Bay Area

Barrier to Entry No More: UC Ends Use of SAT, ACT in Admissions, Scholarships

In a historic settlement, the UC Regents agreed they would eliminate the SAT and the ACT from admissions and scholarship decisions through 2025.

Published

5 years ago

May 20, 2021

Christy Price

Felicia Buitenwerf/Unsplash

COMMENTARY

You don’t have to ask Stockton teenager Rain Romeo about standardized testing. We all know tests like the SAT/ACT are discriminatory in nature, failing to reflect a student’s real ability, and advantaging wealthier students who can afford extra tutoring to game the exam.

“I’m not just a score,” Romeo, a 17- year old Filipino American student told me this week on the phone. She was one of the students who had been asked to testify to the UC regents about the fairness and efficacy of standardized tests.

Last Friday, the major barrier to Romeo’s hopes and dreams was removed. In a historic settlement, the UC Regents agreed they would eliminate the SAT and the ACT from admissions and scholarship decisions through 2025.

UC had already figured that standardized tests were unfair last year, but let COVID-19 be the excuse to put a temporary halt on the tests only through 2022. The settlement now bans the test for another three years.

The suit should allow for a greater diversity of students of all backgrounds, but especially Black, Latinx, and Asian groups from less wealthy communities.

“I’m thrilled and so happy to hear the news,” Romeo told me. The tests had put enormous pressure on her life, creating anxiety and self-doubt.

“Coming from a low-income household and a community that is constantly overlooked, I have always felt like I wouldn’t attain success,” she said. “I always based my perceptions and my entire life thought process on these scores. I believed if my score wasn’t good enough, then I wasn’t good enough.”

Romeo immigrated to the U.S. with her family from the Philippines as a child in 2004. She has been active as a youth advocate with the Little Manila Rising group in Stockton. And she feels connected to her community, interested in building it up, not looking forward to leaving it behind. It’s a kind of ambition and drive that doesn’t show up in a standardized test.

“There’s more to me than what is seen on that piece of paper, and the number that score represents,” Romeo said. “I don’t want [admissions officers] to make an assumption or observation of me that they think is true based on a number.”

Romeo said she wanted colleges to see her for who she is and what her true potential represents. In Stockton, Romeo has overcome a lot. She’s a star student (weighted GPA around 4.3) in a neglected, low-income neighborhood, and would be the first in her family to go to college. In school, she studies debate, Honors English, Honors Physics, and is in student government, as well as a community volunteer with Little Manila Rising.

She also isn’t ambitious for a corporate life that would force her to leave her home. Instead, Romeo is ambitious for her community. Perhaps that is a quality colleges should find worth nurturing, as Romeo prepares to apply to UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Davis, where admissions will consider her uniqueness rather than her relative value to a made-up standard.

That makes the settlement good news for all young people who are overlooked and filtered out by that thing that has long been an admissions officer’s crutch–the SAT.

Students like Rain now have a chance to stand out and be seen, not by a number, but for who they are.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran Bay Area journalist and commentator. He vlogs at www.amok.com, FaceBook @emilguillermo.media

Christy Price

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

3 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Chase Oakland Community Center Hosts Alley-Oop Accelerator Building Community and Opportunity for Bay Area Entrepreneurs

Over the past three years, the Alley-Oop Accelerator has helped more than 20 Bay Area businesses grow, connect, and gain meaningful exposure. The program combines hands-on training, mentorship, and community-building to help participants navigate the legal, financial, and marketing challenges of small business ownership.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 21, 2026

Oakland Post

Bay Area entrepreneurs attend the Alley-Oop Accelerator, a small business incubation program at Chase Oakland Community Center. Photo by Carla Thomas.

By Carla Thomas

The Golden State Warriors and Chase bank hosted the third annual Alley-Oop Accelerator this month, an empowering eight-week program designed to help Bay Area entrepreneurs bring their visions for business to life.

The initiative kicked off on Feb. 12 at Chase’s Oakland Community Center on Broadway Street, welcoming 15 small business owners who joined a growing network of local innovators working to strengthen the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

At its core, the accelerator is designed to create an ecosystem of collaboration, where local entrepreneurs can learn from one another while accessing the resources of a global financial institution.

“This is our third year in a row working with the Golden State Warriors on the Alley-Oop Accelerator,” said Jaime Garcia, executive director of Chase’s Coaching for Impact team for the West Division. “We’ve already had 20-plus businesses graduate from the program, and we have 15 enrolled this year. The biggest thing about the program is really the community that’s built amongst the business owners — plus the exposure they’re able to get through Chase and the Golden State Warriors.”

According to Garcia, several graduates have gone on to receive vendor contracts with the Warriors and have gained broader recognition through collaborations with JPMorgan Chase.

“A lot of what Chase is trying to do,” Garcia added, “is bring businesses together because what they’ve asked for is an ecosystem, a network where they can connect, grow, and thrive organically.”

This year’s Alley-Oop Accelerator reflects that vision through its comprehensive curriculum and emphasis on practical learning. Participants explore the full spectrum of business essentials including financial management, marketing strategy, and legal compliance, while also preparing for real-world experiences such as pop-up market events.

Each entrepreneur benefits from one-on-one mentoring sessions through Chase’s Coaching for Impact program, which provides complimentary, personalized business consulting.

Garcia described the impact this hands-on approach has had on local small business owners. He recalled one candlemaker, who, after participating in the program, was invited to provide candles as gifts at Chase events.

“We were able to help give that business exposure,” he explained. “But then our team also worked with them on how to access capital to buy inventory and manage operations once those orders started coming in. It’s about preparation. When a hiccup happens, are you ready to handle it?”

The Coaching for Impact initiative, which launched in 2020 in just four cities, has since expanded to 46 nationwide.

“Every business is different,” Garcia said. “That’s why personal coaching matters so much. It’s life-changing.”

Participants in the 2026 program will each receive a $2,500 stipend, funding that Garcia said can make an outsized difference. “It’s amazing what some people can do with just $2,500,” he noted. “It sounds small, but it goes a long way when you have a plan for how to use it.”

For Chase and the Warriors, the Alley-Oop Accelerator represents more than an educational initiative, it’s a pathway to empowerment and economic inclusion. The program continues to foster lasting relationships among the entrepreneurs who, as Garcia put it, “build each other up” through shared growth and opportunity.

“Starting a business is never easy, but with the right support, it becomes possible, and even exhilarating,” said Oscar Lopez, the senior business consultant for Chase in Oakland.