According to an August 15, 2026 opinion piece in The San Francisco Standard by UC Berkeley mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova, the University of California’s test‑blind admissions policy coincides with a marked decline in incoming students’ calculus readiness and with cases she describes as inconsistent admissions outcomes.
What the Berkeley professor reports
Stankova writes that in her large UC Berkeley lecture halls—500 to 1,400 students, three days a week—she can identify by the second week which students are in serious trouble. “Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics,” she states. She reports that office hours meant for calculus frequently become remedial sessions on fractions and basic algebra.
Her diagnostic numbers
Stankova cites internal diagnostic data to describe the change. Before UC adopted test‑blind admissions (2018–2020), she reports that roughly 71% of about 2,200 students tested as ready or nearly ready for calculus, with just 0.14% scoring below basic algebra. After the shift (2021–2023), among approximately 2,800 Calculus I students tested on eight mathematical topics, she reports readiness fell to 51% overall and to 44% by 2023. Seventeen percent, she writes, answered none of the eight topics correctly. By 2022–23, more than one‑third showed severe deficits, and the most common score was zero, according to her account.
Two admissions cases she highlights
To illustrate what she views as inconsistent outcomes, Stankova recounts two anonymized cases from March admissions decisions. One student, “Elias,” was admitted to a competitive UC engineering program despite math being his weakest high‑school subject, a result that surprised his family. Another student, “Nadia,” she writes, was repeatedly rejected by UC campuses despite earning A’s in Calculus II and other college‑level STEM courses through concurrent enrollment. Stankova states she changed names and omitted school details to protect privacy and argues the outcomes appear arbitrary rather than the product of careful academic evaluation.
Policy backdrop and faculty push
UC went test‑blind during the pandemic and has maintained the policy even as some peer institutions restored testing, Stankova notes. She writes that thousands of faculty across all 10 UC campuses—including more than two‑thirds of the system’s mathematics faculty—signed open letters this spring and summer urging restoration of the SAT and ACT. According to her piece, faculty requests for a faster policy review were met with a timeline that could delay any change until fall 2028 at the earliest.
Stakes she identifies
While emphasizing that affected students are bright and motivated, Stankova argues that without a common benchmark of readiness across varied high schools, many entrants to rigorous STEM tracks face steep odds, with non‑passing rates among the most underprepared reaching nearly half in some cohorts she describes. She contends the data demand urgent attention if UC is to prepare the next generation of scientific and technical leaders.
