In March, two California families opened college admissions decisions that should make anyone who cares about higher education stop and think.
One student — I’ll call him Elias — was admitted to a top University of California engineering program. His family was thrilled though surprised. Math had been his weakest subject in high school, but they assumed the university had seen something they hadn’t.
Another student — Nadia — watched rejection after rejection arrive from UC campuses. One turned her down even though she had earned A’s there in Calculus II and other college-level STEM courses through concurrent enrollment.
These are real students. I’ve changed their names, and withheld their schools, to protect their privacy.
Seen side by side, their outcomes don’t make sense. They make perfect sense only if you imagine admissions working less like careful evaluation and more like chance.
I don’t use that comparison lightly.
I teach mathematics at UC Berkeley. Three days a week, I stand in front of lecture halls with 500 to 1,400 students. By the second week of the semester, I already know who is in trouble. Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school.
https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2026/08/15/uc-berkeley-sat-test-blind-admissions-math-scores/