University of California dropping SAT. and ACT tests for admission

The bane of minority students applying to college will be phased out at the 10-campus University of California system.

The UC Regents' Thursday unanimous vote to do away with the SAT and ACT as requirements to admission was greeted with praise at Little Manila Rising, one of the agencies that had advocated the elimination of what it called culturally biased tests.

"The use of SAT and ACT testing in college admissions is like educational redlining," the Stockton-based agency tweeted in response. "Our education system should provide a vehicle for growth and opportunity to California's young people -- non re-enforce (sic) the harm caused by systemic oppression."

“We’ve seen firsthand how SAT and ACT scores act as a discriminatory barrier to college access for students from historically disenfranchised communities through our college prep programs,” said Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, one of the organizational plaintiffs in the case. “Eliminating these discriminatory practices will help Filipino/a students and students from other marginalized communities access higher education and achieve personal success.”

Studies, including UC's own study, have shown that among AAPI communities, Filipinos and Hmong do not fare well in the standardized tests. The research also shows that test scores are not a good indicator of how successful the student will be in college.

Before the Thursday vote, the UC system had already made the tests optional instead of mandatory. The Regents voted to continue the optional status for another year. The SAT and ACT will be eliminated altogether by 2025.

"Filipinos have the lowest UC admission rates out of all major Asian groups - 54% of applicants, compared to 70% Chinese, 73% Taiwanese, 69% Korean, 67% Vietnamese, 66% Indian, and 64% Japanese. Let’s unpack that! two-thirds to three-quarters of other groups are admitted but only one-half of Filipinos are," said Kevin Nadal, PhD., a Filipino American professor at City University of New York.

However, the news was not celebrated by all Asian Americans. The Asian Americans Coalition for Education has argued against dropping the tests. In earlier statements, the group stated that  "replacing standardized testing with more subjective school-level factors and less rigorous methods such as the Smarter Balance Assessment will undermine American meritocracy, hinder our nation’s technological progress, and jeopardize our national security."

AACE, co-founded by Edward Burns, noted for his anti-affirmative action crusades in Texas in more recently, against Harvard University. In the Harvard case, AACE filed a friend of the court brief arguing against the school's admission policies which they claim discriminates against Asian applicants in favor of less-qualified students.

Prior to 2025, the university will look into creating their own test for college applicants. The system which has over 300,000 students, includes the flagship campus, UC Berkeley, consistently rated the top public university in the country. At the highly competitive campus of UC Berkeley, only 12% of the Filipino applicants were admitted. Only Hmong applicants with a 10% admittance rate had a lower number of students admitted.