University of California faculty from the humanities, social sciences, arts, business, law, and education have published their own open letter backing their STEM colleagues' push to restore standardized testing and they're going further, calling for both the math and the verbal reasoning sections of the SAT/ACT to return to undergraduate admissions.
The new letter explicitly endorses the earlier letter from more than 600 UC math and STEM faculty, then broadens the argument: it's not just calculus students who are showing up underprepared. Reading, writing, and quantitative reasoning gaps are surfacing across non-STEM fields, too.
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Why It Matters
When the original STEM letter landed, it was easy to frame the readiness debate as a math problem. This letter makes it clear that new college students are under-prepared across the board. By bringing in faculty from across the social sciences and humanities, the campaign now spans nearly the entire university and it shifts the ask from a STEM-only math requirement to a full restoration of the SAT/ACT, verbal section included.
That matters because UC's test-blind policy currently applies to every campus and every major. These faculty argue that requiring all programs to ignore test scores is no longer defensible "in an era of K-12 grade inflation and the growing use of AI in admissions essays."
What The Faculty Argue
The non-STEM faculty lean on UC's own research — the Academic Senate's Standardized Testing Task Force report, which found that test scores predict college grades and graduation rates. They point to Table 6 of that report, which shows reading and writing scores predict performance across fields, "especially in the social sciences and humanities," and that SAT-math predicts grades in social science classes even after controlling for high school GPA and verbal scores.
A few of their core points:
- AI makes essays a weaker signal. As AI tools improve, the letter argues, it's "more important than ever" for students to read, reason, and build arguments on their own, and harder to measure that through application essays.
- Equity cuts both ways. No admissions criterion is free of social background, the faculty note. Extracurricular counts and essay writing style are "strongly associated with social class," while test scores can surface "talented students from underrepresented ethnicities and economically disadvantaged families and under-resourced schools."
- Math reaches beyond STEM. Statistics and quantitative reasoning run through the social sciences and applied fields, and even analytic philosophy. Students weak in algebra struggle in statistics, which ripples across disciplines.
The Timeline
The faculty frame the timing as urgent. Test-blind admissions are already locked in for the Fall 2026 and Fall 2027 entering classes. If UC doesn't reverse course "in the next month or two," Fall 2028 will be admitted test-blind as well and inaction through the 2026–2027 academic year would lock in Fall 2029, too. That's three to four more years of what the faculty call a "failed experiment."
What The Letter Says
Here's the full text of the open letter from UC non-STEM faculty:
Dear Academic Senate leadership, UC Regents, UCOP, University of California colleagues, and the people of California,
We are University of California faculty from the social sciences, humanities, arts, business, law, education, and other non-STEM fields. We are writing to endorse our STEM colleagues' earlier open letter regarding the math component of SAT/ACT and argue for also using the verbal reasoning component of SAT/ACT in undergraduate admissions.
We first want to thank our mathematics colleagues for explaining the harmful impact that a test-blind admissions policy has had on math and other STEM education at the University of California. Some of us did not sign the mathematics letter because it was framed as a statement from STEM faculty, but we agree with its conclusions. As a complement to their focus on STEM preparation, we would like to highlight concerns from our own fields.
While our STEM colleagues understandably focused on problems caused by the absence of SAT/ACT-math in undergraduate admissions, we emphasize that University of California undergraduate admissions would also benefit from considering the SAT reading and writing section or the ACT English and reading sections. As carefully documented in Section III and the various appendices of the Academic Senate's Standardized Testing Task Force report, standardized test scores predict important outcomes like college grades and graduation rates. For example, Table 6 of the report shows that reading and writing scores predict performance across fields, especially in the social sciences and humanities. As artificial intelligence becomes more capable, it is arguably more important than ever for students to be able to think through and compose sound arguments on their own, to comprehend the texts they read, and to recognize weaknesses in the arguments of those texts. The growing use of AI also makes essays a less reliable indicator of these abilities. Without foundational literacy, students face difficulties across university disciplines. Eliminating the metrics that diagnose these preparation gaps imposed significant barriers for underprepared students and their instructors alike.
