Overview:
UC STEM faculty are urging the Regents to reinstate the SAT/ACT math requirement for STEM applicants by 2027, citing a widening preparation gap since testing was dropped in 2020 that's mirrored in declining 2024 NAEP math scores.
A coalition of University of California mathematics faculty, joined by colleagues from other STEM disciplines, has issued an open letter to the UC Board of Regents calling for the reinstatement of an SAT or ACT mathematics requirement for students applying to STEM majors, a direct challenge to the admissions policy the university adopted after dropping standardized testing in 2020.
The letter, addressed to the Regents, the UC Office of the President, Academic Senate leadership, and “the people of California,” frames the request as an urgent effort to protect the university’s mission. The faculty argue that UC has long been “a powerful engine of social mobility” for the state and that this role is now “at risk.”
What the faculty are asking for
The central demand is specific: require SAT or ACT mathematics scores for applicants to STEM-intensive majors, effective with the 2027 admissions cycle. The letter pairs that demand with a call for STEM faculty to be given oversight of readiness standards and of admissions practices that affect their programs.
In all, the faculty lay out four requests. They want the university to reinstate the testing requirement; to use the scores as a common measure of basic readiness that serves as a “counterweight” to inconsistent high-school grades; to establish STEM faculty oversight of admissions policies that materially affect STEM programs; and to mandate institutional accountability by testing admissions criteria against actual student outcomes and revising them if they fail to predict readiness.
The signatories are careful to describe the tests as a floor rather than a ceiling. Rather than measuring advanced ability, they write, the exams provide “a common external check” that students have the core mathematical fluency needed for university-level coursework. They also argue that test scores can surface high-potential students in under-resourced schools whose talent might otherwise be overlooked because they lacked access to advanced courses.
The evidence the letter cites
The faculty point to what they describe as a sharp widening in preparation levels within the same classrooms over the past five years. They cite a report from the UC San Diego Senate–Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which they say found that the number of students whose math skills fall below a high-school level increased nearly thirtyfold over five years. According to the letter, 70 percent of those students test below middle-school levels — roughly one in twelve members of the entering cohort.
They say the pattern shows up elsewhere too. At UC Berkeley, the letter states, 20 to 30 percent of first-semester calculus students who took part in diagnostic testing displayed severe preparation deficits for three consecutive years.
The faculty tie the trend to the 2020 elimination of the SAT and ACT, which they call “a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability.” They note that the Academic Senate’s own 2020 Standardized Testing Task Force warned that removing the exams would eliminate a key predictor of college success and mask the effects of high-school grade inflation. The letter also argues that current metrics — primarily GPA and essays — have become less reliable amid grade inflation and the rise of AI-assisted application essays, and that UC’s main peer institutions have resumed using the tests.
The signatories frame the issue as one of equity rather than against it. “The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity,” they write, “rather, it is a prerequisite for it,” arguing that failing to measure preparation gaps simply moves those gaps into the classroom, where they are harder to overcome.
The national backdrop
The letter arrives against the backdrop of new national data showing uneven movement in math achievement. In 2024, the National Center for Education Statistics administered the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the Nation’s Report Card,” to students across grade levels.
The results point to a growing spread between stronger and weaker students — the same divergence the UC faculty describe. Among twelfth-graders, the average math score fell 3 points compared with 2019 and was also 3 points below the 2005 level. Scores dropped at every measured percentile except the highest. The share of twelfth-graders scoring below NAEP Basic rose to 45 percent, up from 40 percent in 2019, while the share reaching NAEP Proficient or above slipped to 22 percent from 24 percent.
The pattern was similar in the middle grades. Among eighth-graders, average scores were statistically unchanged from 2022, but the figures masked a split: higher-performing students at the 75th and 90th percentiles gained ground, while lower-performing students at the 10th and 25th percentiles lost it. Even fourth grade, where the overall average ticked up by 2 points, showed gains concentrated among middle- and higher-performing students, with the lowest performers showing no significant change.
Taken together, the assessments depict a top tier holding steady or improving while students at the bottom fall further behind — the kind of widening gap the UC faculty say is now landing in their lecture halls.
What comes next
The letter does not commit the Regents to any action; it is a call from faculty, and any change to systemwide admissions policy would run through UC’s governance process. But by setting a target of the 2027 cycle and asking for a formal faculty role in oversight, the signatories have placed a concrete proposal on the table and reopened one of the most contentious debates in California public higher education.
