SAN FRANCISCO—The University of California (UC) admissions board announced on June 11 that it will consider reinstating standardized test requirements in its admissions process. The announcement came two weeks after faculty complained that many freshmen lack mathematics skills.

“UC will undertake a comprehensive review of key admissions policies, specifically the role of standardized testing and the effectiveness of UC’s college-preparatory framework,” UC Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu said in the statement.

The Academic Senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) on June 5 approved a roadmap establishing two faculty-led workgroups, one to consider the use of standardized tests in the admissions process and the other to review UC’s academic course requirements, known as A-G subject requirements.

Any proposed changes to the admissions requirements or policies will be submitted to the UC Board of Regents for final approval.

UC President James Milliken said in a statement that he and the Board of Regents “look forward to considering the recommendations that emerge from this important work.”

In 2019, several students and groups filed a lawsuit against UC, claiming that the tests serve as a metric of wealth and race rather than a predictor of college success.

In May 2020, the Board of Regents approved an admissions policy change to phase out the consideration of SAT and ACT test scores beginning in fall 2021. In August 2020, a state court ordered UC to stop using SAT and ACT scores for admissions or scholarship decisions while the lawsuit was pending.

As part of the settlement of the lawsuit, the university was ordered to pay $1.25 million in attorney fees.

In May, UC faculty members issued an open letter calling for the reinstatement of the SAT/ACT mathematics requirement for STEM major applicants beginning in 2027. Over 1,500 UC faculty members have signed the letter as of June 15, including seven of the nine chairs of UC mathematics departments.

“The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it,” the letter states. “Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.”

UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the math preparation of its first-year students from 2020 to 2025, according to a report issued in November 2025 by its Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions.

The number of students with math skills below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold, and 70 percent of those students were below middle school level, according to the report.

“UC has been a national leader in supporting under-resourced students to do well in mathematics,” the open letter states. “However, UC has finite resources and can help only so many students, and only when the preparation deficits they need to overcome are within reach.”