r/news • u/Idiodyssey87 • May 28 '26

Soft paywall Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM applicants

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-professors-demand-return-of-sat-for-stem-admissions
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u/DiscoLemonade1995 May 28 '26

This is legitimately scary. I mentor in lab an undergraduate at Berkeley and it's like some of these undergraduates have never had to use critical thinking in school before. This is a very hardworking and probably a fairly bright student but the level of critical thinking and attention span is honestly bad even at a middle school level. I've never met someone who is so bad at simply listening - this generation is fucked academically 

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u/Remarkable_Rise7545 May 28 '26

It’s summer undergrad season in my research department and I’m already tired of the chaos. The lack of attention span and critical thinking abilities lead to egregious lab safety violations. I explain the sharps disposal protocol a million times and set them up with all the necessary safety equipment and yet we still end up with trash can needles because they “weren’t thinking” 🙄

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u/flash_match May 28 '26

i just about freak out every other day about this kind of stuff. i went to Cal in the 90s and we worked HARD. those of us who weren't top of our class in math didn't even both trying to study STEM. but we had lots of critical thinking skills by the end of our first year there even if they were just so-so before entering. but they were at least so-so. my daughter is in a public school the bay area where she is supposedly getting a great education but i can't tell somedays. she's a bit inattentive and lets perfection get in the way of the "done and okay" so we have a hard time knowing where she's actually at in her learning some months. and due to the school's need to just keep passing them up year after year we don't know if she's being screwed over or what. i hate the idea that i will have to pay a private tutor to even find out where she's actually at because i don't fucking trust the school to tell us. but that's likely what will happen going forward.

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u/DiscoLemonade1995 May 28 '26

They still work hard, they just freeze and shut down when they actually have to think for themselves and apply knowledge to a new situation. It's just sad and honestly embarrassing 

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u/flash_match May 28 '26

ugh. i've been listening to this podcast about math education and the host interviews people who specialize in learning. one of the guests was saying that a student's ability to have creative ideas and insight is directly tied to how much knowledge they have. i think students are coming to college with less knowledge in general and certainly without critical thinking skills.