A UC faculty board decided Friday to indefinitely repeal its original timeline for considering if the University should use standardized testing in first-year undergraduate admissions.
The UC Board of Admissions and Relations announced in June that it would establish two work groups during the 2026-27 academic year to consider reinstating SAT and ACT requirements, after hundreds of faculty called on the University to bring back the tests. The University paused its standardized testing requirement in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and later stopped considering scores in admissions decisions altogether.
While the board is revising its timeline, it still plans to review standardized testing for admissions, said Ahmet Palazoglu, the chair of the UC Academic Senate, in an emailed statement. The UC Office of the President did not answer The Bruin’s specific questions about what the revised timeline will look like.
“Recognizing the significance of this issue, the Academic Senate is revising its timeline while ensuring the forthcoming review is thorough, evidence-based and informed by faculty expertise,” Palazoglu said in the statement.
New undergraduate admissions policies must be reviewed by the UC Regents before implementation, according to the board’s June policy roadmap.
[Related: UC faculty board reconsiders standardized testing policy amid readiness concerns]
More than 600 faculty members across the University signed on to a May letter calling on the UC to require undergraduate STEM applicants to submit SAT or ACT math scores starting with the 2027-28 admissions cycle. Faculty alleged that students’ math preparation has declined since the UC stopped requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores.
More than 2,300 UC faculty members have signed the letter as of July 2, according to its website. Social sciences, humanities and other non-STEM faculty released a separate letter June 11 urging the University to consider both the math and verbal reasoning portions of the SAT and ACT, which garnered 900 signatures as of July 2.
[Related: Hundreds of UC faculty call to reinstate SAT, ACT requirements for STEM applicants]
Faculty cited a UC San Diego report that found the number of incoming students with math skills below the high school level had increased by nearly 30 times from 2020 to 2025.
David Volz, the chair of the board, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision comes one day before the Regents’ July meeting at UC San Francisco. Standardized testing is not included in the Regents’ meeting agenda.
One of the board’s working groups would have reviewed the advantages and disadvantages of considering standardized exams in admissions, according to the June policy roadmap. The other working group would have reviewed high school coursework required by the University, the roadmap said.
“Basic mathematical fluency is analogous to literacy; without it, success in university-level STEM becomes structurally unattainable for students,” faculty said in the May letter. “We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields.”
