SAWG : Admissions Review

 The Executive Summary details that UC San Diego experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students between 2020 and 2025, affecting mathematics most severely, but also writing and language skills. This decline is highlighted by the finding that the number of students whose math skills fall below middle-school level increased nearly thirtyfold during this five-year period, representing approximately one in eight members of the entering cohort.

In the larger context of the UC San Diego Admissions Review: Final Report (2025), this preparation decline serves as the primary crisis motivating the Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) investigation and its resulting recommendations. The summary attributes this deterioration to coinciding factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools (LCFF+). The SAWG concludes that this poses serious challenges to student success and the university’s instructional mission.

The body of the report then elaborates on these factors and proposes remedies, which are summarized in the Executive Summary's Key Recommendations. These recommendations include developing the Math Index to predict the likelihood of placement into remedial math, reasserting faculty oversight through the Committee on Admissions, and advocating for a systemwide reexamination of standardized testing.

The sources define the Decline Severity through quantifiable, alarming statistics primarily related to mathematics preparation, which the Executive Summary: Preparation Decline (2020-2025) identifies as the primary crisis.

Severity Metrics in Mathematics: The most severe indicator of the decline is the increase in the number of students whose math skills fall below middle-school level. Between 2020 and 2025, this population experienced a nearly thirtyfold increase. This demographic grew to constitute roughly one in eight members of the entering cohort. Specifically, this represented over 900 students in the combined remedial courses (Math 2 and Math 3B) in Fall 2024, amounting to an alarming 12.5% of the incoming first-year class, compared to under 1% before 2021.

Severity Compared to Peers: The severity of this decline at UC San Diego is considered significantly worse than at peer institutions. A survey conducted among UC Math Chairs revealed that other campuses observed an increase in underprepared students by a factor of only two or three over the same five-year period, while UC San Diego’s increase was drastically higher.

Consequences of the Decline: The preparation decline is severe not only in numbers but also in the depth of the skills gap, with instructors observing deficits that extend back to middle and even elementary school math (grades 1-8). This lack of foundational knowledge results in severe downstream academic consequences, as reflected in high D, F, or Withdraw (DFW) rates for these students in college calculus sequences (e.g., a 51.8% DFW rate in Math 20C). Furthermore, data indicates that few, if any students who place into the lowest remedial course (Math 2) have successfully completed an engineering degree.

Context within the Executive Summary: The Executive Summary concludes that this trend of students being "increasingly unprepared for the quantitative and analytical rigor" expected at UC San Diego poses serious challenges to student success and the university’s instructional mission. The recognition of this severe decline was the impetus for the entire Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) investigation, which focused most of its time and effort on addressing this issue. The summary attributes this deterioration to the COVID-19 pandemic, the elimination of standardized testing, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.

The Executive Summary identifies four major coinciding trends responsible for the steep decline in student preparation: the COVID-19 pandemic and its educational effects, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools (LCFF+). The summary concludes that the combination of these factors produced an incoming class increasingly unprepared for the quantitative and analytical rigor expected at UC San Diego.

General Contributing Factors (Systemwide)

1. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Beginning in the spring of 2020, the pandemic forced K-12 and higher education online, resulting in a well-documented decline in student preparedness. State assessment data (CAASPP) revealed drops in both language and math achievement levels in 2022 that have not yet fully recovered. Instructors noted that the deficit created during remote learning often affected critical developmental periods for math skills, such as the 6th grade. The pandemic also exacerbated existing inequalities, negatively affecting under-resourced schools in poor areas the most.

2. The Elimination of Standardized Testing: In 2020, the UC Board of Regents eliminated the SAT and ACT from admissions consideration starting with the 2021 cohort, against the advice of the Academic Senate’s Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF). This decision aimed to broaden the applicant pool. However, the elimination resulted in increased reliance on high school grades, despite the STTF already noting a worrisome trend of grade inflation before 2020.

3. Grade Inflation and Transcript Reliability: The disruption caused by COVID-19 likely accelerated grade inflation and lowered standards in California high schools, making the quality of information received from school transcripts less reliable as a gauge of student success. Evidence suggests that high school math curriculum and grades have become poor predictors of actual readiness:

   • In Fall 2024, 94% of severely underprepared students (those needing Math 2/3B) had taken math courses beyond the minimum high school requirement, with 42% completing Calculus or Precalculus, indicating a significant mismatch between coursework and actual skill level.
   • The difference in average high school math GPA between students needing preparatory courses and those ready for college-level calculus was very small—often less than one-tenth of a grade point. The correlation between average math grade and placement result is only around 0.25. In 2024, over 25% of students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0.

