Declining first-year math preparedness has prompted more than 1,400 UC faculty members to demand the return of standardized testing for STEM admissions
What once was a relief for many California students hoping to avoid standardized testing and still get into good California public universities is now back up for debate.
As of Monday, over 1,400 faculty members, including seven of UC’s nine math department chairs, are now calling on UC to bring back standardized tests as an admissions requirement for first-year applicants in science, math, technology and engineering programs in a signed open letter making said demand.
The letter comes as UC’s Academic Senate is deliberating a recommendation for the system to reinstate standardized testing as an admissions requirement. The full Senate will convene on Thursday and is expected to hear from the chair of the Senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, the committee overseeing undergraduate admissions matters.
The open letter, crafted by math professor Zvezdelina Stankova alongside four other UC Berkeley professors, disclosed the faculty’s frustrations over students’ lack of math preparedness at a leading STEM university, calling for the return of a test requirement for first-year STEM applicants.
“Over the past five years, we have seen a widening divergence in mathematical preparation levels within the same classroom. This trend indicates that current admissions practices do not provide a sufficiently reliable check on mathematical readiness for STEM majors,” faculty wrote in the letter.
The letter was prompted by a report from a UC San Diego committee that found “a steep decline in the academic preparation” of first-year students, particularly in math. The report revealed that, in fall 2025, roughly 1 in 8 incoming UC San Diego first-years had math skills below high school level, according to the campus’s placement exam results.
Across the University of California institutions, math faculty claim they are increasingly teaching unprepared first-year students who are not ready for college-level math and are unable to keep up with their rigorous science and math coursework.
UC’s Board of Regents would eventually need to approve the change and reverse its own 2020 decision that got rid of the SAT and ACT as a first-year admission requirement. Though some UC campuses initially planned to make exams optional, in 2021, the testing policy became permanent following the settlement of a 2019 lawsuit filed by advocacy groups arguing the SAT and ACT were biased against low-income students of color and students with disabilities. Any proposed changes would have to be approved by UC’s Board of Regents.
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Faculty argue that other key admissions criteria fail to provide enough information about whether students are prepared for the academically rigorous environment they will face in college. Grade inflation makes it difficult to have faith in grade point averages and the rise of artificial intelligence sows further distrust about whether applicants wrote their own essays.
In a statement from a UC spokesperson, they claimed that system leaders are taking concerns about math preparation seriously. UC officials have “been working with faculty leaders for several months to identify policies that will continue to ensure students arrive at UC academically prepared,” the spokesperson added.
However, not everyone believes in reintroducing the exams. Some math faculty don’t believe it will fix the underlying issue and assert that it’s up to high schools to better prepare students for college. Additionally, long-standing critics of standardized tests allege that faculty have exaggerated the problem and argue that exams are biased in favor of more affluent students.
Test opponents look to a different fall 2025 report from UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education that found that grades were a stronger predictor than test scores of first-year success at Ivy League schools and other elite colleges. The report also found that admission determined by SAT scores disadvantaged Black, Latino, low-income and first-generation applicants. Since the UC system stopped requiring exams for admission, it has enrolled more Black, Latino and low-income students, according to that same report.
Other top universities in the United States, including the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University and several Ivy League universities, have already returned to SAT and ACT admissions requirements, reversing previous exam-optional policies. The potential reversal of standardized test policies puts the nation’s most prestigious public university system back into hot water over the national debate about standardized testing, fairness and college readiness.
If the faculty are successful in their call to bring back the SAT and ACT, the earliest it would take effect is for the fall 2028 admission cycle.