Posted on 12/13/2025 9:04:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In early 2020, the University of California set the tone for the rest of the country when its regents voted to drop SAT and ACT admissions requirements through 2024. That decision, initially framed as a pandemic necessity, quickly reshaped admissions nationwide. By late 2022, roughly 1,750 schools, or about 80 percent of U.S. universities, had adopted test-optional policies, according to Forbes.
“It’s a sea change in terms of how admissions decisions are being made,” Robert Schaeffer, of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, told NBC News.
“The pandemic created a natural experiment.”
Five years later, the results of this “natural experiment” are in. A report released by UC San Diego in November tells the story.
“Over the past five years, UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students—particularly in mathematics, but also in writing and language skills,” a new university report reads.
“This trend poses serious challenges both to student success and to the university’s instructional mission.”
Those words might sound ominous, but they don’t do justice to just how bad the slide has been.
Roughly 1 in 8 UCSD freshmen are working with math skills that don’t clear the high school bar - a 30-fold jump since 2020.
It gets worse, however.
The report concluded that 70 percent of those students fall below middle school levels.
To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, a full quarter of students failed to solve the following equation: 7 + 2 = [ ] + 6.
This means that my 9-year-old son, who tests high in math, is likely more equipped mathematically than many of these college students. I say this not as a point of pride, but to emphasize the disservice done to students thrust into (very pricey) college courses.
It’s not just math, however.
The report found that 40 percent of students deficient in arithmetic also couldn’t write (or, in the euphemistic language of the report, “required remedial writing instruction”).
The report was unflinching in its assessment.
“Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared [for college] risks harming the very students we hope to support, by setting them up for failure,” it declares.
UC San Diego should be commended for coming forward to report a phenomenon that is undoubtedly true at universities across the country.
Many at the time warned that ditching standardized tests was a bad idea. Research shows that high school GPAs don’t tell you much about how students perform once they get to campus. Standardized test results, however, do.
So, why did universities engage in this “natural experiment”?
There is no single answer, but politics, ideology, and crass incentives all played a role.
Let’s start with politics.
As David Leonhardt pointed out in the New York Times, universities are run by progressives, and “standardized tests have become especially unpopular among political progressives.”
Some progressives say standardized tests cause too much stress.
Others say they’re biased to explain why men score higher, on average, than women and why some racial groups perform better than others.
Ideology, a kissing cousin of politics, also plays a role. The fact that universities ditched standardized testing during the peak of the DEI craze is not a coincidence. As Leonhardt noted in the New York Times, the hostility to standardized tests is based largely “on the theory that they hurt diversity.”
This is a kooky claim for various reasons, not least because it is rooted in bigotry. But there was also a method to the madness. Abandoning standardized tests, which are rooted in objectivity, gave universities the ability to admit students on their terms. By making admission more subjective, universities were giving themselves cover for their own unlawful admissions policies.
Finally, there’s the financial incentive.
It’s no secret that demand for higher education is plummeting. (This trend is partly driven by pure demographics, but high tuition and the diminishing value of college degrees also play a role.)
As a result, universities are confronting an “enrollment cliff.” While declining numbers of new students would have posed a challenge regardless, the problem was worsened by pandemic-era learning losses caused by widespread high school closures. Removing standardized tests was a (kind of) solution to this problem. If not enough students are qualified to attend university, remove the qualifications.
In the end, ditching standardized tests will be remembered as a chapter in the broader story of the decline of U.S. universities. The decision didn’t cause the fall, but it accelerated a trend toward lower academic standards—one that harmed not just the reputation of universities, but also students who were admitted for all the wrong reasons.
Sadly, they will be left paying the price.
Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Charlie Kirk could see college is a huge scam. The Trump Child investment accounts is a brilliant plan.No SAT needed. learn to invest.
Thought you’d find it interesting.
Thanks.
It is. This sort of data has been available for some time.
“For the record”, I don’t take a position on standardized testing in higher education. Schools that make the wrong decision regarding such testing risk reputational harm as well as some students not making the best choice for them.
I know of some 2-year schools that have no standardized testing for admittance to the school and have well regarded RN programs. Why? First, students have to do all their prereqs prior to admission into the nursing program - period. Second, the testing for exams is tough and adaptive. Third, more and more professors are using oral exams to blunt AI being used to develop care planes, etc.
