What does this have to do with LLMs? They stopped requiring SAT and ACTs in order to get a student population more representative of the population in general. This obviously allowed students that were not prepared for college into the system. If you do well in your math SATs you'll likely do well in math college. SAT scores and college GPA are highly correlated. No idea why anyone thought it was good to ignore probably the strongest signal of success in college.

This is all assuming tests measured anything valuable in the first place. In my experience standardized tests were always flawed and most of my peers knew shit about the subjects they passed in top % a year after. If AI breaks the current education system that's a win in my book.

The likely 'real' reason is hidden in one paragraph within the article and has nothing to do with the implication of the eye-catching title: "Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system. The petition and its accompanying open letter detail similar concerns with students’ mathematical preparation." Around COVID times many top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions, under an argument largely related to equity. It's been a failure everywhere, with many, if not most, universities already reversing it. As Yale put it, "Yale’s research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that, among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades. This is true even after controlling for family income and other demographic variables, and it is true for subject-based exams such as AP and IB, in addition to the ACT and SAT." [1] That link is for an archive because that page has been removed. That's because they briefly experimented with a new 'test flexible' strategy where they allowed students to submit test scores or not, but then scrapped that altogether and went back to simply requiring test scores. [1] - https://archive.is/8zxfo

Berkeley chancellor told students to vote for 2020 California Proposition 16, which would've repeated 1996 Proposition 209 that banned race-based admission in public universities. Prop 16 failed. Subsequently, Cal started ignoring SAT/ACT scores. I have to think this was their alternative way of taking fewer Asian students, who average highest on that. Soon after I got an email from the same chancellor praising the change for bringing more racial diversity. The email included before and after numbers where % Asian decreased and all others increased.

Reminds me of this asian professor getting blocked for promotion, allegedly, on the basis of race, but in a roundabout way. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/professor-sues-texas-unive...

If the removal of standardized testing in 2021 was the real reason, then why is there a sudden spike of failure rates happening right now?

It takes time to work through the system and it has been steadily getting worse. It was already discussed on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309233

I'm having a difficult time imagining how an admissions event in 2021 materializes in the spring semester of 2026 in a class largely taken by first-year students. Could you explain?

It didn't just suddenly materialize. From the current article In addition to overreliance on AI, Garcia also pointed out that many students are underprepared mathematically, a concern echoed by campus associate teaching professor Gireeja Ranade. From the article discussed the other week: Over three years — from fall 2021 to fall 2023 — the letter said, at least 20% of Berkeley first-semester calculus students who took a diagnostic exam showed deficits. “Basic mathematical fluency is analogous to literacy; without it, success in university-level STEM becomes structurally unattainable for students,” faculty wrote. It's been steadily getting worse. The current article only looks at F's which conveniently hides if there has been a slope down. Additionally, kids entering HS in 2021/2022 would just now be hitting college.

> It didn't just suddenly materialize. A sudden materialization is what's depicted by the data. > It's been steadily getting worse. I don't believe this is accurate. Failing grades are what the observation entails, and the data clearly depict an abrupt change; not a gradual one. In the section titled "Failing grades in 3 CS classes skyrocket in spring 2026 ", there's a clear jump in failing grades for all cited courses between 2025 and 2026. Failing grades for every course jump by multiples of the previous year.

SAT/ACT math is incredibly simplistic and at worst maybe contributed by not filtering as many out. Math scores have been declining nation wide for decades now, that’s been a big issue for a while.

It takes time for students to work their way through the system.

In the spring, but not the fall?

Wouldn’t this change be evidenced right away after the elimination of the test as criteria if the test was responsible

I'm guessing the kids who didn't do the standardized tests at/shortly after 2021 were already prepared for it. The kids who saw the removal of standardized testing 3 years out from going to college never bothered.

There's always a lag between cause and effect in education. Works the other way too - if you introduce something positive in grade 1, you'll only see the results a few years later.

If it's a lagging effect, then why is the year-over-year spike in failure rates happening not just in 1st/2nd year classes, but also in a 3rd/4th year class at the same time?

