* In 2020, the University of California system ignored expert recommendations and adopted a “test-blind” admissions policy, eliminating SAT and ACT requirements in an attempt to make admissions fairer.
* The policy has led to a severe decline in student preparedness, resulting in many incoming freshmen lacking basic math and writing skills and forcing elite research institutions to focus heavily on remedial education. Citing these academic struggles and the growing unreliability of high school grades and application essays, over 2,000 UC faculty members are urgently petitioning to reinstate the standardized test requirement.
* The UC Board of Regents must immediately restore the test mandate, as many other top universities have done, since standardized tests effectively identify high-potential students and merely reflect, rather than cause, systemic educational inequities.
>Seven years ago, the University of California system appointed an 18-member committee to study the use of standardized tests in its undergraduate admissions. The committee included professors from all 10 campuses and a range of disciplines. They spent a year studying the issue and published [a 225-page report](https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf) full of evidence and recommendations.
>The committee concluded that scores on the SAT and ACT, the main standardized tests for college admissions, did a better job measuring student readiness for college than high school grades. High test scores were particularly good at finding talented students from low-income families and underrepresented minority groups. For these reasons, the committee recommended the system continue to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores.
>The university’s leaders disregarded the report.
>A few months after its release, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the system’s Board of Regents [voted to stop using](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/university-california-sat-act.html) the tests in undergraduate admissions. Initially, the university planned to make the submission of SAT and ACT scores optional, as many other colleges did during the pandemic. Almost immediately, though, the University of California [began refusing](https://dailybruin.com/2021/05/14/university-of-california-announces-it-will-not-use-sat-act-in-admissions-decisions) to accept SAT or ACT scores, even from students who wanted to submit them. The policy was known as “test blind.” University leaders wrongly claimed that it would make admissions fairer and more equitable.
>The results have been terrible. At the University of California, San Diego, a faculty group last year [reported](https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf) “a steep decline in the academic preparation” among entering students. Last fall, for example, nearly 12 percent of first-year U.C.S.D. undergraduates were not qualified to take pre-calculus, a low-level class, up from only 0.5 percent in 2020. “The key problem is that many of the students coming in do not know algebra,” said Mina Aganagic, a Berkeley physics professor. More than half of entering Berkeley students who took a math placement test [incorrectly answered](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LnxJlOqUUUS7VVDs5Vzo1PKTuDPVOXia/view) basic questions (such as solving for x in x²> 4).
>Reading and writing skills have also deteriorated, and professors say they must spend time teaching elementary skills. “After the SAT was dropped, I got students who could not write a sentence,” said Janet Sorensen, an English professor at Berkeley.
>There have obviously been [several recent worrisome education trends](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/upshot/test-scores-school-districts-us.html), including smartphone distraction, artificial intelligence cheating and Covid school closures. Yet the declines in preparedness among University of California students are larger than the regression elsewhere, which underscores the role of the test-blind policy. California’s top public universities have essentially randomized aspects of the admissions process, admitting unprepared students while rejecting many who could thrive there. The change has damaged the university’s mission of fostering social mobility and training the next generation of scholars. Some of the world’s greatest research institutions [must increasingly focus](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/standardized-testing-math-gaps/687481/) on remediation.
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>Hundreds of faculty members describe the situation as an emergency. More than 1,500 science and mathematics professors, including the chairs of more than 60 departments, [have signed a letter](https://ucstudentsuccess.org/) asking the university to reinstate the test requirement. More than 700 humanities and social sciences professors have signed [a similar letter](https://ucstudentsuccess.org/socscihum/). They noted that A.I. has made student essays a less useful part of a college application. “As faculty, we are best positioned to see the consequences of six years of test-blind admissions,” the professors wrote.
>So far, the university’s leaders are ignoring the faculty’s plea for urgency. They instead [plan to appoint a new committee](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-11/uc-sat-act-test-requirement-admissions-reconsider) to study the issue over the next year, saying they need more time to understand the data. This delay could lock in the current policy until 2029 because students tend to take the SAT and ACT during junior year of high school.
>The university’s trustees, known as the regents, have the final word. When they next meet, on July 14, they should have the courage to admit they made a mistake six years ago and reverse it.
>Even Janet Napolitano, who was the university president in 2020 and [recommended a test-blind policy then](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/opinion/napolitano-california-sat.html), now favors its reversal. “It was a worthwhile experiment,” she told us, “but as the results come in, it is increasingly clear that the experiment needs to be revisited.”
>**California’s policy change** was part of a national anti-testing push that has combined a vital concern with a fundamental misunderstanding. The concern [is about the deep inequities](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/23/upshot/sat-inequality.html) in American education that particularly affect low-income, Black, Latino and Native students. Each of these groups scores below average on the SAT and ACT.
>The misunderstanding is about the reason for these gaps. The critics claim that the two tests are biased and therefore a cause of inequities. The evidence [indicates otherwise](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/briefing/the-misguided-war-on-the-sat.html). Raj Chetty, a Harvard University economist, points out that other tests show similarly large economic and racial gaps. One example is the NAEP, a test of elementary and middle-school students for which almost nobody studies. This pattern suggests that SAT tutoring, which critics often blame for score gaps, plays only a limited role, perhaps because free tutoring is available from Khan Academy and elsewhere.
3 Comments
Summary:
* In 2020, the University of California system ignored expert recommendations and adopted a “test-blind” admissions policy, eliminating SAT and ACT requirements in an attempt to make admissions fairer.
* The policy has led to a severe decline in student preparedness, resulting in many incoming freshmen lacking basic math and writing skills and forcing elite research institutions to focus heavily on remedial education. Citing these academic struggles and the growing unreliability of high school grades and application essays, over 2,000 UC faculty members are urgently petitioning to reinstate the standardized test requirement.