UC San Diego Specific Factor (Excessive Increase)

The sources detail that UC San Diego’s sharp increase in underprepared students, compared to its peers, is linked to its excessive expansion of admissions from LCFF+ high schools.

• LCFF+ Enrollment Surge: Beginning in 2022, UC San Diego enrolled the largest number of students from LCFF+ schools across the entire UC system for three consecutive years (2022–2024). More than a third of enrolled first-year students at UC San Diego during 2022–2024 were admitted from LCFF+ schools.
• Widening Preparation Gap: This surge occurred at a challenging time because the pandemic produced greater learning losses in under-resourced schools (LCFF+), and their academic recovery has been slower.
• Disproportionate Impact: When UC San Diego doubled its LCFF+ enrollees in 2022-2023, the number of students placed into the lowest remedial course (Math 2) nearly doubled, and 80% of those additional students came from LCFF+ schools. This demonstrated that the UC San Diego-specific policy of dramatically increasing LCFF+ enrollment coincided precisely with the steepest decline in academic preparation.

The Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) was primarily charged with addressing this insufficient mathematics preparation, concluding that regardless of the underlying causes, the problem is serious and demands an immediate institutional response.

The steep decline in academic preparation at UC San Diego, particularly in mathematics and also in writing/language skills, which is the core subject of the Executive Summary: Preparation Decline (2020-2025), is concluded by the Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) to pose serious challenges both to student success and to the university’s instructional mission.

Challenges to Student Success

The challenge to student success is primarily driven by the admission of large numbers of underprepared students, which risks harming those students by setting them up for failure.

1. High Failure Rates in College Courses: Students placed into the lowest remedial math course, Math 2, experience significantly high D, F, or Withdraw (DFW) rates in their subsequent required college-level math sequences.
   • In the Math 10 series, DFW rates for Math 2 students are 24.1% in 10A, 30.3% in 10B, and 40.7% in 10C.
   • The rates are even more problematic in the Math 20 series (for STEM majors), with 31.2% DFW in Math 20B and over half (51.8%) DFW in Math 20C.
2. Impediment to Degree Completion: For math-intensive majors like Engineering, students who do not complete their math requirements are unable to make progress toward their degrees. Data shows that few, if any, students who placed into Math 2 have successfully completed an engineering degree.
3. Lower Retention and Longer Time-to-Degree: Students enrolled in math-intensive majors who are unable to place into the required calculus sequence in a timely manner (e.g., after the first year) are at risk of not succeeding in their major and exhibit lower retention rates and longer times to degree.
4. Skills Gaps are Profound: The severity of the preparation deficits, especially in math, goes back much further than high school topics, extending to middle and even elementary school math (grades 1–8). Students placed into Math 2 struggle with fundamental concepts like fractions, factoring, and notation, and lack "logical thinking" necessary for problem-solving.

Challenges to the Instructional Mission

The admission trend strains the university’s instructional mission by straining limited instructional resources and demanding excessive remedial education.

1. Increased Burden on Faculty and Resources: The preparation decline puts significant strain on faculty who work to maintain rigorous instructional standards. The Math Department was caught by surprise by the rapid growth in underprepared students beginning in Fall 2022 and had to scramble to find additional instructors for Fall 2023.
2. Unprecedented Remediation Needs: UC San Diego is uniquely burdened, being the only UC campus to offer a course equivalent to Math 2, which remediates elementary and middle school math. Remedial efforts must now cover gaps that are often beyond reach.
3. Maintaining Rigor vs. Support: The university's capacity to deliver remedial education responsibly and effectively is not limitless. The university must find a balance, recognizing that while it is committed to social mobility, it "can only help so many students". The problem is considered so serious that the SAWG devoted most of its time and effort to addressing this insufficient mathematics preparation.

The sources place Language and Literacy Preparation as a key component of the overall "Preparation Problems Identified" at UC San Diego, noting a steep decline in academic preparation that affects not only mathematics but also writing and language skills. The Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) was specifically charged with assessing the writing preparation of admitted students.

