Remember when the University of California kicked off a trend by eliminating the SAT test as an admissions requirement five years ago? Now arrives the dispiriting result: Many freshmen at one of its top public universities can\u2019t do middle-school math.<\/p>\n
The University of California, San Diego, is widely considered one of the nation\u2019s top public universities, ranking sixth in U.S. News & World Report. So a new analysis by its joint faculty-administration committee of its student preparation may reflect a broader decline in academic rigor and standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past five years, UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students\u2014particularly in mathematics, but also in writing and language skills,\u201d the report notes. \u201cThis trend poses serious challenges both to student success and to the university\u2019s instructional mission.\u201d That\u2019s an understatement. Do college students even know what these words mean? <\/p>\n
One in eight of UC San Diego freshmen have math skills that \u201cfall below middle-school level,\u201d a 30-fold increase since 2020. Yet the average high-school math GPA was an A- for students taking a middle-school remedial course. This suggests rampant grade inflation in high schools. Its effects were exacerbated by the UC Board of Regents move in May 2020 to stop requiring the SAT in the name of making admissions more equitable and improving \u201ceducational quality.\u201d <\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a92025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember when the University of California kicked off a trend by eliminating the SAT test as an admissions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":402310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,190270,1582,276,2871,190303,190302,190268,407,190269,57,587,5622,3234,190263,3549,7264,5660,36743,67,586,132,5230,4280,190301,68,2969,190300,190235],"class_list":{"0":"post-402309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ce-executive-news-filter","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-college","13":"tag-commentaries","14":"tag-commentaries-opinions","15":"tag-content-types","16":"tag-education","17":"tag-factiva-filters","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-north-america","20":"tag-opinions","21":"tag-political","22":"tag-political-general-news","23":"tag-san-diego","24":"tag-sandiego","25":"tag-synd","26":"tag-uc-san-diego","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-united-states-of-america","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","31":"tag-university","32":"tag-university-college","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa","35":"tag-western-u-s","36":"tag-wsj-pro-wsj-com"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115607191477161357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}