Entrance tests predict academic success , not 1st year success. "Failure to complete the qualification" is the prediction.

Testing was the annoying flood barrier. AI is the rainstorm that shows why it was necessary.

> removing test requirements from admissions, under an argument largely related to equity. It's been a failure everywhere [...] among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades. It reads as though you tried to use the quote to support your conclusion that "it's been a failure", but the quote and the original rationale are optimising for different things. Something can be a success in improving equal opportunity while still leading to worse grades. Or to flip it around: we could say admission testing "has been a failure everywhere" because it biases admissions in favour of certain demographics. But that wouldn't really be a fair assessment because being free of demographic biases is not the purpose of admission testing!

I'm not American so maybe I am missing some context. But how did admissions work without test scores?

Not American either, but in the US many schools use/used standardized admission tests (SAT/ACT) on top of things like HS GPA/grades. There are many countries, especially in Europe, where entrance/admission tests are not a thing.

Yeah, in England only certain universities like Oxford and certain subjects like Mathematics have separate entrance exams. That said, the Sixth Form exams are mostly standardised with only a few different exam boards for the entire country, so the Sixth Form grades end up being something akin to standardised tests anyway.

I worked in admissions for an Ivy League. We used a vibes based system based on how compelling a sob story you could concoct whilst staying on the good side of fraud. Ie you wanna aim for drug addict father black trans queer activist with autism etc whatever is on the NYT frontpage today. I know two companies whole line of business is just optimizing your sob story. Things are changing a bit now though, it did get a bit ridiculous around the years 0 - 4 AF (Anno Floyd). Core of the issue was always protecting legacy admissions and other grifts vs the deluge of Asian students with perfect test scores. I wish I was lying

>We used a vibes based system based on how compelling a sob story you could concoct whilst staying on the good side of fraud. Besides lost meritocracy, that is accidentally filtering for ability and willingness to manipulate others emotionally. Which feels really scary.

Honestly I don’t believe a thing they’re saying. Just look at the demographics of any Ivy League school and you’ll see it can’t be true

Somehow majority of Ivy League students don't have those sob stories and did not had for last years either?

But do these universities not have math placement exams? Not for admissions but just before you register for your first semester classes, a 30 minute math test should be a straightforward preventative measure. I did a test like this, I assumed they were pretty universal.

> top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions What could go wrong...

Memorize trivia and formulas, regurgitate trivia and formulas. This summarizes my experience with our system of education. Yale saying test scores predict performance reads to me as, “students’ history of being able to regurgitate trivia and formulas in high school is the lead predictor of their ability to do so here.”

In unrelated news "More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students." https://archive.ph/18spS

Who even makes the decision to drop having a standard bar to verify students? And what possible benefit would that have?

Why else does anyone in California get rid of anything? Because it’s racist.

More leeway in who you accept (for money and/or clout).

what if this is not due to AI use and instead due to the demolishing of standardized testing and "new Math" in the state of california?

what if it's not llms and instead the removal of standardized testing in the state of california?

The question comes sooner than the students being tested on the job market. Another possibility is that dropping standardized testing was a net bad idea.

This is orthogonal to standardized testing. At UC Berkeley L&S, students are undeclared by default, and everyone is incentivized to take the intro CS classes (CS10, CS61A) irrespective of aptitude because worst case they can declare a CS minor or use the classes for other adjacent degrees (eg. Applied Math, Data Science). Additionally, while Cal doesn't require standardized tests, most students who applied and attended already took the SAT, ACT, and APs becuase they cross-applied to other universities as well. This is reflected in UC Berkeley's HS Weighted GPA being in the 4.31-4.65 range [0], which means most students will have taken at least 6 AP classes. Hell, I attended an Ivy and even then Cal was a target program for me, as well as my peers. If I didn't get into my Ivy I would have ended up at Cal and ended up in the same position. [0] - https://admissions.berkeley.edu/apply-to-berkeley/student-pr...