Roughly one in five Americans entering UC San Diego cannot write at an entry level standard, a new report revealed.
About 20 percent of incoming students to the California university had to be placed in analytical writing courses after failing to meet the requirements of a writing placement exam, which forced them into specialized courses called ‘AWP’.
The report published by a UC San Diego admissions committee added that writing skills and literacy are in decline across the entire US.
According to the university’s faculty, freshmen students’ vocabulary was ‘increasingly’ limiting their ability to engage with longer and harder texts.
As a whole, the school had seen a ‘steep decline in the academic preparation’ of its domestic freshmen students.
The November 6 report read: ‘Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared risks harming the very students we hope to support, by setting them up for failure.’
One possible solution offered was ‘moving beyond GPA and course titles’ in high school to evaluate how ready students actually are for writing at a college level.
About 18 percent of American first-year students are in the UC San Diego’s accelerated writing courses AWP (Analytical Writing Program)
Less than 58 percent of students in California reached or topped 11th grade language skills, per the university’s report
However, more areas besides writing will require increased focus moving forward, as incoming students were deemed ‘increasingly unprepared’ for the rigors of university studies.
Math skills had also plunged for freshmen, UC San Diego said.
In 2025, about one in eight of the university’s first-year students had math skills ‘below middle-school level.’
Some even had ‘knowledge gaps’ that went back to elementary school.
As a result, the school was forced to redesign one of its math courses to focus solely on Common Core math subjects learned in grades 1-8.
A new class was also added to cover whatever students were missing from high school math.
These weaknesses in math had started to overlap with students’ language deficiencies more often in recent years, the report added.
In California, only about 30 percent of students in California had 11th grade level math skills
Factors that contributed to the decline in academic performance included the COVID-19 pandemic, the elimination of standardized testing and grade inflation
Now, one in four students with ‘inadequate writing skills’ also required additional math preparation.
This drop in academic performance lined up with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to UC San Diego, as online classes resulted in a ‘well-documented decline in student preparedness.’
Recovering ‘will take several years to correct.’
Other factors that affected the readiness of incoming students were the elimination of standardized testing and increased admissions from ‘under-resourced’ high schools.
Grade inflation was also at fault, the report said.
It noted: ‘During COVID, grade inflation and lowered standards in California high schools likely accelerated.’
Plus, the pandemic made it ‘very difficult to objectively evaluate students’ because of changes from a letter grade system to a simpler pass/fail or because teachers were compelled to lower their grading standards.
The UC San Diego report said writing skills and literacy were in decline across the entire US – not just their university
As a result, ‘school transcripts became less reliable as a gauge of how well a student will succeed if admitted.’
The report emphasized that high school curriculums were not ‘useless’ in judging student preparation, but said universities now had to ‘weigh information in a more careful and complex manner.’
Other universities across the US, including some of the most prestigious institutions in the country, have also struggled to deal with surging grades but lower standards.
Harvard has proposed capping the number of A grades, following a report warning that the university’s generous grading system was undermining its academic integrity.
A potential change in grading would see Harvard offering a select number of A+ grades, which is a mark higher than the school’s current maximum of an A grade.
At Harvard, more than 60 percent of grades awarded to undergraduate students are currently As, which university bosses called ‘too compressed and too inflated.’
However, Harvard’s report also found that its students were ‘working as hard as they ever have – if not more’ on their academics, relative to previous generations.
