UC Schools are Eliminating ACT/SAT Requirements. What does this mean for you?

Recently there has been a huge shift in the UC admission process which will affect ongoing generations starting with the rising senior of this year. On May 21, 2020, the University of California(UC) admission council decided that SAT and ACT requirements were to be eliminated in response to the climate of the widespread coronavirus. This developed into a long term change by marking the optional status of the standardized test to be permanent starting 2025. These changes were in response to various factors that outweighed the benefits of having the SAT/ACT as a form of checkpoint to determine the eligibility of students.

Negatives of the SAT/ACT System

There were several faults to the current SAT/ACT system that has been concurrent for the last few years. The first major fault that the SAT/ACT holds is their lack of control over the cheating. There have been multiple controversies surrounding college admissions that have been revealed in the media in the fast few months and this raised more suspicions over the legitimacy of SAT and ACT scores. The second major fault that takes into play is the unfairness for underprivileged students. The three major factors that take into play is academic support, money, and time. Higher income residents are able to afford better academic support for the SAT/ACT test through prep classes and books which lower income students cannot afford. Not only is there a lack of affordability for the SAT/ACT prep, but there also is better academic readiness ingrained in the students through the better school system they are under.

Although the new college admissions system has not been confirmed, it is speculated by many that the UCs will create their own exams for admissions. The announcement is expected by the fall of 2025, and if the UC tests are not made by the end of the fall of 2025, the UC system will only use the other several factors such as GPA and personal essays to determine the qualifications of the student.

A likely effect of a new admissions test is that it will limit the amount of colleges students will apply for and limit their choices. Due to the infeasibility of taking different tests for each of the colleges a student is applying for, it would be unrealistic for a student to be able to apply to multiple colleges of their liking.

Affordable and accessible higher education is very important, and there are many flaws with the standardized testing admissions requirement; however, the new system does not seem to come without its own downfalls. Perspective college applicants, including myself, are anxious to see the next step in fair testing and college admissions.