Professor at global top-five university says students are up to 8 years behind in math

"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," professor Zvezdelina Stankova wrote in an Aug. 15 opinion piece for the San Francisco Standard.

The UC Berkeley, one of the most selective public universities in the U.S., ranked fifth in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities by ShanghaiRanking, which assessed more than 2,500 universities worldwide. It admits about 10.5% of applicants.

Stankova, who was born in Bulgaria and earned her PhD from Harvard University, has spent years promoting mathematics education. She founded the Berkeley Math Circle and helped establish a local mathematics competition for high school students.

She said students' mathematical preparedness has declined since the University of California system stopped considering standardized test scores in undergraduate admissions.

The system stopped requiring ACT or SAT scores in 2020 and now follows a test-free admissions policy. At the time, some faculty warned that the change would make it harder to assess applicants, particularly amid rising high school grades, New York Post reported.

Students at the Charles F. Doe Memorial Library at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S. Photo from the university's website

Stankova described the current admissions process as "less like careful evaluation and more like chance."

She pointed to results from a diagnostic exam given to students entering Calculus I. Before 2020, 71% of students taking the exam were considered "ready or nearly ready" for calculus, but the share fell to 44% between 2021 and 2023, she said.

By the 2022-23 academic year, more than one-third of calculus students were assessed as having severe math deficiencies, with zero becoming the most common score on the diagnostic exam.

Stankova said the widening gap has effectively created two groups in her classes: students prepared for university-level mathematics and those who need substantial remedial instruction before they can tackle calculus.

She argues that standardized tests could give universities additional information to determine whether applicants have the mathematical foundation needed for demanding science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.

Several other elite U.S. universities, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Yale, suspended standardized testing requirements during the Covid-19 pandemic but have since reinstated them.

Concerns over students' math skills have prompted more than 1,100 professors to sign an open letter urging the University of California to reinstate standardized testing requirements for STEM programs, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The letter, initiated by UC Berkeley mathematicians, argues that gaps in students' mathematical knowledge are making it increasingly difficult for faculty to teach at the level required for advanced STEM courses. The professors also warned that declining math preparedness among university students could eventually hurt California's technology-driven economy.

Stankova, one of the faculty members who signed the letter, said the University of California has "moved in the opposite direction" and noted that no new admissions policy is expected to take effect before fall 2028.

"Students don’t have that kind of time: They attend college once," she wrote.