UC test-blind review at a glance: The University of California remains test blind, refusing to consider SAT or ACT scores in admissions or scholarships at all nine undergraduate campuses. But the ground is moving. The legal settlement that locked the policy expired in spring 2025, hundreds of UC STEM faculty petitioned in May 2026 for standardized math testing to return, and the Academic Senate’s admissions board has floated designs that would restore requirements, starting with nonresidents. Families building a testing strategy across multiple schools can schedule a consultation to map every deadline and election rule in one plan.
Source: University of California Admissions, First-Year Requirements (admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/preparing-freshman-students/freshman-requirements.html).
What Is the UC Test-Blind Policy Right Now?
The current rule is the strictest in American admissions: under the UC system’s test-free policy, SAT and ACT scores are not considered in admissions decisions or scholarship awards, even when submitted, at UCLA, Berkeley, and every other undergraduate campus. Submitted scores serve exactly two purposes, fulfilling minimum eligibility requirements where a transcript leaves a gap and placing enrolled students into course sequences, and the mechanics enforce the wall, since scores can be self-reported only after the application is submitted. That is categorically different from test optional: a Duke or Northwestern reader weighs a submitted score, while a UC reader never sees one. For the current cycle, nothing about this has changed, and applicants to fall 2027 entry apply score-free.
What has changed is everything holding the policy in place. The Regents voted unanimously in May 2020 to phase the SAT and ACT out, promising a UC-designed replacement exam by 2025; the replacement was abandoned in November 2021 and the system declared itself test blind for the foreseeable future; and a 2021 lawsuit settlement cemented no-consideration of scores through spring 2025. That settlement has now expired, removing the legal lock, and the Academic Senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, the faculty body that owns eligibility policy, began a formal reevaluation in late 2024. A systemwide roadmap was due by the end of June 2026, which makes the current cycle the first since the pandemic in which UC’s testing future is genuinely, procedurally open.
How Did UC Become Test Blind, and Why Is That Settled Era Over?
The evidence pushing reconsideration is unusually concrete. In May 2026, hundreds of UC STEM faculty signed a public letter urging the return of standardized math testing, organized in part from Berkeley’s mathematics department, and the data behind it is stark: a UC San Diego Senate work group documented a roughly thirtyfold increase between 2020 and 2025 in entering first-years whose math skills tested below high school level, with 70 percent of those below middle school level, and Berkeley’s own diagnostics found at least a fifth of first-semester calculus students carrying math deficits across three years of testing. Federal pressure arrived separately, with Department of Justice compliance reviews opened in March 2025 at Berkeley, UCLA, and Irvine. None of this proves the policy caused the preparation gap, but it has ended the era in which the question went unasked.
The designs on the table are specific enough to plan around. The admissions board’s March 2026 minutes floated a two-track structure: California residents would satisfy testing through the state’s own Smarter Balanced assessments, already administered to eleventh graders statewide, while nonresident and international applicants would submit SAT or ACT scores, restoring the familiar exams precisely for the applicants who lack California’s state tests. Nothing has been adopted, the roadmap process continues, and any change would almost certainly be announced cycles in advance, as the original phase-out was. But the direction of every public signal since the settlement expired, faculty letters, campus data, board minutes, federal reviews, points the same way: toward some restored role for standardized testing, with out-of-state families first in line to feel it.
| Question | Where things stand |
|---|---|
| Current policy | Test blind at all nine undergraduate campuses: SAT and ACT scores are never considered in admissions or scholarships, even if submitted |
| What unlocked the review | The 2021 settlement cementing no-consideration expired in spring 2025, and the Academic Senate’s admissions board began a formal reevaluation in late 2024 with a roadmap due mid-2026 |
| The faculty case | A May 2026 letter from hundreds of STEM faculty, Berkeley math among the organizers, citing a roughly thirtyfold rise in below-high-school math preparation and campus calculus deficits |
| The floated design | Smarter Balanced results for California residents; SAT or ACT scores for nonresident and international applicants; nothing yet adopted |
| Who feels a change first | Out-of-state and international applicants to Berkeley and UCLA, especially in engineering and computer science pools |
| The robust family plan | Bank an SAT or ACT score in junior spring regardless of residency, keep AP and IB evidence strong, and reread UC’s pages each cycle |
What Evidence Is Driving the Push to Restore Testing?
