little or no relationship to students’ later performance in college. AP is increasingly emphasized as a factor in admissions, particularly at selective colleges and universities. But while student performance on AP examinations is strongly related to college performance, merely taking AP or other honors-level courses in...

Validity Of High-School Grades In Predicting Student Success Beyond The Freshman Year: High-School Record vs. Standardized Tests as Indicators of Four-Year College Outcomes, by Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Santelices

Saul Geiser
Maria Veronica Santelices
2007

High-school grades are often viewed as an unreliable criterion for college admissions, owing to differences in grading standards across high schools, while standardized tests are seen as methodologically rigorous, providing a more uniform and valid yardstick for assessing student ability and achievement. The present study challenges that conventional view. The study finds that high-school grade point average (HSGPA) is consistently the best predictor not only of freshman grades in college, the outcome indicator most often employed in predictive-validity studies, but of four-year college...

John Aubrey Douglass

Senior Research Fellow

John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow -- Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California - Berkeley. He is the author of Neo-Nationalism and Universities (Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press 2021), Envisioning the Asian...

Reflections on a Century of College Admissions Tests

Richard C. Atkinson
Saul Geiser
2009

Standardized testing for college admissions has grown exponentially since the first administration of the old “College Boards” in 1901. This paper surveys major developments since then: the introduction of the “Scholastic Aptitude Test” in 1926, designed to tap students’ general analytic ability; E.F. Lindquist’s creation of the ACT in 1959 as a competitor to the SAT, intended as a measure of achievement rather than ability; the renewed interest on the part of some leading colleges and universities in subject-specific assessments such as the SAT Subject Tests and Advanced Placement...

The Growing Correlation Between Race and SAT Scores: New Findings from California by Saul Geiser

Saul Geiser
2015

This paper presents new and surprising findings on the relationship between race and SAT scores. The findings are based on the population of California residents who applied for admission to the University of California from 1994 through 2011, a sample of over 1.1 million students. The UC data show that socioeconomic background factors – family income, parental education, and race/ethnicity – account for a large and growing share of the variance in students’ SAT scores over the past twenty years. More than a third of the variance in SAT scores can now be predicted by factors known at...

Back to the Future: Freshman Admissions at the University of California, 1994 to the Present and Beyond, by Saul Geiser

Saul Geiser
2014

The past five years have seen unprecedented changes in freshman admissions at the University of California, reflecting steep cuts in state funding that UC sustained during that period as well as changes in UC’s definition of who is eligible to enter the university. The number of California applicants who were not admitted to the UC system more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, although part of that increase also reflected a change in admissions policies and procedures. The number of “no shows” – applicants who were admitted but did not attend – increased...

The Effect of Selective Public Research University Enrollment: Evidence from California, by Zachary Bleemer

Zachary Bleemer
2018
What are the benefits and costs of attending a selective public research university instead of a less-selective university or college? This study examines the 2001-2011 Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program, which guaranteed University of California admission to students in the top four percent of California high school classes. Employing a regression discontinuity design, I estimate that ELC pulled 8 percent of marginally-admitted students into four "Absorbing'' UC campuses from less-competitive public institutions in California. Those ELC compliers had lower SAT scores and family...