So no standardized testing to get into the college, and a tough but well regarded nursing program.
“PEMDAS!”
But.....but...... With a SAT test in the way, how are the sacred ghettopotumai, the “new comers” and the DEI low-IQs gonna get to “rule over America”?????
Really upsetting story of your life facing discrimination.
Reminds me of the reminiscence by Michael Savage’s son that when his dad got he degrees “they were not hiring white men for university jobs.” The quotas were so far from being filled that highly qualified white males were just not given interviews, let alone hired.
Summary of the man who couldn’t find a good job:
“Michael Savage (born Michael Weiner) holds multiple advanced degrees: a PhD in Nutritional Ethnomedicine from UC Berkeley, master’s degrees in Medical Botany and Medical Anthropology from the University of Hawaii, and a bachelor’s in Biology from Queens College. He earned these degrees before his career as a political radio host, using his extensive scientific background for his health and nutrition books as Michael Weiner, notes Simon & Schuster and Audible.ca. “
Many moons ago I hired on at one of the major tutoring companies to help kids prepare for the math and science parts of the ACT. It was a few hours a week after work for extra cash. The kids I dealt with were hopeless at math for the most part - couldn’t add 2+2 without a calculator. These were high school sophomores and juniors for the most part, from more affluent families that could afford the service.
I got exasperated with one boy who seemed intelligent enough but had no clue how to estimate or do mental math - I told him he would never do well on the test unless he learned. Funny thing, they never asked me back - they didn’t fire me per se, just never scheduled me again. I guess the truth was not allowed.
When it comes to UC, and UCSD in particular, you’re correct.
White males need not apply. What’s important is the essay, which has to be a tear jerker description of your battle against the White male patriarchy.
When I applied to UCSD in the late aughts I got in without writing anything about the white male patriarchy. Has it really changed so much so quickly?
It’s hard to say but it does appear to have turbocharged in the last ten years.
The most important component of admission is by law your high school class standing but from there, the admissions committees can play all sorts of games. They openly brag on the UC website about how they get around prop 209 by using “first generation” preferences; the essays are another component where subjectivity can be applied to skew results.
So there is a whole consultant industry based on writing the essays. Overcoming some real or imagined hardship is the one thing they focus on. How long that’s been going on? Seems like a long time, at least back a couple of decades.
Once you dump the allegedly objective SAT/ACT component, what else do you have?
And why would they do that in the first place? To try to admit more people who don’t seem to be able to do well…such as Hispanics and blacks, which they admit to. The justification is that “structural” barriers exist so they need special consideration…thus the essays.
You can go online and do your own assessment. It may just be numbers in the end: they have way more people applying then they have seats for. But I doubt it, their own endless screaming betrays them.
It becomes self-sorting. The students with low scores don’t get into schools that require scores, and likely have high GPAs due to grade inflation at schools with poor standards. The students with high scores likely have lower GPAs because they took college prep courses and are in a school with actual standards. The capable students don’t get into the no-score schools, the incapable students don’t get into the score-required schools.
For example, Purdue’s college of Engineering admission stats (SAT/ACT required), show SAT middle stats as 1380-1520. In-state students are the low end of that, as Purdue gives preference to in-state students. Many out of state students with scores above 1500+ did not get into Purdue engineering in 2025. The middle GPA is 3.89-4.00.
MIT’s middle admissions stats were 1520-1580. MIT doesn’t publish the GPA stats, but best guesses by admissions websites is 4.2.
Cal Poly SLO does not allow applicants to use an SAT/ACT score. The middle GPA for engineering majors is 4.14-4.25.
Cal State DS also does not allow applicants to use an SAT/ACT score. The middle GPA is 3.83 (they didn’t break down by major).
UCSD does not allow applicants to use an SAT/ACT score. The middle GPA is GPA 4.12 - 4.29 (they didn’t break it down by major).
This is the pattern we would expect with grade inflation at poor performing high schools. There is absolutely no way that these illiterate kids at Cal State San Diego with their 3.83 GPAs are anywhere equivalent to the kids at Purdue engineering with their comparable GPAs and respectable SAT scores.
And there is absolutely no way that the average kid at Cal Poly SLO are comparable to the MIT students with their near-perfect SAT scores.
Personally, I think the system is working as designed. Shenanigans.
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