The San Dieguito Union High School District board voted unanimously on August 6 to urge the University of California system to bring back standardized testing as a requirement for students applying to STEM majors. The resolution, drafted by trustees Michael Allman and Phan Anderson, argues that years of test-blind admissions have let too many underprepared students into UC classrooms.
As reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, the resolution opposes what it calls blind admissions that have resulted in too many underprepared students, and it commits San Dieguito Union to expanding access to high-quality test preparation for all students should the UC system reinstate testing. The district serves more than 12,000 students in grades 7-12 across northern San Diego County and was ranked the top public school district in the county and third-best in California by Niche in 2026, according to The Coast News.
The UC Board of Regents voted in 2020 to suspend admissions testing requirements, a shift later locked in by the 2021 legal settlement in Smith v. Regents of the University of California, which barred UC campuses from considering SAT or ACT scores in admissions or scholarship decisions through spring 2025, per Public Counsel. That lawsuit was originally brought by students and advocacy groups who argued standardized tests discriminated against underrepresented minorities and low-income applicants.
Trustees Point to Freshmen Who Can't Round Numbers
San Dieguito trustees leaned heavily on a November 2025 study from the UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which found that students needing remedial math had, in some cases, earned straight A's in high school math. The Union-Tribune reports that the study documented a nearly thirtyfold increase over five years in students arriving with below-high-school-level math skills, 70% of whom fell below middle-school levels. Hoodline covered the underlying data in a report last November, which found that 25% of freshmen placed into UCSD's lowest remedial math course had earned a 4.0 GPA in math, yet 61% could not round a six-digit number to the nearest hundred.
Board member David Kleinfeld said the absence of testing, combined with grade inflation, has made class placement random and created problems, according to the Union-Tribune's account of the meeting. Fellow trustee Geoffrey Braswell said too many admitted students cannot read or write at the college or high-school level, while economist Marc Muendler argued that only requiring the SAT and ACT can overcome what he described as an admissions crisis. Local UC San Diego professors also provided public input supporting the board's resolution, the paper reported.
A Board Split on Timing, Not Substance
Not every trustee embraced the resolution without reservation. Board vice president Rimga Viskanta said the board favored reinstating testing but had concerns about the timing of the resolution, and she proposed acknowledging that standardized test scores correlate strongly with family income and uneven access to test preparation. Trustee Michael Allman countered that the district should expand access to everything students need to succeed, a position reflected in the resolution's pledge to widen test-prep access if UC testing returns.
The resolution also encourages other California public school districts to consider adopting similar evidence-based admissions resolutions, and it asks the UC Board of Regents and Academic Senate to proceed as quickly as possible with thoughtful implementation, per the Union-Tribune's report.
Faculty Pressure Building Across the UC System
The San Dieguito vote lands amid mounting pressure from inside the UC system itself. As of July 2026, more than 3,000 UC faculty members had signed two open letters calling for the return of standardized admissions testing, including over 2,300 STEM faculty backed by five Nobel Laureates and seven of nine UC mathematics department chairs, according to KQED. A separate letter signed by faculty from humanities, social sciences, law, business and education urged restoring verbal test requirements systemwide. Economist Kyle Handley has said test-blind admissions began as a reasonable COVID-era response but should not have become permanent, per the Union-Tribune.
The Union-Tribune notes the open letters also drew signatures from 73 STEM department chairs. Nationally, elite research institutions including MIT, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford and Caltech abandoned pandemic-era test-optional policies and restored mandatory testing between 2022 and 2025, according to the Los Angeles Times. University leaders at those schools cited internal data showing test scores out-predicted high school grades in identifying college success.
What Happens Next, and When
The UC Academic Council directed its Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, known as BOARS, on July 22 to accelerate its review of standardized testing, setting a deadline of February 12, 2027, to submit recommendations that would go to the UC Board of Regents no later than June 2027, according to a statement from the University of California. BOARS is also studying a separate, wider question of the gap in college readiness, including course requirements, with faculty workgroups aiming to present findings by June 2027.
Even so, the UC Academic Senate has confirmed that students applying this fall for Fall 2027 admission will remain completely score-free, and any potential reinstatement of testing would not take effect until Fall 2028 at the earliest, per Compass Education Group. The UC Academic Senate chair has said it has not yet been determined whether Fall 2028 admissions requirements will actually change, since any recommendation still requires approval from the UC Board of Regents.
The academic strain the San Dieguito resolution points to isn't confined to San Diego. UC Berkeley reported a sharp surge in failing grades in lower-division computer science courses in May 2026, with math faculty publicly warning that instructors were being forced to re-teach middle school math to incoming undergraduates, a trend Hoodline detailed in its coverage of the Berkeley fail surge. Research from the testing organization ACT has also shown average U.S. high school GPAs climbed from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021 even as average standardized test scores fell over the same period, a divergence professors say has left admissions officers without reliable benchmarks.
The debate carries legal undertones as well. In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance warning colleges that eliminating standardized testing or using non-test proxies to achieve racial balance could violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, according to the Elite Educational Institute. For now, San Dieguito's resolution stands as a local school board's attempt to weigh in on a decision that ultimately rests with UC Regents, faculty governance bodies, and a review process that won't produce answers for at least another year.
