Math change for UC admission (important for current juniors!)

[prin...@sethigh.org]

Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians,

• Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 (intermediate algebra) are required for Class of 2025 and beyond

This  is going to be bad news for some of our 11th graders who were hoping to avoid Algebra 2 by taking Statistics instead.  We understand that you will be frustrated, but this decision is out of our hands.  There has been a substantial push over the past few years to have Statistics or Data Science be an alternate math option for schools.  The University of California was in agreement until they weren't.  Like most other schools, we started using Statistics this year as an alternate for our students who were struggling with Algebra 2.  On March 5th, though, the UC voted to require Algebra 2 for admissions starting with the Class of 2025.  This means that our Juniors who were hoping to use Statistics to replace Algebra 2 will not be eligible for admission to any of the UCs (and likely the CalState schools) next year.  These students will need to take Algebra 2 in 12th grade.

As the ramifications of this get fully understood by students and schools across California, I suspect that there will be significant blowback for the University of California, so this ruling may change.  For now, though, we want to be safe to make sure that none of our students become inadvertently ineligible for college.

We will try to work with our students who are certain that they will not be applying to a 4-year university who are in this situation, but we will need a quick meeting with each family who wishes to not take Algebra 2 to make sure that everyone understands the consequence.  For our 9th and 10th graders, we will no longer offer Statistics as an alternative, so those students need not worry about this (other than to be upset that Statistics will not be alternative to Algebra 2 for them!).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.   I will have already talked to the current Stats students about this decision before you read this, so hopefully I will have taken the brunt of their disappointment before they make it home.  :)

Just to be clear, all students who have already taken Algebra 2 or who plan to take Algebra 2 are not affected.  This only affects a small number of students, and they will know who they are.  The wide broadcast of this email is to make sure that our younger students who may have thought that Algebra 2 was optional know that it is now mandatory.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Dr. McCurdy