College Entrance Exams Are the UCs Test Blind? Interpreting the recent news and what’s next! Written by Sara Calvert-Kubromon September 14th, 2020 My passion for higher education and working with students began as a resident assistant, admissions overnight host, and study abroad enthusiast as an undergraduate student at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Working with high school and college students has been at the core of my professional experiences ever since. My first few years out of college included serving as an AmeriCorps member, working in public health, and teaching yoga. I later worked for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Boston College and subsequently served as a lead administrator of a freshman study abroad program at Northeastern University in collaboration with their admissions team. While at Northeastern, I worked with faculty, deans, students, and parents in a wide-array of academic disciplines in several countries. It was exciting to provide robust academic and cultural experiences for students all over the world as they started college before returning to Boston to pursue the rest of their degree. I most recently served as an admissions officer at my alma mater, where I recruited students of diverse academic interests primarily from the East coast, California, and Arizona, and worked with applicants from all over the United States and the world. While at Lewis & Clark I worked with deposited students taking a gap year, coordinated the college’s release of admissions decisions, served as an athletics liaison working with athletic coaches and recruits, helped oversee visit and student-interviewer programs, and managed and trained new admissions counselors. Learn More About Sara act, sat, standardized testing, standardized tests, by Sara Calvert-Kubrom, former admissions officer at Lewis & Clark College On September 1, 2020, a California State Court judge issued a preliminary injunction stating that the University of California system may not use standardized test scores like the SAT and ACT in their admission evaluation process. This ruling was made in response to the extreme limitations of testing during COVID that have been exacerbated for students with disabilities. These students have had less access to testing sites and/or needed accommodations during testing which are protected by the California Disabled Persons Act and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Although the judge’s ruling bars the use of standardized test scores by the UCs for applicants to the fall of 2021, the legal process is not yet complete and we will learn more after a litigated case management conference on September 29, 2020. What does this mean? If the ruling is upheld, the UCs will be test blind for students applying to enroll in the fall of 2021 (current high school seniors, for example). This means that test scores will not be used in any way in the admission process and that there will likely be enhanced emphasis on the high school classes, grades, and rigor of a student’s curriculum, as well as their essays and activities. As of now, the legal case is not finalized and the UCs have not made a public announcement about their plans, so we are closely monitoring new developments in this case. At a minimum, all UCs are test optional (scores are not required, but strong scores can help) for applicants to fall of 2021. As of September 11, 2020 some UC campuses have individually announced that they are test blind for fall 2021 applicants: UC Berkeley UC Irvine UC Santa Cruz For the other campuses, it is important to closely monitor their admission websites and/or an announcement from the UC system. Regardless of this court case, all UC campuses will be test blind for California residents by fall of 2023 as they already announced a gradual transition to remove standardized testing from the process in May. More to come as the news unfolds – stay tuned! Find out where our team of admissions decision-makers came from and why they joined College Coach. Meet The Team Related Resources Read | Posted on October 23rd, 2023 Should I Submit SAT or ACT Scores to Test Optional Schools? Read | Posted on June 15th, 2023 Standardized Testing Policies in 2023 Read | Posted on January 17th, 2023 Does Your PSAT Score Matter?
