Before COVID-19 and test optional admissions, Harvard offered Math Ma and Mb, which were slow pace calculus that included precalculus for students who did not have the preparation needed for Math 1a (calculus). So that is not new.
Princeton has long offered MAT 100, a precalculus course for students not ready for calculus.
Even highly selective schools need to do so (see Harvard and Princeton examples above).
That appears to be true for students who need remedial English (did not already pass the Entry Level Writing Requirement). It does not appear to be true for math, though students who need to take math (or statistics) for their major requirements commonly want to finish such courses as early as possible. But students who do not need math (or statistics) for their major may choose to skip math entirely.
I wondered about that, too. Here’s the info on the subjects that UCSD includes in its placement test, including a one-hour practice test: Math Placement Exam
Clicking on the UCSD Math Placement Exam link you provided, I see a list of topics that closely resemble those on SAT math. These topics are definitely way more advanced than 4th grade math (which merely covers arithmetic operations, fractions, decimals, lengths and areas), even 4th grade math of countries known to have high math standard. The professor likely has a STEM background and likely was exaggerating (which they shouldn’t), but the point remains that a non-negligible percentage of college freshmen, at UCSD or elsewhere, are woefully underprepared for college-level math, and the level of under-preparation is revealed by their SAT math scores.
Thanks for the link. I am more confused now. The topics:
MPE Topics
- Exponents and Radicals
- Functions and their Graphs
- Geometry & Geometric Applications
- Linear Equations and Inequalities, Absolute Values, and their Graphs
- Logarithmic and Exponential Functions and their Graphs
- Polynomials and Polynomial Equations and their Graphs
- Rational Expressions and their Graphs
- Trigonometry
Hard to imagine how a test on Logarithmic and Exponential Functions and their Graphs, etc. could indicate that the takers were at a 4th-6th grade math level.
There is huge grade inflation at the university level. How well prepared are students for the work force? Many employers don’t think well at all. Also you are using statistics from before test optional. Not that I expect the number to drop since grade inflation has only gotten worse and professors are no longer failing students unless they are exceptionally poor ie. those who decide to blow off final exams - not fail them mind you but not even show up. If they show up and attempt questions and still get every question wrong, they are most likely still looking at a C grade at some of the UCs. This is the result when the goal is to increase the number of students who graduate and be reprimanded if the curriculum is too hard or the professors are too tough. It would be extremely interesting to have an exit exam and see if the students today can do half as well as the students even a decade ago.
Thus, saying students are graduating at high rates doesn’t say anything about what the students are learning. Take for example the students we are discussing here who are graduating high school at the top of their class and yet are still not ready for college level math. Graduating and even getting high GPA’s says little about how much these students know. It is easy for a school to achieve 100% graduation rate - just pass everyone. It means nothing. The real questions are do these students actually know what they are supposed to know? Based on employer’s surveys, it seems not. Are the students satisfied with the education? Based on recent graduate surveys, they suggest they are not.
Alternatively for many majors ‘college math readiness’ - and a correspondingly high SAT Math score - may not be nearly as important for success in college as some people like to believe.
Actually I would agree with you. I don’t believe all students need to take an SAT exam or meet a certain threshold on the math portion. A student who does not need or plan to ake any STEM in university should not need to demonstrate college math readiness That is why I suggested that schools may wish to adopt a more nuanced approach to test requirements. If a student wishes to attend a school where the student is expected not only to study some humanities but also some STEM even as a humanities major then perhaps there is a required low bar that may be needed for the math portion to demonstrate that the student can take university level math at the school but an engineering student might need to demonstrate a higher SAT math score though perhaps a lower reading score. The test would be used as a threshold to indicate a student is ready to undertake the work at the institution/program not as some chase for higher scores to increase rankings.
