\n<\/p>\n
To the UC Regents, UCOP, Academic Senate leadership, and the people of California:<\/strong><\/p>\n We write as the mathematics faculty of the University of California, including faculty from other STEM disciplines. UC has long served students from every background and been a powerful engine of social mobility for Californians. That public trust must be preserved for future generations. Today UC’s mission is in danger. To preserve that mission:<\/p>\n We call for the reinstatement of the SAT\/ACT mathematics requirement for applicants to STEM majors beginning in the 2027 admissions cycle, along with STEM faculty oversight of preparation standards and admissions practices affecting those majors.<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the past five years, we have seen wide variation in the level of mathematical preparation within the same classroom. This trend indicates that current admissions practices do not provide a sufficiently reliable check on mathematical readiness for STEM majors. The UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions report documents this crisis in stark terms: Over the past five years, the number of students whose mathematics skills are below the high school level has increased nearly thirtyfold; Furthermore, 70% of those students come below the middle school level, amounting to approximately one in twelve members of the entering group. These findings are confirmed by data from our campuses. For example, for three consecutive years, 20\u201330% of UC Berkeley first-semester calculus students taking the Mathematical Diagnostic Test showed serious deficiencies in preparation.<\/p>\n Basic mathematical fluency corresponds to literacy; Without it, success in university-level STEM becomes structurally unattainable for students. We now see preparation gaps so severe that instructors are having to re-teach middle-school math while simultaneously teaching students the content needed for science, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields. UC has been a national leader in supporting under-resourced students to perform well in mathematics. However, UC has limited resources and can only help so many students, and only if it is within their reach to address the lack of preparation.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the growing divide between underprepared and well-prepared students creates polarized curricula, weakening the foundation available to many students and making it harder to teach at the level needed for advanced STEM work. UC is increasingly unable to provide its students with the education they need to become leaders in California’s scientific, technological, and economic future. We’re already seeing warning signs: longer pathways through required content, less preparation for advanced coursework, and increasing pressure to reduce quantitative rigor. Left unchecked, these trends will lead to declining graduation rates, longer time to degree, and decreased completion of STEM majors, with consequences for California’s highly skilled STEM workforce.<\/p>\n California’s public higher-education system is a coordinated pathway through community colleges, CSUs, and UCs that aligns students with the instruction best suited to their preparation. The current admissions system undermines this structure by admitting students directly into STEM UC programs without reliable measures of whether they are prepared to succeed. This doesn’t benefit anyone.<\/p>\n The ability gap widened after the elimination of the SAT\/ACT in 2020, a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability. This outcome was clearly predicted by the Academic Senate’s 2020 Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF) report, which warned that removing these tests would eliminate an important predictor of college success and obscure the effects of severe high-school grade inflation. Unfortunately, the consequences that report warned about have now materialized in the data from our campuses. All other major STEM institutions, including UC’s primary peers, have resumed using the SAT\/ACT in their admissions to ensure fundamental fluency. For the University of California to remain a global leader in STEM, restoring these objective standards is essential.<\/p>\n Rather than measuring advanced mathematical ability, the SAT\/ACT tests provide an important baseline: a general external check that students have the core mathematical fluency required for university-level STEM curriculum. SAT\/ACT scores can also identify high-potential students in low-resource schools whose talent may not otherwise be identified due to limited access to advanced curriculum.<\/p>\n The SAT\/ACT math requirement is not a barrier to equality; Rather, it is a prerequisite for it. Failure to measure preparation intervals does not eliminate obstacles; This takes them into orbit, where it becomes difficult to overcome them. An admissions process that ignores fundamental readiness does a disservice to the most vulnerable students. True access requires an honest assessment of the support students need and where, within California’s public higher-education system, they can best get it.<\/p>\n Current admissions metrics, which are based primarily on GPA and essays, can no longer differentiate readiness for university-level STEM majors in the era of severe grade inflation and AI-assisted application essays. We therefore call on the University of California to:<\/p>\n Obscuring preparation gaps harms students individually and the university collectively. This provides the appearance of accessibility while reducing the likelihood of success. UC must ensure that every student is appropriately challenged, helping to close real gaps, and providing a path toward a degree that retains its full value in the global economy. Restoring objective data and introducing faculty oversight will allow the University to effectively support students, provide institutional accountability, and preserve the standards that make UC STEM degrees worthwhile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To the UC Regents, UCOP, Academic Senate leadership, and the people of California: We write as the mathematics faculty of the University of California, including faculty from other STEM disciplines. UC has long served students from every background and been a powerful engine of social mobility for Californians. That public trust must be preserved for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[34038,1830,4883,3981,827,3838,19639,25843,3823,10576,1560,33878,377],"class_list":["post-162019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-meditation","tag-30fold","tag-demand","tag-faculty","tag-failing","tag-high","tag-increase","tag-majors","tag-math","tag-returns","tag-sat","tag-school","tag-stem","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162022,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162019\/revisions\/162022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n