In fall 2023, ~24% of students received a non-passing grade, and 6% withdraw, from Math 1A. This appears to be significantly higher than in previous years (~11% in fall 2021 and ~14% in fall 2022). But also, 28% of students received A+ grades.
The linked page mentions recommendations to address this issue. One is that Math 1A and 1B will be renumbered to 51 and 52, because there may be the belief that Math 1A is a less difficult course than Math 10A or 16A due to its lower course number.
UCB admissions ceased consideration of standardized scoring in, I believe, 2020. Based on the years mentioned above, can this policy change be safely disregarded as a potential factor in this decline in collegiate performance?
Fall 2021 entrants were the first entering frosh class admitted without use of SAT or ACT scores.
I wouldn’t think so given the fact that 2021 and 2022 freshman (both admitted without test scores) had significantly lower failure rates.
How do these data compare to the years prior to 2021?
Without even looking at the link, my first thought would be rough preparation in foundational math courses during COVID virtual learning. Fall 2021 and 2022 were high school upperclassmen during that time, whereas fall 2023 freshmen would have been more at the foundational levels of alg 1/geom/alg 2.
I would also look at any changes to the structure of the math track, if there were any (I don’t know, just speculating), that would have affected these class years, maybe back in middle school.
If there is other standardized testing during middle and high school, such as state tests, I’d wonder what they showed for the fall 2023 freshman class year relative to earlier ones.
The linked page only lists comparisons from fall 2021 to fall 2023 entrants in Math 1A.
All of the cohorts in question from fall 2021 to fall 2023 entrants would have experienced COVID-19 disruptions in high school, but at different stages. Fall 2021 entrants would have experienced the disruptions in late 11th to early 12th grade, while fall 2023 entrants would have experienced the disruptions in late 9th to early 10th grade.
Note that the charts suggest that the percentage of high grades did not significantly change, but the percentage of C grades dropped while the percentage of low grades rose over these years.
Not mentioned in the linked page, but it would not be surprising if many of the high grades, including the 28% A+ grades, were students who were repeating their high school calculus that they did well in.
Another factor in the mix is the quality of teaching. Note that there was only one professor for Math 1A in the fall of 2023 (just before the task force was convened in February of ’24), and his reviews on RateMyProfessor are absolutely savage.
Avoid the class if possible. Weekly quizzes that are very difficult and not related to homework sometimes. Also very heavy on homework with random deadlines. The homework is on an online platform and the AI doesn’t detect signs correctly so it would take a long time to get the way the AI wants it. No partial credit for exam questions
Took calc in high school, even then prof. [name]'s tests and policies were ridiculous. over 20% of students at the number 1 public university failing an intro calculus class is not anyone else’s fault but his own overly convoluted teaching methods that confuse students more than teaching them.
Made basic calculus SO confusing for even students who had prior knowledge of the course. Cannot imagine how difficult this class would be for students who had no prior knowledge. Exam averages were always ridiculously low but curved up on behest of GSIs because literally everyone failed. Not approachable/helpful in lecture.
DO NOT TAKE MATH1A WITH [professor]. DO NOT DO IT. this is the worst class i have ever taken at berkeley. this class STRESSED ME OUT rather than teaching me something.
Worst experience of my life. After each midterm and the final, I saw at least 10 people in TEARS. These people including myself studied for weeks and weeks, using every material released to prepare. The previous year’s released exams were significantly easier than our exams this year, hence our class averages being the worst in Math 1A history.
I had to self teach myself this whole class and relied heavily on my peers, TA, and youtube videos. Lectures did little to no help. Midterm and final was an absolute disaster because the questions were so difficult.
[the professor’s] proficiency in mathematics is so advanced that breaking down problems and explaining step-by-step how to solve an equation becomes a challenging task for him. During lecture, he overcomplicates the problems and focuses on theory (rushes lectures).
One review from December of 2023 noted that the course had to have so much of a curve that 63(!!!) became 100. I firmly believe that one student failing a course is a red flag on the student; the entire class failing a course is a red flag on the professor.
I think that last blockquote above (the “proficiency” one) really nails one of the key issues — Berkeley is one of the top math schools in the country, and if you’re a professor interested in cutting-edge stuff, it’s probably a reasonable assumption that you’re more interested in that than in teaching undergrads. (That’s an unsubstantiated claim, of course, but I’ve been keeping an eye on lower-level math teachers at Berkeley for a few years, as my oldest needed to take either 1A or 16A as a departmental requirement for graduation, and I was shocked at how frequently the reviews mentioned poor teaching.)
Obviously, there’s a bit of a chicken/egg thing that we have to acknowledge with the RateMyProfessor quotes: A class full of students who have been poorly prepared (due to COVID or whatever other reason) is going to do poorly, and are likely to then write bad reviews of their professor. So in theory there could be some issue with blaming the professor.
But then, let’s run the same exercise for spring of 2024, with the one professor (different professor from Fall of 2023, but, presumably, the same rough cohort of students) teaching the class then, and we see an entirely different tone in the reviews:
One of the best math instructors i’ve had - super clear and easy to understand lectures and a really well made syllabus → I would highly reccomend!!
I believe Professor [name] is so underrated! Her lectures are very clear, thorough, and very detailed- she always tries to stop herself if she feel she’s moving too quick! Although homework is kinda heavy for little grade, I find it helps a LOT for the midterms and quizzes. I actually understand calc lol, recommend HEAVILYY!
Great professor, I retook math1A (DONT TAKE [FALL 2023 PROFESSOR]) and had lost my confidence in math but wow, did [name] help
The unevenness of the teaching quality of math professors (as my oldest was looking for a good class) really highlighted for me how much Berkeley is a research institution, focused on grad students. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve been focusing on smaller schools with excellent reputations for undergrad teaching for our 2025 twins. Even though they’re stronger students than D22 was in high school, they aren’t even planning to apply to Cal.
For those with an interest in historical connections, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was a professor at Berkeley at the time, did not recommend the school to his younger brother for undergraduate study.
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