According to UCStudentSuccess.org as of July 7:

More than 3,000 UC faculty have signed a letter supporting admissions testing. More than 2,300 have signed the STEM letter, including:

• Five Nobel laureates
• Seven of the nine chairs of UC mathematics departments
• Plus an additional 73 STEM department chairs
• 900 have signed a letter from social sciences, humanities and professional faculty

“The UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions report documents this crisis in stark terms: in the last five years, the number of students whose mathematics skills fall below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold; moreover, 70% of those students fall below middle school levels, reaching roughly one in 12 members of the entering cohort.

“These findings are corroborated by data across our campuses. For example, for three consecutive years, 20-30% of UC Berkeley first-semester calculus students who participated in mathematical diagnostic testing displayed severe preparation deficits.”

Why Now?

The impetus for this is the number of students who are showing up with high GPAs but lacking the skills and knowledge to match.

Though it was not specifically addressed, reading and writing skills also lost significant ground from what I have read. I absolutely see it in the student essays I review, even from honors students. 

There are many questions the report raises; here are a few:



1) What is the argument for remaining test-optional?


The bottom line here is equity. Standardized test scores are highly correlated to parental education and family wealth.

Parents with higher incomes have the resources to hire private tutors and typically live in better-funded school districts, so their kids attend schools that offer more AP/IB courses, which helps them in the admissions process.

For some students, just getting to a testing center is a hardship. There are inherent, even if unintentional, inequities baked into standardized testing with generational consequences.



2) Why are students arriving less prepared?

There is no single clear answer to this. Grade inflation is certainly a contributing factor. (The next time your child wants extra credit, a grade changed, whines about an unfair teacher, etc., ask yourself if they are a contributing factor to grade inflation.)

Do we support grading on a curve or an equal distribution of each letter grade? A return to class rank?

Any of these ideas would upset a lot of people who value their high GPA. I would argue the GPA really does not tell us much; it’s the story behind the GPA that matters.

Some people blame COVID. The class of 2027 was in fifth grade when the pandemic happened. Is this a ripple effect? Possibly. There is no doubt students lost ground academically and socially.

But my observation, not anything I’ve researched: students think differently now. Far fewer students (and, honestly, adults, too) read anymore.

Students do still consume information, but often through video platforms. Books and printed materials allowed adults to control the narrative; algorithms do not.

Students are learning, but the content and structure of teaching how to learn and think has changed.

Algorithms provide a menu of choices, as opposed to an adult posing questions about materials everyone read. In the first scenario, there is passive absorption of information.

The second scenario requires interaction, thinking, and actively processing what to do with ideas that don’t fit into neat boxes. Like any muscle, the brain needs practice, and repetition reinforces learning, however you approach it.

Humans naturally take the path of least resistance, and traditional learning requires extra work. So either we need to re-examine how we use technology in the classroom, update our methods, expectations, and outcomes evaluation, or some combination thereof.

No one ever said change was easy or linear.

3) Will UC return to standardized testing?

The jury is still out, but a faculty committee is investigating the options right now. They are scheduled to submit their report in June 2027.

In 2021, I did not think they would ever go back, in part because requiring test scores reduces the number of applicants and perpetuates the inequality barrier described above.

Fewer applications means an overall higher admission rate, which the public perceives as a drop in selectivity and prestige. But if I were a student in the class of 2029, I’d start studying. Something is likely to change, and better to be prepared than scrambling to catch up.

Know a senior or transfer student who has not started writing their application essays yet? There’s a workshop for that. Check out the options at SmartCollegeAdmission.com.