To the sixth place At the U.S. public university UC San Diego, a quarter of students taking a placement exam in a remedial math course were unable to solve for recent viral report.
The remedial course, Mathematics 2, was designed for less than 1% of first-year students. Five years ago, enrollment was 32. By 2025, that number had reached nearly a thousand. The number of freshmen at UCSD performing below the middle school math level increase thirty times in that period, to 1 in 8 freshmen. Each UC campus is watching the same trend, although not always on this scale.
Over the past few weeks, media outlets around the world have agreed that the UC system brought these disastrous numbers on itself by removing standardized testing requirements from the admissions process (a step many colleges took early in the pandemic) and refusing to reinstate them as many other universities havebecause it turns out that those tests provide valuable information about preparation and likelihood of success in college. Even the UCSD Admissions Task Force, which produced the report, suggested that the university should at least “examine” restoring the exams.
As a high school junior who views UC San Diego as an excellent school, I was surprised by the findings about how many students are so poorly prepared for college. I have to wonder: After admissions departments at most other elite universities have reinstated testing requirements, why is the University of California system still test-blind?
You'd think a college applicant like me would appreciate it. Many teens view the SAT and ACT as a terrible test. Maybe a test score would hurt my chances of admission or maybe it wouldn't, but either way: the UC system should bring back those test requirements to help admit a pool of freshmen who are college-ready and likely to graduate.
This can't have been the first time someone at UC did the math and saw trouble coming. The entire blind testing experiment was based on a bold assumption: that standardized testing was excluding too many promising students, especially those from low-income schools, and that UC could admit a stronger, more diverse class by ignoring grades entirely, a money ball I bet they were hoping to find better predictors of success than the SAT and ACT. New data shows that the bet failed.
In an era of grade inflation and extreme disparities In district-to-district grading systems, uniform testing is the only reliable way for schools to know which applicants actually meet the basic requirements for college-level work. I don't dispute that disadvantaged students often get lower scores; However, standardized testing remains one of the least distorted parts of “holistic” implementation. Rehearsals, extracurricular activities, travel sports, the high school you attend: all of that can be sculpted by money and privilege. The same goes for test results, because wealthy students often benefit from expensive test preparation services. But in the end these scores do provide objective data, although not fair.
Standardized test results remain one of the strongest predictors for success at elite institutions, while high school grades almost not correlation with university performance. We found this in the UCSD report: 42% of those who were unable to demonstrate middle school level skills had finished at least precalculus in high school. The average high school math GPA among students in that remedial course was 3.7, with more than a quarter having a 4.0.
The institution should be embarrassed by this situation, which should prompt a return to standardized testing system-wide. And yet, I suspect inertia will prevail, given the thoughtful way in which the UC defend his admission philosophy in the face of the constant barrage of criticism.
That may be the system's biggest weakness. By doubling down and tripling down, crushing all critics of his equity agenda, many times for a good reason — UC universities let ideology drive the conversation, creating a crisis of unpreparedness.
He full point The idea of not testing was to reach talented students from struggling schools and from diverse, low-income backgrounds. UC leaders believed that low SAT scores were deterring many of them from applying or that admissions offices would pass over applications with average or low scores. A noble goal, but data now shows that the policy is harming the very students it was intended to help.
After eliminating testing requirements, the UC signed up more students from those communities. However, those are precisely the students of today. much more likely require remedial courses. Students who arrive unprepared for college-level work have significantly lower graduation rates. If a freshman can't solve 7 + 2 = x + 6, they are nowhere near an admissions-level SAT score.
To pretend otherwise is a disservice to the unprepared students who are being admitted. If the existing admissions process is diversifying the student body, it is also disproportionately harming some minorities: Hispanic, Black and Native students are more likely than white and Asian American students. attend college without completing a degreeand four years after starting to repay student loans, these “non-completes” are more likely to duty more than they borrowedunlike graduates.
The UC system's experiment in ignoring standardized testing paid off. Now the results are available. Leaders have the responsibility to correct course and resume considering SAT and ACT results.
William Liang He is a high school student in the Bay Area and a political columnist for the Hill.
