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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can all this be true and yet everyone keeps telling me my kid with a B average who is in advanced math and sciences classes won’t get in anywhere for college?

Yes. I am puzzled too. This is just discouraging that my kid is shut out because of the skin color and income of the parents.

This is pathetic. We are passed Affirmative Action and you all are still moaning about how unfair the system is. If you're decently upper middle class and your kid is shut out of higher ed, you may just be trying to get a round peg in a square hole.

[Anonymous]

The correct solution is to drastically improve Californias elementary and middle schools. Why are so many kids even entering high school that deficient in the basics ?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can all this be true and yet everyone keeps telling me my kid with a B average who is in advanced math and sciences classes won’t get in anywhere for college?

Yes. I am puzzled too. This is just discouraging that my kid is shut out because of the skin color and income of the parents.

But is your kid shut out? Seriously not admitted to one UCSD-caliber school in the United States? Many such schools have admissions rates over 80% and rely heavily on SAT scores. And if you’re focused on the short list of elite privates, well, UCSD was never one of those anyway.

It's absurd, plain and simple. The standards are different by zip code, this IS discrimination based on race, plain and simple, just not the way you like to look at it.

It’s technically selection based on socioeconomics rather than income to be honest. I also think it’s a brilliant and totally legal workaround. And you can always move to a neighborhood like Compton if you want a hook. It’s about making informed choices

Your system, or rather UC's system, is working pretty good then. Nothing like UC San Diego being put on blast for having college students who add like third graders. A resounding success!

UCSD is also a lower tier UC. Compare it to an Old Dominion with smarter kids and better weather.

Other than Berkeley, UC schools are all lower tier but USNWR loves them. Wonder if this revelation will cause adjustments to next years rankings.

No, it won’t. Also, more than USNWR loves them based on the rankings and low acceptance rates at the top tier UCs.

Agreed. Between athletes, donor/celebrity kids, FGLI students, and humanities majors who apply TO/ED, there’s likely a bunch of “elite” schools where 1 in 8 students can’t do math. After all, even in a test-mandatory world, 1 in 4 students’ scores were hidden from the world.

These schools have always taken athletes, donors, and legacy kids. But the need for remedial math is new. Something else is afoot. What's changed that they suddenly have these kids who don't have the chops?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can all this be true and yet everyone keeps telling me my kid with a B average who is in advanced math and sciences classes won’t get in anywhere for college?

Yes. I am puzzled too. This is just discouraging that my kid is shut out because of the skin color and income of the parents.

This is pathetic. We are passed Affirmative Action and you all are still moaning about how unfair the system is. If you're decently upper middle class and your kid is shut out of higher ed, you may just be trying to get a round peg in a square hole.

DP.

Fact is: DEIA is racism.

Treating children differently based on their skin color violates the Civil Rights Act. The entire point of DEIA is to treat people differently based on the color of their skin.

[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.

Community college is the place to remediate algebra 1, not a UC campus. Even at a school with poor teaching, students who care can self-teach via Khan academy. COVID might have made it easier to cheat, but math teachers have not gotten significantly worse over the past 5 years

Are you a California resident? If not, why should anyone care what you think should happen at UC campuses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. You can’t fix a poor K-12 education within four years of college. People who can’t do 8th grade math shouldn’t be admitted to any UC.

Are you a California resident?

[Anonymous]

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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.

I challenge you to find anyone who does well in calculus who can't do algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can all this be true and yet everyone keeps telling me my kid with a B average who is in advanced math and sciences classes won’t get in anywhere for college?

Yes. I am puzzled too. This is just discouraging that my kid is shut out because of the skin color and income of the parents.

But is your kid shut out? Seriously not admitted to one UCSD-caliber school in the United States? Many such schools have admissions rates over 80% and rely heavily on SAT scores. And if you’re focused on the short list of elite privates, well, UCSD was never one of those anyway.

Shut out of top 20 and UVA, despite 1550. Luckily UIUC came through!!

Also shut out of W&M and Tech? That's hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

The poster claiming to be shut out of UVA with a 1550 and all the T20's never did say what part of their application was not up to par. No mention of rigor, GPA, AP's scores, EC's, LOR's. Nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The poster claiming to be shut out of UVA with a 1550 and all the T20's never did say what part of their application was not up to par. No mention of rigor, GPA, AP's scores, EC's, LOR's. Nothing.

