Students take a SAT practice test at Berkeley High School in 2016. Since UC abandoned using the SAT in admissions, it has enrolled the most diverse classes in its history. 

In the years since the University of California abandoned using the SAT to help pick which students it would accept, it has enrolled the most diverse classes in its history. UC continues to be an exceptional engine of socioeconomic mobility, admitting a much higher share of students who are poor than peer institutions, both public and private. UC students continue to go on to do amazing things, as they always have. This is good.

Despite these positive developments, calls to bring back the SAT have grown louder and include a letter signed by hundreds of my fellow UC instructors on May 28. The signatories point to alarming numbers of students who are unprepared to take college-level math classes and warn of the danger posed to institutional excellence.

Get Digital Access and Stay Informed With Trusted Local News.

Get Digital Access and Stay Informed With Trusted Local News.

“The current admissions system is undermining this structure by admitting students directly into STEM UC programs without a reliable measure of whether they are prepared to succeed,” they wrote. 

Article continues below this ad

There is reason to worry.........

© San Francisco Chronicle