* The UC Board of Regents must immediately restore the test mandate, as many other top universities have done, since standardized tests effectively identify high-potential students and merely reflect, rather than cause, systemic educational inequities.
>Seven years ago, the University of California system appointed an 18-member committee to study the use of standardized tests in its undergraduate admissions. The committee included professors from all 10 campuses and a range of disciplines. They spent a year studying the issue and published [a 225-page report](https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf) full of evidence and recommendations.
>The committee concluded that scores on the SAT and ACT, the main standardized tests for college admissions, did a better job measuring student readiness for college than high school grades. High test scores were particularly good at finding talented students from low-income families and underrepresented minority groups. For these reasons, the committee recommended the system continue to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores.
>The university’s leaders disregarded the report.
>A few months after its release, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the system’s Board of Regents [voted to stop using](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/university-california-sat-act.html) the tests in undergraduate admissions. Initially, the university planned to make the submission of SAT and ACT scores optional, as many other colleges did during the pandemic. Almost immediately, though, the University of California [began refusing](https://dailybruin.com/2021/05/14/university-of-california-announces-it-will-not-use-sat-act-in-admissions-decisions) to accept SAT or ACT scores, even from students who wanted to submit them. The policy was known as “test blind.” University leaders wrongly claimed that it would make admissions fairer and more equitable.
>The results have been terrible. At the University of California, San Diego, a faculty group last year [reported](https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf) “a steep decline in the academic preparation” among entering students. Last fall, for example, nearly 12 percent of first-year U.C.S.D. undergraduates were not qualified to take pre-calculus, a low-level class, up from only 0.5 percent in 2020. “The key problem is that many of the students coming in do not know algebra,” said Mina Aganagic, a Berkeley physics professor. More than half of entering Berkeley students who took a math placement test [incorrectly answered](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LnxJlOqUUUS7VVDs5Vzo1PKTuDPVOXia/view) basic questions (such as solving for x in x²> 4).
>Reading and writing skills have also deteriorated, and professors say they must spend time teaching elementary skills. “After the SAT was dropped, I got students who could not write a sentence,” said Janet Sorensen, an English professor at Berkeley.
>There have obviously been [several recent worrisome education trends](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/upshot/test-scores-school-districts-us.html), including smartphone distraction, artificial intelligence cheating and Covid school closures. Yet the declines in preparedness among University of California students are larger than the regression elsewhere, which underscores the role of the test-blind policy. California’s top public universities have essentially randomized aspects of the admissions process, admitting unprepared students while rejecting many who could thrive there. The change has damaged the university’s mission of fostering social mobility and training the next generation of scholars. Some of the world’s greatest research institutions [must increasingly focus](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/standardized-testing-math-gaps/687481/) on remediation.
>Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.
>Hundreds of faculty members describe the situation as an emergency. More than 1,500 science and mathematics professors, including the chairs of more than 60 departments, [have signed a letter](https://ucstudentsuccess.org/) asking the university to reinstate the test requirement. More than 700 humanities and social sciences professors have signed [a similar letter](https://ucstudentsuccess.org/socscihum/). They noted that A.I. has made student essays a less useful part of a college application. “As faculty, we are best positioned to see the consequences of six years of test-blind admissions,” the professors wrote.
>So far, the university’s leaders are ignoring the faculty’s plea for urgency. They instead [plan to appoint a new committee](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-11/uc-sat-act-test-requirement-admissions-reconsider) to study the issue over the next year, saying they need more time to understand the data. This delay could lock in the current policy until 2029 because students tend to take the SAT and ACT during junior year of high school.
>The university’s trustees, known as the regents, have the final word. When they next meet, on July 14, they should have the courage to admit they made a mistake six years ago and reverse it.
>Even Janet Napolitano, who was the university president in 2020 and [recommended a test-blind policy then](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/opinion/napolitano-california-sat.html), now favors its reversal. “It was a worthwhile experiment,” she told us, “but as the results come in, it is increasingly clear that the experiment needs to be revisited.”
>**California’s policy change** was part of a national anti-testing push that has combined a vital concern with a fundamental misunderstanding. The concern [is about the deep inequities](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/23/upshot/sat-inequality.html) in American education that particularly affect low-income, Black, Latino and Native students. Each of these groups scores below average on the SAT and ACT.
>The misunderstanding is about the reason for these gaps. The critics claim that the two tests are biased and therefore a cause of inequities. The evidence [indicates otherwise](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/briefing/the-misguided-war-on-the-sat.html). Raj Chetty, a Harvard University economist, points out that other tests show similarly large economic and racial gaps. One example is the NAEP, a test of elementary and middle-school students for which almost nobody studies. This pattern suggests that SAT tutoring, which critics often blame for score gaps, plays only a limited role, perhaps because free tutoring is available from Khan Academy and elsewhere.
>The SAT and ACT obviously have their limitations. They measure reading, math and related skills, not creativity, grit or leadership. Yet they do appear to measure preparedness for highly selective colleges better than almost any other indicator, [research shows](https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/test-scores/). (Advanced Placement exams are [also helpful](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691216911/learning-in-the-fast-lane?srsltid=AfmBOopZLZcIJpG8kX1baGtLyFeFQqXhiDzuGoqBov3vsNZGCyOUQUtE).)
>Some other parts of applications, like student essays, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations, are in fact [biased toward affluent students](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/upshot/college-admissions-essay-sat.html). And high school grades have become less reliable because of rapid grade inflation. In 1970, [only 7 percent](https://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/50YearTrendsMonograph2016.pdf) of college freshmen nationwide had a high-school grade average of A or higher; today, the share is roughly 40 percent.
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