The following principles are excerpted from a proposal submitted by the University of California's Board of Admissions and Relations. The full proposal is also available online.

…BOARS recommends to the faculty the adoption of the following policy regarding the purposes and properties of admissions tests used by the University of California.

1. Admissions tests will be used at the University of California
• to assess academic preparation and achievement of UC applicants;
• to predict success at UC beyond that predicted by high school GPA
• to aid in establishing UC eligibility; and
• to aid in selecting students for admission at individual UC campuses.
2. The desired properties of admissions tests to be used for these purposes include the following.
• An admissions test should be a reliable measurement that provides uniform assessment and should be fair across demographic groups.
• An admissions test should measure levels of mastery of content in UC-approved high school preparatory coursework and should provide information to students, parents, and educators enabling them to identify academic strengths and weaknesses.
• An admissions test should be demonstrably useful in predicting student success at UC and provide information beyond that which is contained in other parts of the application. (It is recognized that predictors of success are currently limited, and generally only include first-year college GPA and graduation rate. As this field advances, better predictors should be identified and used in validating admissions tests.)
• An admissions test should be useful in a way that justifies its social and monetary costs.

BOARS also recommends that, as a matter of principle, the faculty regularly review UC's admissions testing policy and practices to ensure that tests are being used in a way that is consistent with these principles and desired properties of admissions tests.