A University of California, Berkeley, mathematics professor has sparked a fresh debate over US university admissions, saying that she is teaching middle-school fractions and basic algebra to students enrolled in college-level calculus, attributing the slide to the campus' test-blind admissions policy.
According to a report by the New York Post, Zvezdelina Stankova, a well-known UC Berkeley math faculty member and founder of the Berkeley Math Circle, wrote in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard that "some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics," with office hours meant for discussing integrals turning into remedial lessons on fractions.
She described the current admission process as "less like careful evaluation and more like chance," and warned that the situation has made one of America's most elite public universities "a laughing stock."
Stankova is among thousands of faculty who earlier this year signed open letters calling for the restoration of the SAT and ACT in admissions to help ensure academically prepared students are admitted, as per the report.
Stankova pointed to a diagnostic exam given to Calculus 1 students before 2020, which showed 71 per cent of test-takers were "ready or nearly ready" for calculus, with only 0.14 per cent testing below basic algebra between 2018 and 2020.
After UC Berkeley moved to a test-blind policy, the share of students deemed ready fell to 44 per cent between 2021 and 2023, and by 2022-23 more than one-third of calculus students had "severe math deficits," with zero being the most common score on the exam, she asserted.
The report highlighted that standardised testing was phased out by UC Berkeley in 2020 after the then-UC system president, Janet Napolitano, overruled a task force that had recommended keeping the exams, citing pandemic disruptions and equity concerns; a subsequent court ruling required the UC system to be test-blind through 2025.
While peers such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Yale reinstated testing requirements after pandemic-era suspensions, UC has "moved in the opposite direction," with no new admissions policy set before fall 2028, Stankova argued.
