NPR’s Eyder Peralta speaks with University of California, Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova about efforts to bring back standardized exams as part of the admissions process.
EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
The University of California stopped requiring the SAT for admissions in 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic when it was hard to even take the test. Now some professors are desperate to get it back. They say a glut of unprepared students are sitting in their classes, draining their teaching resources. Zvezdelina Stankova is a math professor at the University of California, Berkeley and has been urging administrators to reinstate SAT or ACT scores as an admissions requirement. She joins us now. Professor, thank you for being with us.
ZVEZDELINA STANKOVA: Thank you for having me. This is a great honor to speak with you.
PERALTA: So when the University of California schools dropped the SAT, the argument was that it would make the admissions process more equitable. Tell us how you see that experiment six years later.
STANKOVA: Almost everyone applies to UC with exceptionally high GPAs and also AI-assisted essays. Everyone looks almost perfect on their applications, and there is no standard baseline that can be drawn to say the student can succeed in a rigorous STEM major or not. So what we are seeing are students who are failing because their lack of math preparedness was not identified.
PERALTA: Tell me what that looks like in the classroom. I mean, how far behind are some of your students?
STANKOVA: In the classrooms, the situation is actually dire. You have a third of the students who have severe math deficiencies. In one engineering class – was reported to us from other campuses, actually twice – students would stop the professor in the middle of a lecture to ask why one-half plus one-third equals five sixes, and the whole class has to stay to listen to the explanation.
PERALTA: Wow, so we’re talking really basic math.
STANKOVA: That’s right.
PERALTA: Over 1,000 professors joined you in signing an open letter to the Board of Regents demanding the UC system require the SAT. What’s been the overall effect on the faculty of trying to teach advanced subjects to students who haven’t been properly prepared?
STANKOVA: It is very depressing because we feel for those students. These are bright kids who have taken whatever classes were required at their schools, and they are placed directly into UC rigorous STEM major programs only so that they fail their very first calculus or other STEM class. And that puts an immense weight, an immense type of failure, I would say, on the budget system of California because this is a public system, public university.
PERALTA: So one of the reasons the University of California eventually stopped using test scores altogether was because of a lawsuit, and the plaintiffs there argued that the testing requirement unconstitutionally discriminated on the basis of race, wealth and disability. Does this settlement stand in the way of your effort?
STANKOVA: The ban from that settlement actually has expired. So now, officially, it is not standing in our way, but I do have to say that UC did not fight. They settled this lawsuit because I guess that was along the decision that was already taken by UC regents.
PERALTA: And what’s been the response from administrators about your pleas to reinstate entrance exams – about your pleas to reinstate the SAT and ACT?
STANKOVA: We wish we had entrance exams, just like (laughter) in the rest of the world, specifically in my home country, Bulgaria. As for the admissions response, there has not been much. We have heard from the chair of the UC assembly that UC has been doing a lot to help the underprepared students, and that is true. In my own math department, we had to create special courses to try to help those kids. But the risk of failing – even if you are in such courses, the risk of failing is up to 46% if you come unprepared like that. So the administration’s response is still yet to come.
PERALTA: That’s University of California, Berkeley math professor, Zvezdelina Stankova. Professor, thank you for being with us.
STANKOVA: Thank you for having me.
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Eyder Peralta 2026-06-06 11:41:05
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