UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY • DAVIS • IRVINE • LOS ANGELES • MERCED • RIVERSIDE • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO

SANTA BARBARA • SANTA CRUZ

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
1111 Franklin Street, 9th Floor
Oakland, California 94607-5200

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT – STUDENT AFFAIRS
UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS

July 9, 2018
Governor Edmund G. Brown
c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Governor Brown,
I am writing in response to your office’s request for a status report on the University of California’s
validity study on the state’s high school Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA).
As the UC Academic Senate committee that oversees all undergraduate admissions policies, the faculty
Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) has commissioned a UC systemwide study of
SBA scores for grade 11 to determine the appropriateness of including them as an additional factor in the
UC admissions evaluation process. To this end, BOARS requested that the study be conducted by Dr.
Michal Kurlaender, Professor and Chair of the Graduate Group in Education at UC Davis’s School of
Education. Having recently published a similar study focused on UC Davis students’ data, Dr. Kurlaender
plans to leverage her existing data-sharing agreement with the California Department of Education (CDE)
to expand her initial analysis on the validity of the SBA and its strength in predicting first year
performance for UC students systemwide.
In addition, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has submitted a data request to
the CDE to advance our research agenda on behalf of other key Academic Senate policymaking
committees beyond BOARS. For example, the University Committee on Preparatory Education is
interested in determining whether SBA English language arts scores are aligned with other assessments
UC currently uses to support students in fulfilling the University’s Entry Level Writing Requirement.
UCOP’s analysis will include not only test validity for possible use in admissions but also for possible
writing placement purposes.
Note that the SBA was first administered to 11th graders in 2015. This cohort completed their first year at
UC in spring 2017. Therefore, data for the validity research is somewhat limited until additional cohorts
enrolled at UC complete their first year of college. Additionally, the cohort completing their first year at
UC in spring 2018 is also the first to have taken the revised SAT 2016 for admissions. This presents a
predictable lag in completing the full analyses on the SBA until at least the 2017-18 first-year completion
data become available.
Please contact me if you have questions about UCOP’s completion of the research on Smarter Balanced.
Sincerely,

Han Mi Yoon-Wu
Interim Associate Vice President and
Director, Undergraduate Admissions

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BOARS Chair Henry Sánchez

Provost Michael T. Brown
Vice President Robin Holmes-Sullivan
Associate Vice President Kieran Flaherty