A review of the use of the SAT at UC is forthcoming

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The University of California will continue to evaluate the role of the SAT in undergraduate admissions, despite media reports that the prestigious state university system has halted such discussions.

The confusion comes as a growing number of professors and media commentators are pressuring the University of California (UC) to reinstate the SAT in its undergraduate admissions process, which the UC Board of Regents eliminated in 2020. That decision of the council is overturned the UC Academic Senate’s recommendation that the university maintain its current policy of relying on the SAT and ACT. The vote of the regents was unanimous.

The latest setback came last month, when the academic senate announced it would begin a review of the standardized admissions tests and high school subjects students must take to meet UC’s minimum admissions requirements. On Monday afternoon, several media They reported that a committee of the academic senate responsible for admissions had decided to cancel the examination in question.

However, two senior UC officials said a reevaluation of the role of standardized testing in the admissions process is still being considered. One of these officials is Academic Senate President Ahmet Palazoglu.

“The Academic Senate is not reversing its commitment to conduct a comprehensive review of standardized testing in the admissions process,” he wrote in a statement Monday night at website from the UC President’s Office. He added that the Senate is simply changing its original schedule for a full review of the adoption process.

At a Tuesday meeting of the UC Board of Regents, new board president Maria Angiano said the academic senate will conclude its review “no later than the end of this academic year,” meaning around June 2027.

This speeds up the initial schedule. A document of the academic senate, released last month, indicated that its final report and recommendation to the board of directors would be presented sometime in the fall of 2027.

Palazoglou clarified Tuesday by email that the June deadline only applies to the issue of standardized admissions tests. The Academic Senate will meet on July 22 to decide on a different approach to revising the undergraduate courses that students must take are eligible for UC.

Although the Academic Senate has considerable power at UC, it cannot unilaterally reinstate the SAT in the undergraduate admissions process. Only the Board of Regents can do that. Under procedure, the board must first hear at least one informational agenda item and then vote on all policy proposals at a later meeting.

Students again oppose the use of the SAT

The UC Student Association He sent a letter to the board of directors this week against returning the SAT. The association, which represents 237,000 UC students, “does not believe the SAT/ACT will result in better-prepared students.” The letter notes that racial and ethnic diversity at UC has increased since 2020, while the system has not seen a drop in graduation rates.

“The role of public education is to ensure that all students have access to their right to a solid, quality education, and UC should not limit the number of students who can enter its classrooms,” the students wrote.

In 2020, students called on the board to remove standardized tests from the admissions process. The board of directors upheld its ban on entrance exams in 2021 .

At the meeting, Angiano hinted at his discomfort with the current discourse about the role of testing in the admissions process. “I think the recent public conversations have focused too much on admissions and standardized testing,” he said Tuesday.

Why teachers want the SAT back

More than 2,000 University of California (UC) science, technology, engineering and mathematics faculty have signed a petition urging UC to reinstate the SAT or ACT as admissions requirements for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors by fall 2027. Nearly 1,000 additional faculty members in other disciplines signed a similar letter calling for the SAT or ACT to be fully reinstated in the admissions process.

The petition from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers notes that high school grades alone are not a sufficient indicator of college readiness, and highlights rising grade inflation and the growing number of students relying on artificial intelligence to complete their assignments. That means some students aren’t prepared for the demands of a UC education, they say.

Mina Aganadjik, a professor of physics and mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke out Tuesday in support of reintroducing the SAT. “Without the SAT, our introductory courses are forced to review core and secondary content. This represents a loss of opportunity and a misallocation of resources rather than facilitating access to higher education,” he said.

But the leader of an influential nonprofit that advocates for greater UC access said the focus on the SAT is a mistake.

“This is without a doubt the wrong solution to an ill-defined problem,” said Jesse Ryan, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity. “Based on the UC President’s Office’s own research, we know that since the admissions test was eliminated, our retention rates have remained stable and graduation rates have also increased.”

He continued, “If we are serious about college readiness, our focus should not be on being more selective, but rather on providing more support to students across the state. We should be collaborating with our K-12 partners to improve readiness, rather than closing doors on thousands of students.”

Critics of the SAT argue that the test is unfair to low-income students who are less likely to be able to afford test preparation services to improve their scores.

Standardized tests were just one of the factors universities considered when admitting students. Other factors considered were the quality of the courses the students took, how their course load compared to that of students at the same high school, the applicant’s special talents or achievements, and the location of their high school.