UC San Diego adds remedial class in elementary and middle-school math

University of California at San Diego, rated one of the top public universities in the nation, is admitting students who can't do middle-school math, charges a university report. Since 2020, when standardized test scores were eliminated as an admissions factor, UCSD has seen a "steep decline" in academic readiness, warns the Senate–Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG).

Professors are seeing problems in language arts and writing classes too:18 percent of new students require a remedial writing class.

However, the big change has come in math readiness. One in eight first-year students score below Algebra 1 on placement exams, a number that's tripled since 2020. A new remedial class, called Math 2, teaches elementary and middle school math, reports Jesus Mesa for Newsweek. Another remedial class, Math 3B, teaches algebra and geometry.

Many Math 2 students plan to major in biology or social sciences.

Most UCSD remedial math students can answer first- and second-grade problems, but success rates drop in later elementary grades and few can solve seventh- and eighth-grade problems. Fractions are very challenging.

In addition to dropping the SAT/ACT scores, UCSD admitted more students from high schools with high rates of low-income and immigrant students. Learning and grading standards fell during remote schooling, says the report. The mix of factors "has produced an incoming class increasingly unprepared for the quantitative and analytical rigor expected at UC San Diego."

High school transcripts have become meaningless. Of students who failed to show middle-school math mastery in 2024, 94 percent had gone beyond Algebra II. Twenty percent had completed AP Calculus! "Over 25 percent of the students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0.”

Students from high-poverty high schools are more likely to place into remedial math. Their schools often have trouble hiring qualified math teachers and do not offer advanced math classes. Sometimes they've taken classes whose titles don't match what's actually taught.

"If we take seriously our mission as an engine of social mobility, we must be prepared to support students who have been underserved by their prior schooling," the committee wrote. "But our capacity is not limitless. We can only help so many students, and only when the gaps they need to overcome are within reach."

Furthermore,"admitting large numbers of profoundly underprepared students risks harming the very individuals the institution aims to support by setting them up for failure."

UCSD needs ways to assess students math, writing and literacy skills, the report concludes. It suggests developing a "math index" to predict students' need for remedial math, limiting the numbers of unprepared students and requiring summer remediation before fall enrollment.

Or there's a simpler solution. The report calls for the University of California system to conduct a "reexamination of standardized testing." That is, bring back SAT/ACT scores.