University of California President Richard Atkinson's recommendation that UC scrap the SAT I test as a requirement for admission - a change he said was long overdue - was greeted with guarded optimism by some UCLA leaders and questions by others who are trying to understand how it will affect the campus.

Chancellor Albert Carnesale characterized the proposal as a shift away from an aptitute test toward achievement tests. "While President Atkinson remains a strong supporter of standardized tests, he believes we should rely upon tests that assess students' mastery of subject matter in specific courses that are required for admission to the University of California, rather than rely upon tests that attempt to assess students' aptitude to do college-level work," the chancellor said.

The proposal's implications for diversity are not yet known, the chancellor said. "We have no reason to believe that standardized tests assessing mastery of subject matter would lead to greater diversity than would standardized tests that assess aptitude," Carnesale said. "We really don't know."

Long hailed as a leader in the UC system for its comprehensive admissions review, UCLA has "never relied exclusively, or even heavily, on the SAT I," said Rae Lee Siporin, director of Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools (UARS). "Rather, we have used it and the information it provides as a supplement to the full information that we have about students' performance and records."

UCLA already puts "a bit more emphasis on SAT II scores and a little less on SAT I" in evaluating applications, said Professor of Physics Charles Buchanan, chair of the Academic Senate's UARS committee. That occurred because there was mounting evidence that SAT II exams, which test specific subject knowledge, are a better predictor of college performance, he said.

"So we've made a small step in that direction already," said Buchanan, who called Atkinson's plan "intriguing and complicated."

"If UCLA dropped the SAT I from our selection process, my gut reaction is that we wouldn't be able to find a way to measure any change in the quality of our student body," the physics professor said.

Professor of Electrical Engineering Chand Viswanathan, vice chair of the Academic Council, also felt little would change. "The standard for entry to the university will not suffer since the potential of the applicant is being evaluated in a more comprehensive manner," he said. "It's my opinion that the proposed change will lead to a level playing field for all applicants, irrespective of their economic, social and racial background."

Said Professor Eva Baker, a nationally recognized expert on testing and director of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies: "The initiative can be very important as a way to focus precollegiate student attention on academic competencies that the university values. I am interested in the way in which the subject matter emphasis will impact plans for the statewide exit examination. I hope there will be flexibility over the transition period."

Atkinson announced his recommendation in a Feb. 18 address before the American Council on Education meeting in Washington, D.C. He said he favors abandoning the SAT I because it does not have a demonstrable relationship to a student's course of study and often leads to a preoccupation with improving test-taking skills at the expense of mastering high school subject matter.

His proposal calls for developing new standardized tests directly tied to the college preparatory courses required of students applying to UC. In the interim, UC should continue to require that students take the SAT II exams in writing, mathematics and a third subject chosen by the student from a UC-approved list, he said.

If Atkinson's SAT I proposal is approved by the faculty and the Board of Regents, the earliest it could be implemented would be for the entering class of fall 2003.