The UC Academic Senate has announced that it plans to review UC admissions policies, specifically regarding the use of standardized test scores in freshman admissions and academic course requirements.

The decision comes after more than 1,400 faculty from across the UC system signed a petition calling for the “reinstatement of the SAT/ACT mathematics requirement for applicants to STEM majors beginning with the 2027 admissions cycle.”

Endorsing their STEM colleagues’ petition, more than 80 humanities and social science professors across the UC system released an open letter Thursday urging the university to go beyond the STEM’s letter call by including the SAT and ACT’s verbal reasoning requirement as well.

The humanities letter marks an escalation of a faculty-led campaign to reverse the 2020 UC Board of Regents decision to remove all standardized testing requirements from freshman admissions. While the STEM letter focuses on declining math skills, the humanities letter argues the alleged harms of test-blind admissions extend across disciplines.

“Without foundational literacy, students face difficulties across university disciplines,” the letter states. “Eliminating the metrics that diagnose these preparation gaps imposed significant barriers for underprepared students and their instructors alike.”

The letter additionally challenges that standardized testing requirements are inequitable, arguing that “no admissions criterion is uncorrelated with social background,” and asserts that extracurricular activities and essay writing style are strongly associated with social class.

In a Thursday letter to the Academic Senate, chair Ahmet Palazoglu said the senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, or BOARS, approved a roadmap that will establish two faculty workgroups to “undertake a comprehensive review of key admissions policies.”

“Consistent with the University’s tradition of shared governance between the administration and the faculty, I strongly support this approach and the deliberate, evidence-based study it requires,” Palazoglu said in the letter.

Palazoglu also added that the review will involve input from various stakeholders, including campus and systemwide leaders, K-12 and higher education partners and other groups “with a vested interest in UC students.”

Each workgroup will consist of at least 13 UC senate faculty. The workgroups will also include California State Board of Education representatives, representatives from the UC Office of the President’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions and representatives from UCOP’s Institutional Research and Academic Planning unit.

The first workgroup will consider the use of standardized test scores in freshman admissions, while the second will focus on reviewing the UC system’s current “A-G” admissions framework “to determine whether A-G requirements adequately prepare first-year applicants for success.” Both groups are required to present a final report with their findings to the BOARS chair by May 15, 2027.

In 2019, the range of SAT scores for the middle 50% of admitted UC Berkeley students was 680-790 for the math section, and 660-750 for the reading and writing section, according to UC Admissions. A perfect score on each section is 800.

The composite ACT score for the middle 50% of admitted UC Berkeley students was between 30 and 35 in 2019. A perfect ACT composite score is a 36.

In a statement about the senate’s plan, UC President James Milliken emphasized that the UC Board of Regents and UC leadership “take very seriously the critical issue of college preparedness.”

“There are few things more important on our agenda,” Milliken said in the statement. “The faculty review will focus on both preparation and admissions, including whether standardized testing should be required. It’s important that UC gets this right. The UC Board of Regents and I will receive an update on the Academic Assembly’s work in July, and we look forward to considering the recommendations that emerge from this important work.”