Do the UCs Require the SAT or ACT? UC Testing Policy Explained

If you're prepping for UC applications and wondering whether to spend your weekends grinding through SAT practice tests, here's the short answer: don't. Understanding the current UC SAT ACT requirements will save you time, money, and stress, because the policy is more absolute than many students realize.

The Current UC SAT ACT Requirements: Fully Test-Blind

For all students applying for Fall 2026 and Fall 2027 admission, the University of California is fully test-blind. This means UC will not consider an applicant's SAT or ACT score at all, even if that applicant chooses to submit one. This applies across the board:

• •It does not factor into first-year admission decisions.
• •It does not factor into waitlist decisions.
• •It does not factor into UC scholarship consideration.
• •It applies to every undergraduate applicant, regardless of California residency, out-of-state status, or international status.

Test-Blind Versus Test-Optional: Know the Difference

This is a genuinely important distinction that trips up a lot of families. Test-optional describes a policy where a school will look at your SAT or ACT score if you choose to submit one, and simply won't penalize you for leaving it out. UC's policy is not that. UC's test-blind policy means admissions officers will not look at a submitted score at all, even if you send one in. Submitting a score changes nothing about your UC application. There's no scenario under the current UC SAT ACT requirements where a strong test score gives you an edge, or where a weak one hurts you, in UC admissions specifically.

A Development Worth Watching, But Not Yet in Effect

As of mid-2026, there has been a petition from UC STEM faculty, submitted in May 2026, asking the Board of Regents to reconsider the test-blind policy and bring back standardized math testing. It's worth knowing this conversation is happening. That said, it is only a proposal under review right now, not a current requirement, and nothing has changed for applicants yet. If the Regents were to eventually vote to restore some form of testing, the earliest this could realistically affect applicants would be for Fall 2028 applications, determining admission for the incoming class of 2029. If you're applying for Fall 2026 or Fall 2027, this proposal has no bearing on your application. Future applicants, particularly current freshmen and sophomores in high school, may want to keep an eye on how this develops, but there is nothing to act on today.

What This Means for Your Prep Time and Money

Given all of this, here's the practical advice:

• •Don't spend prep time, tutoring dollars, or testing fees on the SAT or ACT purely for UC admissions purposes. It will not move the needle on any UC decision.
• •If the SAT or ACT still matters for other reasons on your list, keep prepping. Many private colleges and out-of-state public universities remain test-optional or test-required, and some outside scholarship programs still consider scores, so don't assume every school on your list shares UC's test-blind approach.
• •Some UC campuses may still use test scores after you've already enrolled, purely for course placement purposes such as placing into an appropriate math or writing course, not for admission. That's a separate, much lower-stakes use of the scores.
• •Redirect the time you would have spent on test prep toward the parts of your UC application that actually get evaluated: your coursework rigor, your grades, and especially your Personal Insight Question responses, which now carry significant weight in a test-blind admissions environment.

Where Your Effort Should Actually Go

With test scores entirely out of the picture for UC decisions, the eight Personal Insight Questions, of which you'll answer four, become one of the few places where you can directly speak to who you are beyond your transcript. That's exactly where SummaEssay's UC Essay Coach service focuses its energy: helping applicants strategically choose which four PIQs will tell their strongest story, then guiding them through one-on-one brainstorming and high-level editing, with 100% human editing, no AI, and a 48-hour turnaround, so the words on the page do the work that test scores no longer can.

Want expert eyes on your own draft? Explore SummaEssay's UC Essay Coach service or browse free essay samples for inspiration.