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<\/p>\nIn the spring of 2023, UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova began to notice that about a third of her students were \u201cin freefall.\u201d They weren\u2019t showing up to lectures or doing their homework, and, on tests, they scored far below the average. At first, she thought it was an anomaly, but her observations were reinforced by a 2025 UC San Diego report that found that 1 in 12 of the campus\u2019s incoming students tested below middle school math standards.<\/p>\n
The development comes after the UC Board of Regents dispensed with standardized testing as a requirement of admission in 2020. That decision has since caused a rupture between faculty who feel the tests are an important measure of college preparedness and those who feel they discriminate against underrepresented students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In June, Stankova, along with fellow Berkeley math professor Svetlana Jitomirskaya and three other professors, penned an open letter calling for the SAT\/ACT math section to be reinstated as a consideration for admissions into STEM programs. It was followed by another letter from social sciences faculty calling for reinstatement of the reading and writing component. Together, the letters have garnered more than 3,000 signatures from faculty\u2014including five Nobel laureates\u2014across the UCs.<\/p>\n
The pro-test camp points to a 2020 systemwide review from the Berkeley Academic Senate that was conducted at the request of then\u2013UC President Janet Napolitano. The review found standardized test scores to be \u201cbetter predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average, and about as good at predicting first-year retention, UGPA [undergraduate grade point average], and graduation.\u201d The tests, they concluded, were also \u201cbetter predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority students, who are first generation, or whose families are low income.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStankova likens it to trying to prepare someone who\u2019s never driven to win a Formula One race.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Napolitano\u2019s recommendation, however, the regents took a different path, suspending the SAT\/ACT requirement, a decision many academics support. Plans were made to develop a UC-specific test, but to date, no such test has materialized.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Saul Geiser, M.A. \u201968, Ph.D. \u201979, a research associate at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley, said that the SAT is ill-suited to test STEM preparation as most of it only tests at a tenth-grade algebra level. When controlled for factors like income or race, he contends, GPA is a stronger predictor of first-year outcomes. His research found that the test disadvantages those from less privileged backgrounds.<\/p>\n
The pro-test side, however, argues that no admissions standard is without equity concerns. The social sciences faculty noted in their letter that the number of extracurricular activities that applicants report and the writing style of essays are also \u201cstrongly associated with social class.\u201d Standardized testing, other test proponents add, can actually favor equity by identifying \u201cdiamonds in the rough\u201d: talented students from underrepresented groups.<\/p>\n
Geiser doesn\u2019t buy it. \u201cThe decision of Ivy League colleges to reinstate the SAT has produced the opposite result, with dramatic declines in minority enrollment. It is an illusion to believe that UC would not experience the same adverse outcome,\u201d he wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
Writing in EdSource, Patricia G\u00e1ndara, professor emerita of education at UCLA, said that rather than deny opportunities to under-equipped students, the UCs should strive to meet their instructional needs.<\/p>\n
The Berkeley math department does currently offer a foundational math class, launched in 2023, aimed at getting students \u201cup-to-speed with the expectations of UC Berkeley\u2019s lower division mathematics courses.\u201d It\u2019s essentially a high-school level pre-calculus class covering material such as exponents, logarithmic functions, and complex numbers.<\/p>\n
Stankova says it is not enough; she likens it to trying to prepare someone who\u2019s never driven to win a Formula One race. \u201cWe care for the students. We don\u2019t want students who would fail when they come here,\u201d she said. But \u201cthat kind of low preparation is out of reach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gabriel Rossman, a UCLA sociology professor, thinks that without the test, admissions is essentially a \u201ccoin toss\u201d between two otherwise identical students.<\/p>\n
In terms of equity and access, he said that UC has a mission of \u201cexcellence and research\u201d that should be \u201copen to everybody \u2026 who has demonstrated excellence,\u201d but feels it is adequately addressed by California\u2019s three-tiered model of higher education. \u201cThat\u2019s why we have an excellent system of community colleges and Cal States. And we have a large number of transfers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stankova and Rossman are optimistic that some sort of testing requirement will be reinstated. Recently, the UC regents sped up the timeline for recommendations on standardized testing, changing the deadline from fall to June 2027.<\/p>\n
But even if the SAT\/ACT requirement does return, it won\u2019t happen right away. The first cohort of students who will be required to take the SAT may not enroll until the fall of 2030, Stankova said\u2014a full decade after the tests were dropped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the spring of 2023, UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova began to notice that about a third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-466283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}