Berkeley Professor Says Some Students Are Five to Eight Years Behind in Math
UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova is raising a blunt question about the university’s admissions standards: What happens when students are admitted without the skills needed for college-level work?
In an op-ed published by the San Francisco Standard, Stankova criticized the school’s testing and admissions policies. She pointed to decisions made under then-UC President Janet Napolitano, who previously served as Homeland Security Secretary under former President Barack Obama.
In 2020, Napolitano overruled a task force that had urged the University of California to phase out the SAT and ACT. She said the move was justified by pandemic disruptions and concerns about equity. The Regents later voted to make testing optional. A court ruling involving access for students with disabilities then required the UC system to remain test-blind through 2025.
Stankova says the results are showing up in her office hours. Instead of spending that time discussing calculus topics such as integrals, she says she is often teaching basic math that students should have learned years earlier.
“Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” Stankova wrote in the San Francisco Standard on August 14.
The criticism is especially notable because Berkeley remains one of the most selective public universities in the country. The New York Post reported that the school admitted just 10.5% of applicants.
Yet admissions results can vary sharply from one high school to another. Mission High School in San Francisco reportedly sent 34 of its 76 applicants to Berkeley last fall, a 45% acceptance rate. That was well above the statewide average of 15%, according to data compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The academic numbers at Mission High were far less impressive. Only 17% of its 11th graders scored proficient or above in English on the 2025 state assessment. In math, just 6% reached that level. The San Francisco Unified School District averages were 59% in English and 43% in math.
That contrast is at the heart of Stankova’s argument. Students with near-perfect test scores can be rejected while other students arrive at Berkeley needing instruction in fractions and basic algebra. For critics, that is not a minor gap. It is evidence that admissions policies focused on equity can ignore whether students are actually prepared for the work.