According to The Harvard Crimson, Harvard will offer high-school-level math courses to its students. The remedial assistance has rekindled criticism over Harvard’s move away from standardized tests in making admissions decisions.
For years, Harvard has been accused of lowering admissions standards to achieve “equity” goals in its classes. The school opposed efforts to uncover its admissions data. When that data was ultimately revealed, sharp differences emerged based on race. The differences led to the historic decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) barring the use of race in college admissions.
As court decisions made it clear that the period of race-based criteria was coming to an end, systems like the University of California dumped standardized testing, while others decreased the reliance on such scores. Without standardized testing as an objective measure of comparison, challenges based on race would be more difficult to establish.
Critics have raised that history in light of the recent announcement. It would have been unthinkable in prior years for Harvard to offer remedial high-school-level courses for admitted students.
Nevertheless, Harvard’s director of introductory math, Brendan Kelly, told The Harvard Crimson that the cause was the pandemic. He said that Harvard students “don’t have the skills that we had intended downstream in the curriculum. We want to make sure that students are on a path to success starting from their first day.”
It is an odd explanation since most students deemed competitive for the top schools have excelled on standardized tests. The school was obviously selecting on other criteria than proven excellence in basic areas of study.
Since 1636, Harvard long insisted on the very top scores from students for admission. The result was that it became one of the world’s premier and most exclusive universities. Yet, in one generation, the current faculty and administrators have reduced its standards to the point that students must retake basic high school courses.
While the university’s standards have obviously declined, faculty and administrators have substituted their own priorities — and interests — for those of the institution.
Many agreed with Ibram X. Kendi that standardized testing was based on racism and perpetuated racial inequality. He insisted in 2020 that “standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade black and brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools.”
Ironically, standardized tests have been found to be the most predictive measure of success in college.
As noted by the New York Times, studies at Ivy League schools show that GPAs hold limited value as predictors of success while test scores are highly indicative of success.
It does not matter in today’s academic environment. Then University of California President Janet Napolitano caved to this movement.
Notably, academics in the California system came to the same conclusion as Dartmouth years ago. Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to the claims of racism in the use of SAT scores with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system will go to a “test-blind” system until or unless it develops its own test.
Even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) yielded to this movement during the pandemic by dropping the use of standardized testing requirements. However, MIT later reversed that decision and reinstated the use of the tests as key to preserving its elite status as an educational institution.
Of course, this controversy cannot ignore that our high schools are cranking out students who cannot do high-school level math. Indeed, many have moved away from standardized tests to achieve equity. Others have lowered standards or dropped proficiency standards for graduation. Others have eliminated gifted and talented programs to avoid inequitable results.
The combination of such equity policies has finally reached Harvard which is now compelled to reduce classes to high-school levels to meet minimal standards for students.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
I owned a personnel agency years ago.
Back then, the standard interview was objective — do you have the chops to do the job you’re applying for.
Harvard is just a Leftist Indoctrination Entity (aka a “LIE”) and is a worthless institution, loaded with Marxist administrators, fake-professors, and Marxist indoctrinated students. Harvard, for example, has not produced one genuine Nobel Prize winner in the sciences in more than two decades. Now, I am aware that the Nobel Committee awarded two Harvard “researchers” Nobel Prizes for work on the mRNA vaccine, but the entire mRNA “vacine” was and is a total scam and the Nobel Committee only gave out those awards for political reasons, not scientific ones. The mRNA is not only worthless, but it’s dangerous. So, in reality, Harvard has produced nothing of value. Zilch!
Meanwhile, returning to the dopes, dupes, and dummies at Harvard, the average Harvard student cannot solve the following basic inequality, solving for x:
(x – 3.5)*(x + 4.5)*(x – 7)*(x +1.5) > 0
Several decades ago, the average high school student from a decent school could solve this inequality in only a minute or two. But the typical student at Harvard today is mystified as to how to solve it. But what can anyone expect from a LIE and its dupes, dopes, and dummies whose heroes are George Floyd, Luigi Mangione, and Mamoud Khalil?
Most institutes of higher learning are naught but centers of indoctrination.
College has become, arguably the greatest scam known to mankind (right behind the medical, research and health -Big Pharma prostitutes- rackets). You spend a fortune and they give everyone a shingle to hang at their jobs, if you can find a job.