Severity and Interrelation of the Problem

While the decline in mathematics was deemed the "most urgent concern", faculty reports indicate that students' language skills increasingly limit their ability to engage with longer and more complex texts.

The sources highlight a significant overlap between language and math deficits:

• In 2024, two out of five students with severe deficiencies in math also required remedial writing instruction.
• Conversely, one in four students with inadequate writing skills also needed additional math preparation.

Regarding the volume of underprepared writing students, a similarly large share of students must take additional writing courses to reach the level expected of high school graduates, though this figure has not varied much over the 2020–2025 time span, unlike the dramatic growth seen in remedial math. However, the percentage of domestic first-year students placed into Analytical Writing Courses (ELWR-fulfilling courses) did increase slightly from 2022 to 2024, returning to 2018 levels of about 19%, suggesting an impact from recent national literacy trends.

Assessment Mechanisms and Future Study

Students must fulfill the UC Entry Level Writing (ELWR) requirement, which determines if they need to be placed into an appropriate writing course. The system-wide Analytical Writing Placement Exam (AWPE) was discontinued in 2023. UC San Diego developed a local Writing Placement Process (WPP), a collaborative model that includes students’ self-assessment and faculty reading of written responses. This new WPP is significantly different from the prior AWPE.

Despite anecdotal concerns and evidence of national decline, the SAWG concluded that the complexities of student language preparation require a separate inquiry due to the need for more data. Factors contributing to changes in skills include the placement mechanism changes, the pandemic, and the rapid introduction of artificial intelligence tools.

Recommendations to Address Literacy

The report’s recommendations for addressing the writing problem include:

1. Commissioning a dedicated campus study on writing and literacy preparedness, involving humanities and writing program faculty, library experts, and specialists in communication across disciplines.
2. Developing or adopting a more predictive assessment of writing and language skills for use in admissions, which would move beyond GPA and course titles to evaluate readiness for college-level analytical and compositional work.
3. Integrating improved literacy indicators, alongside the proposed Math Index, into the holistic review for majors requiring high analytical or quantitative skills.

The Holistic Review Process is central to the UC San Diego Admissions Review: Final Report (2025), as the Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG) was specifically charged with conducting a statistical analysis of the process itself. This process is divided into two distinct stages.

Stage 1: Creation of the Holistic Review Score (HRS)

In the first stage, professional and external readers score each first-year application based on a range of factors derived from BOARS guidance.

• Scoring: Scores range from 1 (highest/best) to 5 (lowest/worst). Two readers review each file, and a third reader reconciles differences if the initial scores vary by more than one point.
• Grade Correlation: The HRS is designed to reflect the entirety of a student’s achievements and promises. However, statistical analysis showed that the HRS has a very high correlation (about 0.8) with the student’s weighted High School GPA (HSGPA) in the local context.
• Mitigating Grade Inflation: Although highly correlated with grades, readers are trained to see past grade inflation by comparing an applicant’s GPA against other applicants from the same high school.
• Focus on General Potential: Readers utilize essays (PIQs) and activities lists to assess background, potential, and life experiences, which help differentiate among students who look academically similar. Importantly, readers are specifically trained not to take a student’s preparation into account differently based on their intended major.

Stage 2: The Shaping of the Class

The second stage, overseen by the Selection Committee (staff and leadership, excluding readers), uses the HRS to determine offers of admission that align with overall enrollment goals and limitations.

• Flexibility and Major Consideration: As the applicant pool grew, the committee increasingly had to limit how often the HRS alone led to the decision, instead factoring in additional academic and non-academic factors, particularly the requested major.
• Access and Equity: The committee strategically dips further into the applicant pool (beyond the highest scores) to expand access for students seeking majors the university wishes to grow or those from schools the university seeks to serve better.
• Portfolio Impact: For Arts applicants, a departmental portfolio review is conducted on a parallel track. The portfolio score is only used to tip the decision one way or another if the applicant’s HRS falls within the middle ranges; a high or low HRS guarantees admission or rejection, respectively, regardless of artistic talent.
• Major Mismatch: While holistic review ignores major-specific preparation during scoring, the Selection Committee may admit a student to the university but not into their first-choice major (resulting in an alternate major or undeclared status).