We recognize concerns about equity and access. However, no admissions criterion is uncorrelated with social background. Notably, the number of extracurricular activities that college applicants report and the writing style of essays are strongly associated with social class. Standardized testing can provide critical information about academic preparation and help identify talented students from underrepresented ethnicities and economically disadvantaged families and under-resourced schools whose potential may not be fully reflected elsewhere in their applications, including cases where school resources or grading standards vary widely.
The absence of SAT/ACT-math is felt well beyond STEM education. Many social sciences and applied fields, as well as some humanities fields, rely heavily on statistics and quantitative reasoning. Students without a solid grounding in algebra struggle in statistics, which affects learning across fields. Even some non-quantitative fields (e.g., analytic philosophy) require students to use forms of reasoning closely related to mathematical thinking. Not surprisingly, Table 6 of the Senate task force report shows that SAT-math predicts grades in social science classes, and to a certain extent in humanities classes, even after controlling for high school GPA and the verbal reasoning component of the SAT.
We support restoring the use of both the verbal and math aspects of SAT/ACT to undergraduate admissions. As our colleagues' letter noted, SAT/ACT-math will benefit STEM education and we add that social sciences, humanities, and other fields will also benefit from the use of standardized testing in admissions, including the reading and writing components of the tests. Reasonable people can debate how much weight SAT/ACT should carry relative to other parts of applications and policies may vary by campus and degree program. However, it is unreasonable to require all undergraduate degree programs at all campuses to be test-blind in an era of K-12 grade inflation and the growing use of AI in admissions essays.
As faculty, we are best positioned to see the consequences of six years of test-blind admissions. It is also our decision to make under the principles of shared governance. These principles were respected when UCOP requested that the Academic Senate investigate the role of testing in admissions policy. The Senate Testing Task Force's report called for the continued use of SAT/ACT in admissions and this was endorsed by the systemwide Assembly of the Academic Senate in a unanimous 51-to-0 vote. A month later, the UC Regents considered the Task Force's research, but ultimately voted against the Academic Senate's recommendation and discontinued the use of the SAT/ACT in undergraduate admissions.
The lead time in implementing a return to a sensible admissions policy makes it urgent to begin that correction soon. Test-blind admissions are already locked in for Fall 2026 and Fall 2027 entering classes. If the University of California does not reverse course in the next month or two, the Fall 2028 entering class will be admitted on a test-blind basis with all the problems that implies. If the University of California does not change policy in the 2026-2027 academic year, this will lock in test-blind policy for the Fall 2029 entering class as well. This leaves at least three to four more years of a system where underprepared students are accepted only to struggle with their academic goals, while qualified California students with high potential from diverse backgrounds may be squeezed out of the UC system and left with no choice but to attend alternative public segments, go out of state, or turn to private institutions instead. California families deserve an admissions process that considers all available evidence of academic preparation.
Therefore, we call for the UC Academic Senate and the UC Regents to give up the failed experiment of the last six years and return to including both the math and the verbal reasoning components of SAT/ACT as part of undergraduate admissions.
Sign the Open Letter from UC Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts, Business, Law, Education, and other non-STEM Faculty.
How This Connects
The College Investor reported in High GPAs And Test-Optional Mask Poor Math Skills At College that test-optional admissions combined with grade inflation has produced incoming students whose transcripts overstate their real ability — a mismatch that often only surfaces after enrollment, when remediation costs time, tuition, and degree-completion odds. We also covered the original STEM faculty letter demanding the SAT return for STEM majors. With most elite peers already requiring scores again (including all Ivy League colleges after Columbia reversed track this last week), UC is one of the last major holdouts and now the pressure is coming from inside nearly every department.
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