Back to the Basics:

1. Back to the Basics: In Defense of Achievement (and Achievement Tests) in College Admissions Saul Geiser University of California, Berkeley

2. “Readiness” for college: Two views • Achievement: performance in college-preparatory subjects, mastery of curriculum content • Ability: generalized reasoning and problem-solving skills

3. UC findings Admissions criteria that tap student mastery of curriculum content, such as high-school grades and achievement tests, are stronger predictors of success in college and fairer to low-income and minority applicants than tests of general reasoning such as the SAT.

4. Underrepresented minorities as a percent of new UC freshmen, 1995 to 1998

5. Correlation of SAT I, SAT II and HSGPAwith socioeconomic factors

6. % of underrepresented minority applicants by SAT I vs. HSGPA deciles

7. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting freshman GPA Sample: New UC freshmen in 1996-1999 who completed first year. N = 68,602.

8. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting 4-year graduation Sample: New UC freshman in 1996-1999. N = 74,618.

9. Minority participation in AP/honors classes among California college-bound seniors

10. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting cumulative UC GPA Sample: New UC freshmen in 2002 who completed two years. N = 14,976.

11. Achievement tests and UC outreach • Alignment with K-12 curriculum • Diagnostic function • Message to students

12. UC policy changes after Prop 209 • 1998: Increased weight for HSGPA and SAT II, reduced weight for SAT I scores in statewide eligibility index • 2001: Introduced Top 4% Plan and Comprehensive Admissions Review • 2002: Adopted policy favoring achievement tests over tests of general reasoning or aptitude

13. Underrepresented minorities as a percent of new UC freshmen, 1995 to 2007

14. Restoring the role of high-school record • Increase emphasis on high-school grades and class rank over admissions tests • Eliminate “bonus point” for Advanced Placement classes except where students take and pass AP exams

15. Limitations of New SAT as an achievement test • Less curriculum-based than other achievement tests • Remains norm-referenced • Limited diagnostic value • Prediction is no better than old SAT

16. An expanded role for subject tests • Most content-intensive of all nationally available assessments • Align with and reinforce classroom instruction • Best predictors, after high-school record, of student performance in college

17. Back to the basics • Criterion-referenced vs. norm-referenced assessment • Accent on achievement and mastery of foundational subjects

19. Additional slides for Q & A

20. “The results here indicate that the exclusion of student background characteristics from prediction models inflates the SAT’s apparent validity, as the SAT score appears to be a more effective measure of the demographic characteristics that predict [college grade-point average] than it is of preparedness conditional on student background. … [A] conservative estimate is that traditional methods and sparse models [i.e., those that do not take into account demographic characteristics] overstate the SAT’s importance to predictive accuracy by 150 percent.” Rothstein, J. (2004). “College performance predictions and the SAT." Journal of Econometrics, volume121, 297-317.

22. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting freshman GPA by race/ethnicity Sample: New UC freshmen in 1998-2001 who completed first year. N = 57,377.

23. Prediction weights for 4th year GPA by campus Sample: New 1996-1999 UC freshmen completing 4 years. N = 58,539.

27. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting freshman GPA Sample: New UC freshmen who completed first year. N = 41,116.

28. Relative weight of different admissions factors in predicting cumulative 4-year UC GPA Sample: New 1996-1999 UC freshmen completing 4 years. N = 58,539.