Recommendations for Strengthening the Holistic Review

Recognizing the lack of reliable predictive information post-standardized testing, the SAWG recommended strengthening the Holistic Review Process by integrating new predictive tools and enhancing faculty oversight:

• Integration of Math Index: The SAWG recommends integrating the newly developed Math Index (a statistical predictor of remedial math placement) into the holistic review specifically for majors requiring high analytical or quantitative skills. The goal of this integration is to reduce enrollment in the lowest remedial math course (Math 2) to near zero.
• Improved Literacy Assessment: The process must develop or adopt a more robust and predictive methodology to evaluate applicants’ writing and language skills, moving beyond GPA and course titles, for use in admissions.
• Faculty Oversight: The Committee on Admissions (CoA) should play a more active leadership role, helping to define and update the process for assigning HRS and shaping the class, and receiving regular reports tracking correlations between HRS and post-enrollment outcomes (like math placement and graduation rates).

The UC San Diego Admissions Review: Final Report (2025), produced by the Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG), presents a comprehensive set of recommendations designed to address the steep decline in student academic preparation, particularly in mathematics, which poses serious challenges to student success and the university’s instructional mission.

These recommendations are divided into several key areas for future action:

1. Addressing the Math Preparation Crisis

Since math insufficient preparation was the SAWG's most urgent concern, the majority of recommendations focused on this area:

• The Math Index: Develop and implement a Math Index—a statistical model that uses historical data on high school grades, coursework, and high school attended to optimally predict a student’s likelihood of placement into remedial math (Math 2/3B).
• Target Goals: Use the Math Index in conjunction with the Holistic Review to ensure that the number of first-year students requiring Math 2/3B remains manageable, setting an initial target of no more than 300 first-year students in these courses by 2026–27, with an ultimate goal of reducing Math 2 enrollment to near zero.
• Holistic Implementation: Implement a "running tally" system during the selection process to track the expected number of remedial math enrollees, aligning this predictive tool with the holistic admissions approach.
• Early Remediation: Institute a policy requiring incoming students who need math for their major to establish math proficiency (usually via the Math Placement Exam) by June 1 of the summer before enrollment, enabling timely registration for summer remedial coursework.
• Policy Adjustments: Reassess math requirements by major (e.g., distinguishing between B.A. and B.S. degrees) and bring UC San Diego’s enrollment levels from under-resourced (LCFF+) high schools back into alignment with those of similarly selective UC campuses.
• High School Feedback: Establish feedback mechanisms with high schools that demonstrate persistent mismatches between high student grades and low placement results to address issues of curriculum quality and grade inflation.

2. Improving Writing and Literacy Assessment

Recognizing preparation deficits in writing and language skills, the SAWG recommended two actions requiring further study:

• Campus Study: Commission a dedicated campus study on writing and literacy preparedness involving faculty expertise from humanities, writing programs, and the library, particularly given the challenges posed by new artificial intelligence tools.
• Predictive Assessment: Develop or adopt a more predictive assessment of writing and language skills for use in admissions, which must move beyond simply relying on GPA and course titles to evaluate readiness for college-level analytical and compositional work.

3. Strengthening Faculty Oversight and Holistic Review

To maintain accountability and effective admissions practices, the SAWG recommended strengthening faculty involvement:

• Active CoA Role: Reaffirm the Committee on Admissions (CoA) to assume a proactive leadership role in shaping and evaluating admissions policies, including overseeing the implementation and annual recalibration of the Math Index.
• Integration: Integrate the Math Index and any new literacy indicators into the holistic review process for majors requiring high analytical or quantitative skills.
• Transparency: Improve transparency regarding the use of Arts portfolios by sharing outcomes information with faculty reviewers in the respective departments.

4. Systemwide Recommendations

The SAWG proposed two major actions that must be addressed at the system level (through BOARS, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools):

• Standardized Testing Reexamination: The majority of the workgroup recommended advocating for a systemwide reexamination of the possible return to standardized testing (SAT/ACT), arguing that high school math grades are only weakly linked to actual preparation, and standardized tests were historically the best predictor of math placement success.
• Investigate Grading: BOARS should investigate the wide variation in grading standards across California high schools and develop a UC-wide response to ensure fair and consistent academic evaluation.