UC renews debate over using SATs

Standardized tests ended 6 years ago. Ex-leader Napolitano supports a review.

- By JAWEED KALEEM

DON FERIA For The Times UC BERKELEY math faculty are at the center of the push to bring back the SAT.

The debate over whether the University of California should restore the SAT in admissions, expected to surface next week before regents, is emerging as one of its most closely watched and consequential issues as leaders assess how the nation’s premier public university decides who gets a coveted seat.

There are early signs that views may have changed in the six years since the governing board unanimously voted to eliminate SAT and ACT requirements. One of the most significant: Former UC President Janet Napolitano, who was at UC’s helm at the time, says a hard reassessment is much needed after a faculty outcry that students are severely deficient in math skills.

A standardized test score “shouldn’t be a sole factor” in determining access to UC, Napolitano said, but a renewed look at admissions could conclude it should be “a factor.”

She and others spoke to the high stakes of the decision amid a supercharged political climate in which the Trump administration has opened multiple investigations into UC admission practices for alleged racial discrimination.

“It’s been a six-year experiment, and it now needs to be revisited,” Napolitano said in an interview with The Times. The former president, who successfully pushed to end the requirement in 2020, said the racial and class equity logic that drove that decision deserves a second look. “It’s not like the SAT erases those inequities, but it’s not like the SAT adds to those inequities.”

UC leaders have shown a distinct willingness to take on the issue amid changes at the highest echelon of university decision-makers since 2020. A new UC president, James Milliken, took over a year ago. The Board of Regents has turned over substantially, with newer appointees now in the majority. Five of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses also have new chancellors.