UNC System likely to reinstate SAT, ACT admission requirements. Here’s what to know.

The UNC System is likely to reinstate requirements that at least some students seeking admission to public universities in North Carolina submit standardized test scores as part of their application.

Applicants to any school in the system are required to hold a weighted high school GPA of at least 2.5. That requirement, which has been in place since 2008 — and remained while the system made submitting test scores optional during the pandemic — would stay under a new policy approved last week by a committee of the Board of Governors, which oversees the 17-campus system.

But the policy would implement the following changes regarding standardized test scores:

▪ Applicants entering a university in the fall 2024 or spring 2025 semesters who do not hold at least a 2.5 GPA would be eligible for — but not guaranteed — admission by submitting an ACT score of at least 19, out of a possible 36, or an SAT score of at least 1010, out of 1600.

Applicants who are applying to enter a university in those semesters who hold at least a 2.5 GPA would not be required to submit test scores, but would have the option to provide them as part of their application, if they wish to do so.

▪ Applicants entering a university in the fall 2025 or spring 2026 semesters would be required to hold at least a 2.5 GPA. Applicants whose GPAs fall between 2.5 and 2.8 would be required to submit an ACT or SAT score, but there would be no minimum score required.

▪ Applicants entering a university in the fall 2026 semester and at any point afterward would be required to hold at least a 2.5 GPA. Applicants whose GPAs fall between 2.5 and 2.8 would be required to submit an ACT score of at least 17 or an SAT score of at least 930.

The policy would allow the chancellor of any university in the UNC System to require students with GPAs higher than 2.8 to also submit test scores, pending the approval of the system president and the Board of Governors two academic years in advance.

With the committee approving the new policy, it’s now set for a vote at the May 23 meeting of the full, 24-member Board of Governors. Policies on the board’s consent agenda, which contains several items that can all be voted on at one time, are generally passed without further discussion by the board — meaning the testing requirements are very likely to pass and go into effect on the timeline outlined in the policy.

End of pandemic waiver on testing

The board’s approval of the policy would mark the end of a pandemic-era waiver on standardized test requirements across the UNC System.

Just before the pandemic, in February 2020, the Board of Governors had approved a policy change that allowed the state’s universities to admit students with either a minimum 2.5 GPA or test scores of 19 on the ACT or 1010 on the SAT. All students were required to submit test scores, but they could gain admission with their GPA if they did not meet the minimum test scores. That change was based on UNC System research that GPA is a better indicator of student success and performance, The News & Observer previously reported.

But after the pandemic set in, physically preventing students from convening to take the standardized tests, the board voted in July 2020 to waive the testing requirements. The board voted twice to extend the waiver, setting it to expire in the fall of this year.

Throughout the time that the waiver has been in place — which will have been almost four years by the time the board votes on the new policy in May — applicants were still required to hold at least a 2.5 high school GPA to be considered for admission, but they were not required to submit test scores as part of their application. Some members expressed fear that the change would allow ill-prepared students to be admitted to the state’s universities or that the change might devalue degrees from the schools.

Now, nearly a year after the federal government declared an end to the pandemic public health emergency, the board appears poised to approve the policy requiring only some students to submit test scores — and, by fall 2026, require scores lower than those required prior to the pandemic. Throughout the board’s multiple discussions of the proposal, some members advocated for requiring test scores from all students, while others noted potential disparities across the state in students being able to adequately prepare for or access the tests.

Estefany Gordillo-Rivas, president of the UNC System Association of Student Governments, said at a March meeting that she and other student leaders had heard concerns over “the accessibility of testing and resources.”

“However, a lot of students do also understand that these tests can assist in determining student performance at our institutions,” Gordillo-Rivas said, urging the board to consider emphasizing and highlighting academic support programs for students as the requirements go into place.

North Carolina administers the ACT to all 11th graders in the state’s traditional public schools and charter schools each spring. Students in 10th grade take the PreACT.

Expected impacts of new requirements

UNC System staff presented data to the board indicating that the ACT scores among students enrolling across the university system were lower in 2022 than in 2019, prior to the pandemic. The data also suggested that, based on a correlation between students’ GPA and their ACT scores, a score of 17 generally correlated to a GPA roughly between 2.5 and 2.8, mirroring the new requirements students would need to meet by fall 2026.

System staff estimated that about 550 first-year students across the system in 2022 would not have met the new requirements outlined in the proposed policy. Of those students, 63% did not make “satisfactory academic progress” or did not return to their university for their sophomore year.

“So, 63% of students essentially, were exited out of the pipeline,” UNC System Chief Academic Officer David English told the board in March, noting that the rate was “considerably higher” than that of students who would meet the proposed admissions requirements under the new policy.

English said the board’s consideration of a new, post-pandemic policy on testing and admissions requirements is “a question of academic readiness and preparation.”

“When we think about the Board’s policy, it can really affect two key things. One is: What is the minimum threshold that we believe a student needs to demonstrate with regards to academic preparedness in order to have a likelihood of success? And that’s where this focus on the looking at a second academic metric, in addition to the high school grade point average, comes in,” English said.

“A separate, related discussion is how test scores should be used for institutions that have selective admissions where you have far more applicants than you have spaces, as a way of determining who is best prepared to succeed in that environment.”

The Board of Governors’ May 23 meeting is at the UNC System office in Raleigh.