I like the way international schools such as Oxford or Canadian universities approach testing. They mention a threshold to meet and that is it. The threshold differs depending on the school/program etc. For Canadian schools, I have seen scores of minimum 1200 or some are 1350. Oxford I think has a minimum close to 1500 on the SAT. This is high but they do not care if a student got a 1600 or a 1510. It’s just a bar to meet and that is all. They do not list the median score or the 25th-75th percentile score range. Same with AP exams. They wish to see 3 tests with a 5. They recommend specific tests for certain subjects ie. AP Calc BC for math but they don’t weigh a student who took 9 AP courses as more favorably to one that only took 3 as long as the 3 contained the ones that were recommended. The tests are merely bars to meet and if you meet the threshold you fulfilled that requirement. That’s all. Perhaps American universities might want to consider this kind of approach where they could adopt different thresholds using either SAT/AP or some other tests/sections of the test for different schools/programs.
Once again, please stay on topic. This thread is to discuss schools bringing back standardized testing. This is not the Cafe.
And to clarify further, feel free to start a new thread about the UCs.
Cooper Union going back to test required for school of engineering for Class of 2026/next app cycle. School of Arch and School of Art remain test optional.
Cooper Union is pretty small (about 900 undergrads), but highly rejective. 2024-25 acceptance rate for engineering was 13%. (4% for arch, 9% for art)
Interesting, especially that the test requirement is for engineering only. I wonder if more schools will set testing requirements just for prospective engineering (or perhaps STEM) students. In this case, I suppose here is also no other option if a student doesn’t continue in engineering as they can’t just switch to another major such as history so this might only be specific to Cooper Union.
It may have been discussed but CMU is moving towards an ACT/SAT requirement for CS (interestingly not for engineering) and “test flexible” (eg. must submit something but could be IB scores) for other schools..
Thanks for the link. Very interesting. The test flexible can include predicted IB scores with the actual score only being required if the student is admitted and chooses to attend. I’m not familiar with how IB grades are normally handled but for most US colleges, I thought they don’t require the actual IB scores? That is more like the UK schools which can then be problematic for those students who fall short of their predicted grades.
They mention acceptance of AP scores as well but don’t mention the type. I would think for Engineering Calc, Physics and Chemistry would be looked for (if it’s bioenginering then Bio as well) while for the College of Science, Calc and the science the student is targeting along with any related science might be looked for. In humanities, the AP English and other AP’s relevant to the student’s major might be desirable. The fine arts school will require no standardized testing but instead auditions/portfolios. This is the type of testing policy that I was suggesting schools may wish to adopt. Different testing requirements for different programs. I don’t think a history major should be expected to have a high SAT math score while a math major would not need the same reading score that an English major is expected to have. Anyway, interesting and this policy may very well serve the college and students better than previous school wide testing requirements.
However, such a policy would exclude students who do not have the opportunity to take the needed AP courses in 11th grade or earlier, whether it is due to being at an under-resourced school that does not offer them, being at a school that does not offer them because it considers AP courses beneath them, not being accelerated sufficiently in middle school, or being rationed out of AP courses or the prerequisites because they were full.
If there were still SAT subject tests, allowing those for students who did not reach AP level courses may address part of this problem. But those were discontinued in 2020.
Yes however they do accept SAT/ACT scores so those students without AP scores, many of which are private school students since many private schools have moved away from AP courses, can still have tests to present. I do think having subject tests would also address this issue but I don’t see how those can be brought back with AP courses.
One other possibility is to allow something akin to predicted AP scores much like predicted IB scores but the problem is that grades don’t necessarily reflect AP test results so it might end up causing headaches for the school if they accept students who end up not meeting the desired AP test threshold.
It doesn’t really exclude students since all these tests are seen as equally valid.
I do agree bringing back subject tests would make a lot of sense now though - like, Middlebury used to have a policy where you could submit any stem test, any humanities/social science test, and one more, instead of the SAT.
By the way CMUs policy is quite similar to what you find at Harvard I think.
They could get around that issue by doing like the UK does and saying “any 3 APs including one in a subject related to the major of interest if offered, with scores of 5”.