A restored requirement would land very differently across the applicant map. California residents would likely feel the least disruption under the floated design, since Smarter Balanced results already exist for every public school eleventh grader and private school families could test into the same framework or the SAT lane. Nonresidents, roughly one in five UC undergraduates and the applicants who pay the highest tuition, would face the sharpest change: a hard SAT or ACT requirement at Berkeley and UCLA would arrive on top of admit rates already in the single digits for their pool, converting a score from irrelevant to mandatory in a single cycle. International applicants would follow the nonresident lane. And the two flagships’ most subscribed programs, engineering and computer science, would almost certainly become the strictest readers of the restored math signal, given that campus faculty built the case for it.
What Would a New UC Testing Requirement Look Like?
Planning under uncertainty follows one rule: bank the score now, decide later. A current sophomore or junior aiming at Berkeley or UCLA should test in junior spring exactly as if the requirement existed, because every downside runs one direction, a banked score costs a few Saturdays and satisfies whatever rule emerges, while a senior discovering a new requirement after the announcement may have no runway left. Out-of-state and international families should treat this as close to mandatory given the floated design targets them first. California families hold more slack but should keep eleventh-grade Smarter Balanced results in the file and take AP or IB exams seriously, since those remain the external evidence UC reads today. And every UC-bound student should keep the transcript’s math sequence at maximum honest rigor, the one signal that pays under any policy outcome.
Related reading: For the full school-by-school picture, see our guide to which top colleges require the SAT or ACT, and use our advice on how to build a college list to sort targets once your testing plan is set.
How Should Families Plan While the Policy Is Under Review?
Strategically, the UC review is best read as the closing act of the test-optional era’s largest experiment. The system that anchored test-blind admissions for a tenth of American college applications is now weighing a partial reversal under pressure from its own faculty and its own outcome data, and the floated resident-nonresident split would create the country’s first two-track testing requirement at scale. For families, the meta-lesson mirrors everything else in this cluster: policies announced as permanent rarely are, procedural details move faster than headlines, and the only strategy robust to every outcome is preparing as though scores were required while exercising each school’s actual rules deliberately. Watch the Regents’ calendar and the admissions board’s minutes through the coming cycles, and reread the UC application pages each fall, because when this policy moves, it will move on paper before it moves in the press.
Frequently Asked Questions About the UC Test-Blind Policy
Yes. For the current cycle, SAT and ACT scores are not considered in admissions or scholarship decisions at any UC campus, even when submitted, with scores serving only eligibility verification and post-enrollment course placement.
The 2021 legal settlement that locked no-consideration of scores expired in spring 2025, and the faculty admissions board began a formal reevaluation, with a systemwide roadmap due in mid-2026, making this the first genuinely open review since the pandemic.
In May 2026, hundreds of UC STEM faculty, organized in part from Berkeley’s mathematics department, urged the return of standardized math testing, citing sharp declines in entering students’ math preparation documented by campus diagnostics.
A UC San Diego Senate work group found a roughly thirtyfold increase between 2020 and 2025 in first-years testing below high school level in math, with 70 percent of those below middle school level, and Berkeley found deficits in at least a fifth of first-semester calculus students.
The admissions board’s March 2026 minutes sketched a two-track design: Smarter Balanced results for California residents and SAT or ACT scores for nonresident and international applicants. Nothing has been adopted.
Out-of-state and international applicants, who lack California’s state assessments and already face the steepest odds at Berkeley and UCLA, particularly in engineering and computer science.
We advise yes for most: a banked junior-spring score satisfies the rest of a college list today, covers eligibility and placement at UC now, and insures against a mid-stream policy change that a senior would have no runway to meet.
Any change would run through the Regents and the Academic Senate and would almost certainly be announced cycles in advance, as the 2020 phase-out was, so families should watch board minutes and the UC application pages each fall.
Sources: University of California Admissions, UC Academic Senate, College Board SAT Suite, ACT, NCES College Navigator.
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