Harvard is not alone. UC students Without 8th Grade Math Skills Skyrockets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am California native and I support the UC's approach. Citizen/taxpayers of CA pay for the UCs and its mission is to educate the best and brightest Californians. They use "local context" to identify the top 9% from every Ca high school, including private schools, and guarantee admission to all of them, though don't guarantee which campus (Merced is the auto admit default). Yes that means that the top 9% from under resourced public schools too, so some of those kids have learning gaps and the UC's have support to help them.
Testing would not change this as they would still admit the top 9% by school including from those high schools that most on this board don't care about . . . .

Unfortunately, the best and the brightest can not be assumed to be evenly distributed throughout the state. It makes sense that kids in affluent and well educated communities end up better prepared by the end of K-12. Due to some
combination of heritable characteristics from educated/affluent parents (IQ is approx 50% heritable) and greater access over many years to better resources to develop that academic potential. Trying to make up for it at the college level is too late. This remediation work needs to be carried out starting from early elementary. At a certain age, the students’ absolute preparation level is more important than one’s undeveloped “potential” from a college success/job readiness standpoint.

Graduating in the top 9 percent of an awful, crime-ridden public school gets you serious grit and character points. And in life, grit and character matters a lot. I think California has it right. Sure, some of these kids from low performing schools with all the problems never got a chance to take Multivariable Calculus. But they would be absolute academic rock stars if only they grew up in a different neighborhood with better options. I think the UCs are fulfilling their mission just fine taking the best students from all the public schools, even the bad ones.

Honestly, you sound like a person who is so privileged that you have no idea what you are talking about. Grit and character? Sure. People who live in serious danger and traumatic situations develop grit and character, but those aren't always in positive ways. Many learn awful coping mechanisms, terrible perspectives on life, etc., because they did what they had to.

And it's often really hard to change those ways once you get into college.

[Anonymous]

Haven't read the entire thread -- is there info on how many of these students actually graduate from college?

[Anonymous]

Standardized testing in some aspects is undoubtedly unfair; however, in my opinion it's a more objective method for assessing a student's capabilities than any other measure. Bringing them back for UC admissions would certainly help avoid issues like this.

[Anonymous]

Kids are not retaining things. I teach 7th grade math and have kids who struggle with concepts taught in previous years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.newsweek.com/students-ucsd-without-8th-grade-math-skills-skyrockets-11030373

18% UC students placed below Algebra 1.

Among the students not meeting middle school math levels:
42% had taken precalculus or calculus. And 25% of these students had a math GPA of 4.0 in high school.


Takeaway is that you can't trust high school GPA.
4.0 in Calculus can't pass Algebra. Something is going on.

Absolutely shocked about this; I thought for sure removing standardized testing requirements would vastly improve the quality of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Problem is they don’t remember it when they take it in 6-7 grades.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/ucsd-faculty-sound-alarm-on-declining-student-skills.html
Take a look at UCSD's remedial math class. It's elementary school math! Don't remember it? Got to be kidding me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Problem is they don’t remember it when they take it in 6-7 grades.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/ucsd-faculty-sound-alarm-on-declining-student-skills.html
Take a look at UCSD's remedial math class. It's elementary school math! Don't remember it? Got to be kidding me.

OMG, ok, that's bad

[Anonymous]

The top UCs do admit a fair number of very unqualified kids chasing the rankings to earn political points within the state and social mobility points. These kids do get screwed. They get shuffled into easy, unemployable majors. They are encouraged to take some classes on line in a community college and transfer the credits over. They often lose scholarships or aid tied to maintaining a mid to high GPA and then need to take loans. They take 7 years to graduate. They drop out.

But hey, UCSD rose in the rankings because of this game. This makes the school more popular with top students who will glom together anyway. It doesn’t really hurt the top kids who get in at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.newsweek.com/students-ucsd-without-8th-grade-math-skills-skyrockets-11030373

18% UC students placed below Algebra 1.

Among the students not meeting middle school math levels:
42% had taken precalculus or calculus. And 25% of these students had a math GPA of 4.0 in high school.


Takeaway is that you can't trust high school GPA.
4.0 in Calculus can't pass Algebra. Something is going on.

GPA and course titles have become unreliable predictors of readiness.

4.0 math gpa in high school yet can't pass middle school placement?

High schools are not teaching kids anymore. How did they get through high school math to get 4.0?

This is why the UK schools don't bother asking for GPA. They only want SAT/ACT and AP scores and they tell you exactly what the cutoff numbers for those are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Problem is they don’t remember it when they take it in 6-7 grades.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/11/ucsd-faculty-sound-alarm-on-declining-student-skills.html
Take a look at UCSD's remedial math class. It's elementary school math! Don't remember it? Got to be kidding me.

Question 30: Only 2% can answer it?
Question 1: kindergarten math. Still only 75% can answer it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it good that they are catching this and students can learn math properly? Some high schools don't have good math teachers. Not everyone is able to go to good public/private schools with good teaching. Also, the fact that numbers have tripled in recent years probably has to do with covid, online learning, and just bad math teachers.

+1 Yes, it is good that they are addressing this. What is the alternative no admission for any kids from crappy elementary through high schools that they have zero choice in?

It's working fine for them

Obviously not.

[Anonymous]

Test optional/test blind combined with cobid shutdown of many schools for over a year led to this disaster. It will swing back to sanity soon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't see this mentioned upthread, but current calc students were taking algebra 1 via virtual learning, and California held on much longer with virtual than a lot of other places.

We are in a different state, but my junior in calc BC has all kinds of holes from prealgebra in 6th (20-21 school year), which was mostly virtual. Lots of bad habits (yes, googling answers, not doing homework, etc). This shows up randomly, like in SAT prep.

(and after getting a 5 on AP Precalc)

Lots of people do very well in calculus even though they are horrible at algebra. I think this is because calculus is much easier to understand conceptually, so if the test is primarily on those concepts, you'll do well. The algebra part of calculus is where you'll mess up.

It’s because curriculum has been rewritten to get students to calc. So rather than drilling computation, a lot of the build up is qualitative: this graph has two roots, this function is increasing, etc. The middle school algebra class today is very different from a generation ago.

[Anonymous]

If UC San Diego was serious about this crisis, it would immediately demand to see ap exam scores in calc ab, calc bc, lang and literature

[Anonymous]

Now I am really curious to see Harvard’s remedial math class material. They are meeting every day five days a week at Harvard’s remedial class. That must be really bad, to catch up all the missing contents in high school.