Grade inflation and artificial intelligence-assisted work make high school grade point averages an unreliable signal of whether students are actually ready for college, experts say.

My 13-year-old daughter tore open the envelope from the Comprehensive Testing Program, scanned her results and set them down on the counter without much ceremony. She had scored 9s across the board, the highest possible score on the standardized assessment, and I waited for her to smile, to show a hint of happiness or pride.

“No one else sees that,” she said dismissively. “They just see your class grades.”

Those scores showed mastery, I countered. She shrugged and walked away.

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A few days later, the news broke that more than 1,400 University of California faculty members were urging the system to bring back SAT and ACT requirements, particularly for applicants planning to major in science, technology and math. A 2025 report from the UC San Diego Academic Senate found that the number of incoming freshmen testing below high school math levels rose nearly 30-fold in recent years, forcing professors to teach remedial content in university-level courses. Grade inflation and artificial intelligence-assisted work, faculty argued, had made high school grade point averages an unreliable signal of whether students were actually ready.

I knew my........

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