MARINA DEL REY, CALIF.--University of California president Richard C. Atkinson's plan to scrap the SAT in favor of a "holistic" approach to admissions will promote racism and undermine the integrity of the university admissions system, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
"Selecting students based on aptitude and proven ability is a matter of justice," said Edwin A. Locke. "The SAT, for example, places no weight whatever on the student's race, gender or ethnic group. It only asks the question: what can you do? It is race-blind, gender-blind, age-blind, sexual-orientation-blind, religion-blind, politics-blind and ethnicity-blind. Scoring of the SAT is dependent on one factor-did you give the right answer?"
Locke contends that the real reason Atkinson wants to eliminate the SAT is because it is not racist-and he would rather rely on irrelevant, non-objective criteria such as "ethnicity." Locke said that the following facts should be kept in mind when evaluating the SAT:
* It is the single best predictor of college grades, of how well someone will do in college. The SAT measures aptitude for learning across many different types of subject matter.
* It is a more objective measure than high school grades because every person takes the same test and every test is scored the same way.
* It is not biased against minorities; it predicts college performance equally well for all groups (male, female, white, black, Mexican American, et al.)
"If we really want to promote justice in this country, we must replace collectivism with individualism," said Locke. "In the realm of college admissions, this means judging the ability and potential of each individual student for college work and admitting the best qualified, regardless of what racial group he might belong to. The SAT is an invaluable tool for this purpose and, rather than being eliminated, should be retained at all costs."
Ayn Rand Institute senior writer Edwin A. Locke is available for interviews.
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