Why are people like this? Of course no one knows what part of the application was “not up to par.” The whole system is designed to be mysterious and unpredictable. There’s no official ranking of ECs. You never see the LORs. There’s no way to compare GPA from one school to another, and even within schools, many don't rank. Kids with unweighted 4.0s scoring in the top 0.5% of the SAT have no way of knowing where they might plausibly be allowed to go to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The correct solution is to drastically improve Californias elementary and middle schools. Why are so many kids even entering high school that deficient in the basics ?

They are in DMV too. It’s a nationwide phenomena that has talked about repeatedly. The difference is that this article singled out UCSD — which is the number 4 state school in California. If you did the same for the #4 state school in Virginia for example, I think you would see much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The correct solution is to drastically improve Californias elementary and middle schools. Why are so many kids even entering high school that deficient in the basics ?

+1. everyone just plays dumb about this. We are failing in college math because we completely gutted elementary and middle school math. I feel like I cannot overstate this enough. I try to explain it to my friends without kids or with older kids and they look at me like I am crazy. No really, they don’t make kids memorize time tables because they believe memorizing is bad pedagogy! They think that having kids come up with theories in groups and talk about math is good! They *expressly and affirmatively* think that math teachers didactically teaching lessons is bad! They think kids can learn algebra by watching videos! They won’t assign homework because of equity! And my favorite- there are no textbooks for kids to refer back to because everything is done on apps or videos with no indices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The poster claiming to be shut out of UVA with a 1550 and all the T20's never did say what part of their application was not up to par. No mention of rigor, GPA, AP's scores, EC's, LOR's. Nothing.

Why are people like this? Of course no one knows what part of the application was “not up to par.” The whole system is designed to be mysterious and unpredictable. There’s no official ranking of ECs. You never see the LORs. There’s no way to compare GPA from one school to another, and even within schools, many don't rank. Kids with unweighted 4.0s scoring in the top 0.5% of the SAT have no way of knowing where they might plausibly be allowed to go to college.

Please let’s not let this turn into another grievance fest. Ok I get the point that you think that certain high scorers should be auto-admits to your state public flagship. But your kid with the “unweighted 4.0 and 99.5% SAT” is going to “be allowed” to go to any number of great colleges.

[Anonymous]

This thread has devolved but much of the commentary now is about why test scores should be required for college admission. I respectfully do not think they should be. There is lots of research that shows SAT / ACT are biased to benefit Asians / Whites, and there are many reasons why URM do patently worse as a whole.

Lastly, most developed countries outside of the US don’t have admission exams. They use grades, coursework, and extra curriculars to decide who gets in. This inherently biased system of admissions exams using tests is a US thing, and it is geared to benefit those with means. Even the ones fighting the use of race based preference are the same ones using their means to gain an edge. It’s actually sickening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can all this be true and yet everyone keeps telling me my kid with a B average who is in advanced math and sciences classes won’t get in anywhere for college?

Yes. I am puzzled too. This is just discouraging that my kid is shut out because of the skin color and income of the parents.

But is your kid shut out? Seriously not admitted to one UCSD-caliber school in the United States? Many such schools have admissions rates over 80% and rely heavily on SAT scores. And if you’re focused on the short list of elite privates, well, UCSD was never one of those anyway.

It's absurd, plain and simple. The standards are different by zip code, this IS discrimination based on race, plain and simple, just not the way you like to look at it.

It’s technically selection based on socioeconomics rather than income to be honest. I also think it’s a brilliant and totally legal workaround. And you can always move to a neighborhood like Compton if you want a hook. It’s about making informed choices

Your system, or rather UC's system, is working pretty good then. Nothing like UC San Diego being put on blast for having college students who add like third graders. A resounding success!

UCSD is also a lower tier UC. Compare it to an Old Dominion with smarter kids and better weather.

Other than Berkeley, UC schools are all lower tier but USNWR loves them. Wonder if this revelation will cause adjustments to next years rankings.

Berkeley is no different than the others. It’s actually worse by some metrics like class sizes and courses taught by TAs.