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The calculus-readiness rate among University of California students entering introductory courses fell from 71% to 44% between the 2018-2020 cohort and 2023, with 17% of test-takers that year answering none of eight foundational diagnostic topics correctly.
Zvezdelina Stankova, a mathematics professor at UC Berkeley, published those figures in a San Francisco Standard op-ed on Saturday, attributing the decline to the UC system's 2020 decision to drop SAT and ACT requirements from admissions.
The bottleneck sits one course below the headline subject. Stankova teaches sections that seat between 500 and 1,400 students, and she writes that by the second week of a semester she already knows who is failing.
Some students arrive five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours meant for integrals become remediation sessions on fractions and linear equations. The diagnostic numbers make the before-and-after concrete.
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