I’m pretty sure this won’t end the debate about the appropriateness of admitting college applicants with lower SAT scores than those rejected, but as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, a new study conducted by UC Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout finds that the overwhelming majority of underrepresented students of color at UC Berkeley were admitted because of factors other than their race/ethnicity:

Hout said grades carried the most weight in admissions, and that high grades and Advanced Placement courses were responsible for some students with lower SAT scores being admitted over students with higher SATs. His report found two areas where ethnicity appeared to make a small difference.

Eighty-nine percent of admission decisions are based on a first-round score awarded by application readers. The study found a slightly higher probability that underrepresented minorities would be among the 11 percent referred for a further review, although the actual scoring in the second review showed no link to ethnicity.

Hout also found a very small scoring advantage for Latino and Native American applicants over Asian Americans among in-state applicants, but that the difference is the “statistical equivalent of getting a B instead of A in one or two courses over the whole three or four years of high school.”

As always, both sides of the affirmative action debate will spin this study to support their own arguments. But the results just highlight a key point in the affirmative action debate that I tell my students over and over again -- there are many ways to measure who is “qualified” to be admitted, and standardized tests like the SATs are just one of those ways (and it’s not even the best way either).