UC has weighted SAT, ACT reinstatement requirements in addition to lack of math skills
Six years after dropping SAT and ACT test requirements, members of the University of California's powerful admissions board said Thursday the group will consider requiring standardized tests, a move popular with faculty who complain that many students lack math.
The potential reform puts the highly regarded public university system back into the contentious national debate over standardized testing, fairness and college readiness, and follows a wave of elite campuses — including Yale and Caltech — that have already reinstated testing.
The move, announced by the UC-wide Academic Senate's Board of Admissions and Academic Relations, comes amid growing pressure from UC faculty and outside activists over the no-test approach. More than 1,400 UC professors — many of them in the fields of math, science, technology and engineering — last month signed an open letter calling for UC to reinstate admissions tests, launching intense public advocacy and private lobbying of UC faculty leaders, parents and students on different sides of the debate.
In their letter, the professors complained that “we now see such a severe gap that teachers must teach middle school math while at the same time teaching students the information they need in science, engineering, economics and other more difficult fields.”
This request follows another impressive report for the fall of 2025 from the UC San Diego Academic Senate team, which found a 30-fold increase between 2020 and 2025 in incoming first-year students whose math skills tested below high school level, with 70% of those students falling below middle school levels.
Then last March, the UC-wide Academic Senate introduced a process to further study the admissions process, including high school course requirements.
The decision to revisit standardized testing ultimately rests with the UC Board of Regents. If the exams are reinstated, the change won't take effect until the fall of 2028 at the earliest.
The Academic Senate makes recommendations through its Board of Admissions and Academic Relations to UC leaders, including President James B. Milliken and the regents. The senate said it will call a committee to meet next year to look into the matter. At least 18 members will include faculty from multiple fields including STEM and humanities, UC admissions and enrollment experts, and a representative of the state board of education.
A Senate Education roadmap released Thursday said the committee would be charged with investigating the “pros and cons” of relying on SAT/ACT scores and California's 11th grade Smarter Balanced Assessment for English language arts and math.
The chairman of the UC Academic Senate said in his letter that “it is clear that college readiness is a growing challenge.”
“The growing gap in college readiness among high school graduates is not a new phenomenon but an ongoing problem, likely driven by many factors affecting student acceptance and academic success across the country,” said Ahmet Palazoglu, who is also a professor of chemical engineering at UC Davis. He said he was “strongly” in favor of continuing to conduct trial research in a “deliberate, evidence-based” manner. He did not promote the requirements to restore or maintain the status quo.
A separate task force will also examine whether it is necessary to change the 15 years of high school education required by UC for admission. The board cited concerns that it “may be overly restrictive/rigid and, as a result, may not effectively address workforce needs, widespread adoption of AI, UC sector concerns about preparation, ongoing shifts in student learning styles, and students' need to apply knowledge and skills in current real-world situations.”
Any changes to high school course requirements will also require approval from the regents.
Why did UC end the test
UC received national attention in May 2020 when the regents voted unanimously to suspend the testing requirements and eliminate them entirely by 2025. Board members said they are concerned that the SAT and ACT are biased against students of color and people from low-income families, including students who lack access to preparatory courses.
The regents' vote is against the recommendation of the UC faculty.
The General Education Task Force on Standardized Testing that year said UC should keep the test requirements in place, saying test scores “correlate with important outcomes such as first-year GPA, retention rates, and graduation rates” and are “a better predictor of first-year college GPA” than high school GPAs.
UC Riverside Chancellor Kim Wilcox agreed, saying that “eliminating these tests would make inequality worse.” Some campus leaders, including UC Berkeley's then-chancellor, have spoken out in favor of dropping testing requirements.
But with strong pressure from then-UC President Janet Napolitano, the regents were reluctant to remove the modified SAT gears to vote unanimously to end the test and explore creating a UC-specific test. The UC Feasibility Study Work Group later concluded that the new test would take too long to create.
Some select institutions that had reduced testing at the same time — many related to the pandemic — have reversed course. Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford each reinstated testing requirements in 2024 or 2025.
Big concerns about math readiness
The main concern is centered around statistics. In addition to the UC San Diego report, a study at UC Berkeley recently found that at least 20% of first-semester math students who took the diagnostic test between fall 2021 and fall 2023 were deficient. Minutes from last month's meeting of the UC Senate's General Education Senate admissions board said students' math skills were also a concern at UC Irvine, UC Riverside and UC Merced.
The UC Institutional Research and Academic Planning 2025 report found that the pre- and post-SAT/ACT requirement remained stable. The study concluded that the “overall impacts” of COVID-19 and the elimination of routine testing requirements “appear to be limited.”
Another book that same year, by Saul Geiser of the UC Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education, argued that the SAT is “not a good fit for America's public universities.”
Geiser said high school GPA outperforms the SAT in predicting success for first-year students when income and race are controlled. He also pointed out that ranking applicants by SAT scores ends up disadvantaging low-income, first-generation and underrepresented applicants.
UC leaders say their work will be driven by evidence and dialogue.
“Any proposed changes in admissions requirements or UC procedures will be reviewed by the Academic Senate, consultation with stakeholders, consideration by UC leadership, and finally, review and approval by the UC Board of Regents. Throughout this process, we will be guided by the evidence and go where the data takes us,” said Palazoglu in his letter.
“I know we want every student admitted to UC to make the most of their college education. It's our job to make sure our policies and procedures make that happen,” Palazoglu said. “I appreciate the motivation, tenacity, and commitment UC brings to the support of our students, and I look forward to the discussions and outcomes contemplated by this initiative.”
