The midterm grade spread in my Precalculus I course this summer was median 70% +/- 30% across all students, with four retakes allowed penalty-free. It was show your work with pencil and paper. The teacher noted that it’s the first time since Covid that no students were caught cheating by Proctorio.
I warned (in a fashion) the head of a college district last year that the “two-year degree” was not long for this world. They were not convinced. Least enjoyable ‘told you so’ ever.
At some point, folks who object to epic incompetence in government need to focus on where the buck stops:
> The University of California is governed by a twenty-six member Board of Regents, eighteen of whom are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ex officio members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate.[87]
Normally I would expect this to be self-rectifying, that students without the background for the curriculum would cause graduation rates to drop enough to be a problem.
And maybe that's the case but needs more time. More likely (as the article hints) the school will bend it's teaching to get these students through the program, which is short-sighted as it will erode the brand when mediocre graduates enter the workforce.
This article makes me super angry. Ours is an Indian-American family from the SF bay area. 3 years ago, my son graduated from one of the top high schools in the bay area with a 4.0+ GPA and 1600 SAT, getting all 5's in his 9 STEM AP classes, and was not accepted into a single UC for CS and Math. His HS counselor had asked us to lower our hopes, saying "to the UCs, he's just another very smart Asian or Indian kid. He's a statistic." That year, none of his (very high achieving) Asian friends with high GPAs and SATs got into UC Berkeley, UCLA, or UCSD. I recall that my rant got a crazy battle started here on HN.
Since then, he's done very well at a non-California school, but I will forever be pissed at the UC system. They passed on a brilliant student in the service of DEI.
BTW, I saw in the article the 2 sample math questions that stumped much of UCB's incoming class. What a freaking joke.
The only cure: throw out the entire board that decides admission policies; they are all incompetent. Ask professors to decide on admissions, not sociology and gender studies graduates. Heavily weigh the SAT and GPA instead of the essay. Hopefully this brings back some sanity to the process.
6 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 17.9 ms ] threadI warned (in a fashion) the head of a college district last year that the “two-year degree” was not long for this world. They were not convinced. Least enjoyable ‘told you so’ ever.
> The University of California is governed by a twenty-six member Board of Regents, eighteen of whom are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ex officio members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate.[87]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California%2C_Be...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_California_gubernatorial_...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_California#Recall_...
And maybe that's the case but needs more time. More likely (as the article hints) the school will bend it's teaching to get these students through the program, which is short-sighted as it will erode the brand when mediocre graduates enter the workforce.
Since then, he's done very well at a non-California school, but I will forever be pissed at the UC system. They passed on a brilliant student in the service of DEI.
BTW, I saw in the article the 2 sample math questions that stumped much of UCB's incoming class. What a freaking joke.
The only cure: throw out the entire board that decides admission policies; they are all incompetent. Ask professors to decide on admissions, not sociology and gender studies graduates. Heavily weigh the SAT and GPA instead of the essay. Hopefully this brings back some sanity to the process.