The open letter, released on May 25 and initiated by mathematicians at the University of California, Berkeley, is addressed to the University of California, one of the leading public university systems in the United States, comprising nine undergraduate campuses.
As of May 30, the letter had been signed by more than 1,000 professors, including seven of the nine chairs of UC mathematics departments and an additional 43 STEM department chairs.
"Over the past five years, we have seen a widening divergence in mathematical preparation levels within the same classroom. This trend indicates that current admissions practices do not provide a sufficiently reliable check on mathematical readiness for STEM majors," reads the letter.
The faculty members cited a November report from the University of California San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which found that the number of first-year students with math skills below a middle-school level had increased nearly 30-fold since 2020. According to the report, about 70% of those students performed below middle-school standards, accounting for roughly one in 12 members of the entering cohort.
"We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields," they said.
