As UC begins a new and faster process to determine whether to reinstate the standardized SAT test, the university’s admissions board is also moving to reevaluate the core academic requirements that reach even further into California high school classrooms: the exact set of courses students must take to get in.
Those requirements dictate what young Californians learn before they fill out an application. Because of UC’s size and influence across the state, UC’s academic requirements determine the careers of prospective high school students.
On Wednesday, the UC Academic Council, the executive body of the Academic Senate, directed the university’s board of regents to review both questions.
The board will study the general assessment first, bringing a report to the council on February 12, 2027, the council announced. The Board of Regents will receive a recommendation on whether to require the SAT or ACT before June 2027.
The admissions board will then turn to the high school academic requirements, sending a preliminary report to the council in May 2027; the regents may adopt any course changes at an unspecified later date. UC Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu framed the course review as an open question about “how UC defines and evaluates college readiness in a rapidly changing educational environment,” rather than taking action to add or reduce requirements.
The schedule is faster than it appeared a few days ago.
Last month, the admissions board issued a study guide for both the test and course requirements, then abruptly withdrew it on July 10 without explanation, leaving one of the university’s hotly-anticipated debates behind. Board of Regents Chair Maria Anguiano has since said the admissions debate has focused “too little” on testing and called for “a fresh look at how we define and evaluate college readiness.”
UC leaders say the new plan doesn’t change the scope of the previous road map but accelerates it, pushing the timeline for a decision on the assessment by about four months.
How UC admissions review affects high school students
For now, UC officials said, nothing has changed for the applicants. Students applying on Dec. 1, 2026, for fall 2027 admission will not be required to submit SAT or ACT scores, and the university has not decided whether the requirements will change in fall 2028 or later. Any change would require a vote of the officials, who have the final say on both tests and courses.
Part of the review course addresses what UC calls its “AG” requirements: 15 years of high school studies in all seven subjects (thus AG), which students must pass to qualify for admission to UC or California State University.
UC said the review will measure “the current number of required and recommended topics.” The admissions group he will lead, the Board of Admissions and School Relations, will consult with state Board of Education representatives and K-12 education experts.
Palazoglu, of the UC Academic Senate, said in a statement that faculty leaders “will continue to work with academic experts, K-12 partners, and other stakeholders to carefully examine how UC can best promote academic readiness, student success and educational opportunity for California students.”
Anxiety is not new.
Under the revised June road map, a separate academic team was supposed to assess whether 15 courses needed to be changed. In announcing that effort, UC’s admissions board said the requirements “may be overly prescriptive/strict” and may not “effectively address workforce needs, widespread adoption of AI, UC faculty concerns about preparation, ongoing shifts in student learning styles, and the need for students to apply knowledge and skills to current real-world situations.”
Those questions carry over into the review announced Wednesday.
Requirements include seven majors: two years of history, four years of English, three years of math, two years of science, two years of a language other than English, one year of visual and performing arts, and one “college prep” elective. They run deeper than what California requires for high school graduation. C also “strongly” recommends a fourth year of mathematics and recommends a third year of science.
Why high school math courses are a bright spot for UC
Math in particular has been a hot topic at UC, where professors lamenting the decline of math students’ skills say testing applicants with SAT scores can help bring in better-prepared first-year students.
Because UC and CSU share academic requirements, they effectively define the high school academic track for college-bound Californians.
A UC President’s Office report prepared by the regents found that 98% of California’s more than 2 million public school students have access to the full curriculum required by UC. The report said that the number of students graduating has increased from 45% in 2015-16 to 54% in 2024-25.
Less than 1% of UC applicants and accepted students take only 15 courses. Most take between 20 and 30, according to UC admissions officials.
This is not the first time that course requirements – or mathematics specifically – become a point of stress.
In 2013, UC approved a data science course, delivered by Los Angeles Unified, to expand math options, and in 2020 allowed such courses to replace advanced algebra. In 2023 and 2024, UC’s academic board reversed that decision, finding that the three most popular data science classes were too easy in algebra to count.
Speaking to regents last week at UC San Francisco, California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond described a “crowded curriculum” that pulls in many directions. They include legislative additions such as citizenship and financial literacy courses, a nationwide push for college and career pathways, and expansion of dual enrollment and community colleges.
Darling-Hammond described a system that is struggling to keep up with a changing economy, where students are increasingly transitioning out of college and mixing academic studies with on-the-job training.
He credited the revisions as a necessary evolution of “a very important program that we benefit from here in California in a unique way,” while flagging what sets UC apart from the rest of the country. “There is no other state that both has set admission requirements and actually approves each course and its content,” said Darling-Hammond.
Evolution of UC’s AG requirements and SAT rules
In addition to the testing requirements — removed six years ago amid concerns about racial equity and access to testing in times of violence — curriculum policies have also evolved over the years. Requirements were built into UC regulations in the 1930s, expanded to 15 courses in the early 1960s and added visual and performing arts as a field in 1999, a UC report said.
Since the 2010s, UC has also revised its curriculum to align with national education standards, such as the Common Core math standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.
In addition to the data science controversy, a separate effort would have made a semester of citizenship studies a new admission requirement, but the UC Faculty Assembly, which is part of the System’s Academic Senate, voted it down in April 2025.
During the regents’ meeting last week, faculty and students spoke passionately about admissions to UC, including academic requirements.
Some math faculty members have warned against relaxing the requirements. Svetlana Jitomirskaya, a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, said in an interview that she and others fear the effort to reexamine the curriculum is a “dangerous Trojan horse” and warned that Algebra II should not end up in the “recording stage,” instead of what she called data science courses.
Others support keeping the courses as they are for different reasons. Eric Rath, founder and president of Los Angeles-based Rath Tutoring, a college preparation service, said in an interview that the university should maintain the existing foundation, which he described as a threshold system. “Students clean the bar even if they don’t,” he said.
Teesha Sreeram, student watchdog on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee, urged the university to focus on access.
“Increasing access to rigorous courses is one of the most impactful investments we can make for California students,” Sreeram said, reminding the regents that “college readiness does not end with acceptance.”
