UC Faculty Advocate for Reinstatement of SAT/ACT Requirements
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UC Faculty Advocate for Reinstatement of SAT/ACT Requirements
- Over 3,000 University of California faculty members have signed letters urging the reinstatement of SAT/ACT requirements for admissions, citing a significant decline in student preparedness, particularly in mathematics.
- Nobel laureate Randy Schekman, a molecular biologist at UC Berkeley, is among the faculty expressing concern, noting that many students in his introductory biology course struggle with basic science concepts.
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University of California faculty are increasingly calling for the reinstatement of standardized test scores, specifically the SAT and ACT, for undergraduate admissions. This push comes after the UC system went test-blind in 2020, a decision influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and a lawsuit alleging discrimination.
More than 3,000 of the 26,000 UC faculty members have signed open letters advocating for this change. The initial letter, signed in May 2026 by over 600 faculty, including five Nobel Laureates and seven mathematics department heads, focused on STEM applicants, citing a dramatic increase in incoming students lacking basic math fluency. A subsequent letter from humanities and social science faculty endorsed these concerns, arguing for the reinstatement of verbal sections of the tests for all applicants.
Professors like Randy Schekman, a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist at UC Berkeley, have publicly stated their belief that removing the SAT was a “mistake.” Faculty report that they are now forced to re-teach middle-school-level material in college STEM courses due to significant preparation gaps. A fall 2025 report from a UC San Diego Academic Senate group found a nearly 30-fold increase between 2020 and 2025 in first-year students whose math skills were below high school level, with 70% of those falling below middle school levels.
The UC-wide Academic Senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools announced in June 2026 that it would reconsider requiring standardized tests, launching a year-long study to evaluate potential admission policy changes. This move follows a national trend, with all eight Ivy League schools and dozens of other universities reinstating SAT/ACT requirements after temporarily suspending them. If tests are reinstated, the change would not take effect until the fall of 2028 at the earliest.