Unprepared: SF high helps grads get into Berkeley, but many fail

When it comes to getting students into Berkeley, San Francisco's Mission High School has been the top public high school in the state for the last four years, reports Ezra Wallach in the San Francisco Standard. But many Mission grads aren't prepared to succeed in rigorous classes. Looking at the percentage of Berkeley students who make it to sophomore year, Mission is the second worst in the state.

Photo: George Pak/Pexels

The San Francisco Chronicle analyzed University of California acceptance rates for every public high school in the state. Since UC stopped considering SAT or ACT scores in 2020, Mission High's Berkeley acceptance rate has soared, outpacing higher-performing public schools.

It's not surprising that they struggle: Only 11 percent of Mission's 11th graders scored proficient in English, 6 percent in math on the 2025 state tests. That's the lowest of any San Francisco Unified high school, and far below the district average, Wallach notes.

Only 61 percent of Mission graduates who enroll at UC campuses earn a degree in six years, the lowest of any Bay Area public high school and "among the worst rates in the state," he adds.

With so many UC applicants reporting very high grades, admissions officials rely more heavily on non-academic factors. More than 80 percent of Mission students are Hispanic or black, and students are disproportionately from lower-income, immigrant and first-generation families.

In 2019-20, before UC went "test-blind," Mission had the worst average ACT of any large public high school in the city, Wallach reports. Citywide, 53 percent of students got a 21 or higher, often considered the minimum for college readiness, and the average math score was 22. At Mission, only 15 percent of ACT test-takers got a 21 or higher. The average ACT math score was 15.

College counseling is excellent, Misael Villalta told Wallach. But he discovered at Berkeley that academic preparation is not. He had to work harder than his college college classmates “because I had never been exposed to that same level of academic rigor.”

It was easy to earn good grades at Mission High, said Levi Lum, now a Berkeley economics major. “In many required classes, attendance and basic completion could be enough to receive a grade that would ordinarily signal strong proficiency.”

He realized in college that he had gaps in mathematical fluency. In addition, classes moved faster than he was used to, making “it harder to keep up with new material,” he told Wallach.

“Mission gave me considerable room to pursue independent interests and projects, but it did not consistently require sustained academic discipline. It was possible to excel without especially consistent study habits. I had to develop those habits after arriving at Berkeley.” -- Levi Lum

Mission lets juniors and seniors take only three honors or AP classes a year, Villalta said. The school has only 8 AP classes. Lowell High, the district's academic magnet, offers 33 AP classes and students can take as many as they can handle.

There weren't many "tough" teachers, Lum said. In some AP classes, students earned good grades, but poor scores on the AP exam. “Most teachers seemed to care a lot, but the quality and collegiate relevance of instruction were often uneven.”

Thousands of faculty members have asked UC to reinstate SAT or ACT tests to ensure students are prepared for college-level classwork, Wallach writes.

UC risks becoming a "degree-stamping mill," said Mina Aganagic, a Berkeley professor of mathematics and physics.

It's "cruel" to place students in programs for which they're unprepared, UC Davis mathematician Joel Hass said. Students should be guided "to the educational environment where they have the greatest opportunity to flourish,” he said. “For some, this is one of the UC campuses, and for others it is CSU or the community colleges.”

At its July 14 meeting, the UC Board of Regents set a June 2027 deadline for the Academic Senate to deliver a formal recommendation on testing applicants. That means at least two more classes will be admitted based on grades, which are so inflated as to be meaningless, and non-academic factors.

More highly selective schools are requiring SAT or ACT scores this year due to grade inflation. Fewer are requiring supplementary essays due to AI cheating.