UC Expedites Timeline to Decide Whether to Restore SAT/ACT

Following an open letter that garnered over 3,000 faculty signatures, a New York Times editorial and nationwide discourse on the value of standardized tests, the University of California has expedited the timeline to determine whether the system should reinstate test requirements in admissions.

At a UC Board of Regents meeting Tuesday, Chair Maria Anguiano said she expects the Academic Senate to submit recommendations no later than the end of the upcoming academic year, by June 2027. The board, which wields the final authority, can then vote on whether to require applicants to submit standardized-test scores.

The board originally intended for the Academic Senate to provide recommendations in fall 2027, with any modifications to the admissions policies to be implemented for students applying in fall 2028. But on Monday, the Academic Senate chair said the group was “revising its timeline while ensuring the forthcoming review is thorough, evidence-based and informed by faculty expertise.”

The decision to move up the timeline reflects mounting urgency regarding the issue.

The 3,000 faculty signatories to the open letter argue that restoring the tests would weed out students who aren’t prepared for UC’s coursework. Opponents believe that scores don’t paint the whole picture of how students fare in college. The COVID-19 pandemic spurred most U.S. institutions to adopt test-optional policies, though some highly selective institutions—including most of the Ivy League—have since restored test requirements.

The UC Board of Regents voted unanimously in 2020 to remove the requirement for applicants—as many institutions did—giving students the choice whether to submit their scores. At the time, the regents sidestepped the Academic Senate’s recommendation to keep the test requirement.

In 2021, UC stopped considering standardized testing completely, agreeing to switch to a test-blind policy through 2025.

Now the system’s standardized-testing requirements are up for debate once again.

Last month, UC’s Board of Admissions and Relations With Schools said it would launch a review of both SAT/ACT in admissions and the high school classes that students must take to be eligible for acceptance to a UC campus.

At the regents’ meeting Tuesday, Anguiano said recent public conversations have “too narrowly” focused on admissions and standardized testing. “As stewards of this institution, we need to ask a broader and more consequential set of questions: What knowledge, skills and experiences best prepare students for success at UC and beyond?” she said.

Citing “redefining college readiness” as a key priority for the upcoming year, Anguiano presented a revised timeline for the Academic Senate to review standardized tests.

“The goal of this review is not to rehash old questions or data, but an opportunity to take a fresh look at how we define and evaluate college readiness in a rapidly changing world,” she said.

Faculty Support Testing Return

The Academic Senate’s review comes in response to thousands of faculty who have called for a return to testing.

As of Wednesday, over 2,300 UC faculty in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines had signed the petition calling on UC to reinstate the SAT/ACT mathematics requirement for applicants to STEM majors for the 2027 admissions cycle. The signatures include seven of nine math department chairs.

About 900 social science, humanities and professional faculty have signed a separate petition endorsing the STEM letter and arguing for the use of the verbal reasoning component of the SAT/ACT in admissions. The entire UC system employs over 26,000 faculty.

The signatories point to a November report from the University of California San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which revealed that the number of first-year students with math skills below a middle school level increased nearly 30-fold since 2020, the same year UC suspended its standardized testing requirements.

The exact reason why math scores at UCSD plummeted is unclear, though the report authors suggested the pandemic and increased enrollment of low-income students as potential drivers.

Pamela Burdman, founder of Just Equations, a nonprofit focused on equity in math education, said in February that the score declines may have something to do with UCSD’s decision to ban students from using a calculator during the math placement exam.

Still, during the public comment period of the UC Board of Regents meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, faculty emphasized their personal experiences in the classroom to make their case for reinstating standardized testing in admissions.

Pradeep Sen, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Santa Barbara, said he began noticing in 2022 or 2023 that his students were struggling to complete the homework he’s been assigning for 15 years. “This means that I need to spend class time teaching students stuff they’re supposed to know already, which is really impacting the ability to cover the stuff that I need to cover because we’re on a really tight quarter system,” he said.

Sen argued that the UC system needs a “standardized baseline” to measure applicants, which the SAT/ACT can provide.

Nathan Sayre, a geography professor at UC Berkeley, said his exam grades have changed from a bell curve to a U shape in recent years, where the most common grades are A’s and D’s and “many more” students receive F’s.

“Like many of my colleagues, I have tried to accommodate these students by reducing the workload and simplifying lectures and exams,” he said. “For students who are prepared for Berkeley, my courses have become too easy.”

Sharp Opposition

Those who oppose reinstating standardized tests in UC’s admissions also spoke up during the public comments, arguing that SAT/ACT requirements disadvantage certain student groups, including those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Denise Luna, director of higher ed policy at EdTrust-West, a nonprofit policy-advocacy organization, cited research showing that students’ performance on standardized tests is closely linked to their socioeconomic status, and that grades are a stronger measure of predicting both first-year grades and fourth-year degree completion.

“The reintroduction of SAT and ACT in first-year admissions criteria would revert to a system that inherently disadvantages students from low-income backgrounds, including many Black and Latino students,” she said.

The UC Board of Regents also heard from the system’s student body leader, who doesn’t want the standardized test requirement reinstated

UC Student Association President Aditi Hariharan, who represents over 237,000 undergraduates, argued before the board Wednesday that reimplementing the SAT/ACT disregards UC’s responsibility to ensure equity.

“The role of public education is to affirm education as a right, which is severely undermined when the UC decides to use SAT or ACT examinations, which serve as better indicators of students’ access to wealth and resources rather than their knowledge or academic ability,” she said.