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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ironically, the students who major in sociology, ethnic studies and other soft subjects end up being the ones working in education administration and setting admissions policy, where they proceed to favor other students like them in the admissions process. part of the problem is that administrators and not actual faculty have taken control of the admissions process and student evaluation methods.

+1 dumb and dumber. in past years, actual faculty had more say in universities.

The faculty do not care if the University admits unqualified Latinos and shuffles them over to the Spanish, ethnic studies or sociology department. Those departments are happy to be able to fill their classes and not lose funding. Faculty are only ticked off if they are required to teach unqualified students and face some consequence themselves if those students fail.

As far as math, faculty are pretty much upset at all the incoming students. The explosion of interest in engineering has funneled a lot of students into math , chemistry and physics courses who are not gifted in math , chem or physics. The kid with middle school level math slinks off never to be seen again or bother the professor. It’s the kids who crammed or cheated their way through getting 5s on AP Calc, 700+ SAT etc who are freaking out that they got a C, D or F on their exam. These kids belong in the business school doing excel not engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The low performers at UC San Diego are URM's, English-learners.

It is a function of how UC San Diego selected their student body. They selected more applicants from poorer, English-learning schools.

I'm not sure how to correct it, but it seems to be common sense that putting students in an environment where they are destined to fail does no one any good.

Either UC San Diego just hands out degrees like candy and the institution's reputation suffers or they give up on admitting students with elementary school-level abilitites.

You seem to think they did this to help people? It’s just high-level virtue signaling.

It is too ensure that they have wide based political support in CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

[Anonymous]

IEP kids can stay in HS until age 21 in many places.

Obviously students with deficits should be routed into remedial programs before college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

The undergraduate education provided by any UC is large scale factory education. It is not an elite education though many try to make it out as such.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

If UC San Diego supposedly is a top public university and it churns out graduates who can't add 2+2, maybe it really isn't a top public university, or am I being obtuse?

[Anonymous]

UC should simply add a requirement that any applicant must have met proficiency on the state math test. UC already has a clear requirement for baseline GPA and A-G courses. Only 22.7 % of Latino students met standards so the state needs to drop the Hispanic serving goal of top UCs admitting over 30% of Latinos. Latinos overwhelmingly voted against bringing back racial based admissions so they shouldn’t mind losing seats if they aren’t qualified.

High schools need to be held accountable for faking it and giving out As in precal and calculus to kids with barely middle school math skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

The undergraduate education provided by any UC is large scale factory education. It is not an elite education though many try to make it out as such.

Yeah. Their elite status comes from the professor’s research and the strength of their graduate programs. Not the undergrad experience. Better to go to UC for grad school (esp PhD). As an undergrad you will be taught by the grad students. Same as my experience at Harvard. The profs were giving the big lectures. The grad students and post docs were the ones running the actual discussion sections, grading the tests and papers, etc. For the most part, professors did not know student names, until you get into upper division seminar courses for your major.

[Anonymous]

California originally set up UC to serve the top 20% of students in the STATE not by high school, provide graduate programs and degrees and conduct research, Cal State was designed to take the next lower 20%, provide a combination of 4 year liberal arts or technical/vocational degree and provide degrees in education. If you wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, get a business degree, hospitality, medical tech, engineering etc Cal State was there even if you weren’t a top student.

When CA removed race based admissions, Cal came up with a way to use proxy measures and switch to admitting within the top 20% by school. The others followed this approach. It’s not working well for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

If UC San Diego supposedly is a top public university and it churns out graduates who can't add 2+2, maybe it really isn't a top public university, or am I being obtuse?

It's the high schools that are sending out unprepared graduates. Students who can't pass required math courses at UCSD (or at any college) don't graduate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

If UC San Diego supposedly is a top public university and it churns out graduates who can't add 2+2, maybe it really isn't a top public university, or am I being obtuse?

It's the high schools that are sending out unprepared graduates. Students who can't pass required math courses at UCSD (or at any college) don't graduate.

This is California we are talking about. In what world would the people who run those universities (political appointees) allow low SES/English learners to fail out of school? They won't. If you have been paying attention, California sets academic standards, and when those standards can't be met, they adjust them. It is called equity for a reason. You can argue if equity is good or bad, but at the end of the day, equity is what drives California's decision-making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the math thing is crazy these days. My kid is at an Ivy and was given a math placement test at the beginning of freshman year. He took Calculus AB in high school and was placed into Calculus 2. However it turns out that almost all his classmates took BC in high school. Except most did not actually learn the BC because they are now getting Cs and Ds in this course (the average on the exams has been in the 60s).
My kid has had two 99% so far and he is a humanities kid. He attended a grade-deflating, private high school which rarely accelerated kids in math.

How are these kids getting 60% on material that they already took in high school? And yet of course they got high As in high school as they got into an Ivy.

The state of high school math education is worrisome.

Those kids probably also got 5s on the AP test. My humanities kid at a UC is very scared of taking math next quarter. He placed into UC’s last Calculus level which is supposedly after BC not sure if that maps to II or III . He had As in high school, 5 on the AP exam and 780 on SAT math but he’s hearing from so many kids with similar stats who are getting Cs and Ds and who are engineering kids that like math.

Is the problem these kids are not learning the material or are they not retaining the material? If they are indeed earning 5s on an AP exam then I would argue the latter... How do you fix that? I don't know.

The College Board has been explicitly making AP tests easier, because they found that they were losing kids to lightweight dual enrollment classes. I will give you three guesses as to the likely response by the providers of those dual enrollment classes, and the first two don't count.

And yet still so few still get all 5s! Both my sons scored 5s on every exam with no outside study/prep.

Now you know why.

[Anonymous]

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?

Yes, and they attend a college with similar peers, where they have a chance to succeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failure to use the SAT in admissions is making the University of California system look like a clown-car.

Anyone who would make a statement like that is driving the clown car. That said, the UCs like all public schools aren’t top 20 undergraduate schools and they shouldn’t try to be. They are in place to serve their state residents.

UC has two schools in the top 10 undergraduate universities, the next three (SD, Davis and Irvine) are ranked 29, 31 and 31. The next level down are ranked 38, 52, 80 (Santa Barbara, Merced and Santa Cruz) . Not sure where Riverside is but it’s in the top 100.

Having 5 instate options T1-T31 is pretty fortunate for CA residents even though the top 5 are hard to get into if you are from a wealthy high performing area.

If UC San Diego supposedly is a top public university and it churns out graduates who can't add 2+2, maybe it really isn't a top public university, or am I being obtuse?

It's the high schools that are sending out unprepared graduates. Students who can't pass required math courses at UCSD (or at any college) don't graduate.

This is California we are talking about. In what world would the people who run those universities (political appointees) allow low SES/English learners to fail out of school? They won't. If you have been paying attention, California sets academic standards, and when those standards can't be met, they adjust them. It is called equity for a reason. You can argue if equity is good or bad, but at the end of the day, equity is what drives California's decision-making.

Texas does the same thing Karen.