UC faculty leaders want admissions tests restored after health crisis

While the University of California has temporarily suspended the requirement that freshman applicants for fall 2021 entrance take the SAT or ACT exams, the university’s faculty leadership wants to bring back those tests for at least five years after the health emergency ends.

The 10-campus UC system was in the middle of a debate about the future of standardized testing in admission well before the current pandemic struck. In February, an influential faculty task force issued a report that called for the tests to be retained as part of UC applications. The task force argued the exams are good predictors of college success for low-income and some black and Latino students and that high school grades alone are not sufficient to judge candidates.