The standards for college has been sinking for a long long time. I heard about a lady, who received a doctorate in the fifties, she said she found an entrance exam to her college from the 1890’s she said she wouldn’t have been able to pass it and be qualified to attend. I doubt most college graduates could with the one she needed to pass in the fifties.
Perhaps it is time for Harvard to change its motto from “Veritas” to “Fauti!”
“Mendacium”
“Most of those tests are culturally biased. The only part that’s universal is the math.” – Furious Styles, “Boyz N the Hood”
“IN EVERY DISASTER THROUGHOUT AMERICAN HISTORY, THERE ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE A MAN FROM HARVARD IN THE MIDDLE OF IT”
— THOMAS SOWELL.
Wanting college credit for high school classes is nothing new! I remember that back in the 68-69 school year there were students demanding college credit for high school level remedial courses where I attended college. I didn’t pay much attention the demands, I was just happy to have been excepted. My GPA wasn’t exceptional, there were no HS gifted classes at the time and I tested 12th grade math in the 7th grade. Bored for six years! It is not a good idea to eliminate them. And my GPA reflected that boredom.
The first college (private) I attended in 1975 did not even offer high school math. They were a college for heaven’s sake!
My fourth year, I transferred to a California State college where they inflated by GPA by 0.5 as I had transferred from a “tougher college” (their words). The reason I transferred was because the private college was a bit much.
FYI, any two digit course number is a high school class.
I remember walking out of classes in disgust as there were students attending (yes, affirmative action was what it was called back then) who had obviously not met the prerequisites for the class. And, in case you were wondering, all the students in these classes were whites.
Today, I work with people who can’t write; refuse to proof-read and think instructions are optional.
Your education was obviously flawed when it came to the English language. You don’t know the difference between “excepted” and “accepted”.
thumbs up….
thumbs up….
# Harvard can choose to become a JC. The instructors will quickly or slowly leave. It’ll become a hollow building looted. It’s a form of revenge and envy.
Envy has a destructive component and is not Jealousy. If the professors had jealously guarded higher education because they loved knowledge this would not have happened.
What will save the US is love of country.
OT: I really don’t understand tariffs. Why would Vietnam have any tariffs? If American goods were imported to Vietnam who could afford them. The Nikes everyone proudly wears cost 1.50 made in Vietnam. Nice 1.50 shoes, Jordan.
It’s the same for China but even these nations have rich people demanding the best. 80 percent of California almonds are exports. I asked a peach grower about his exports. He said foreign nations pay a higher price for them.
I vomited for 2 days after eating Vietnam shrimp. I finally read the label. There is little to none traceability in the foods Americans are eating, President Trump. My anecdotal evidence given. I no longer eat seafood of any kind. I worry about the beef, chicken and pork.
Never eat FARMED seafood of any kind, WILD CAUGHT ONLY!!
Harvard is just a hedge fund that also runs a college on the side of the other investments….
I would love to hear Prof. Turley’s take on the writing ability of incoming students. Fifty years ago, as a senior in law school reading the lower class students’ briefs, I was shocked at how poorly they wrote. Even as an appellate lawyer, I too often encountered opposing counsel who could not clearly define their arguments; I would have to translate their argument and then prove how it was defective. Today, with texting and word or character limits, I dare say the writing craft is suffering even more.
“What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” We start with one lie, which leads to another lie, which leads to remedial courses in prestigious and expensive colleges. Later we will lie that this has no impact on the quality of goods and services we produce, or on our future as civilization. Cowardice is always the easy way out. But it leads to a tragic end.
HAH-vard falls back on the long-gone “pandemic” and racism to explain why its students need remedial math. What’s the next remedial program: writing, spelling, reading? It is unable to admit it has lowered standards because of its commitment to DEI, to racism against Asian and European heritage applicants, to ingrown snobbery, to deferring to high school grading and essays – rather than reliable standard test scores, poor grade and high school education systems, etc. etc.
So – I have better mathematics skills than people accepted to Harvard? Why are these still storied institutions in 2025, pray tell?
Ah yes. The flaunting of wealth and the hope for connections. This is all such a bad joke at this point (oligarchy! Meh!) I can’t even laugh, just roll my eyes. I can tell you this: as someone that pays other people, every Harvard applicant is going straight into the trash henceforth, at least in the private sector. ‘Ivy league’ has become poison to people that actually want their endeavors to thrive, and they will not be considered. Somehow Harvard is now about as revered by the sane and productive as Slippery Rock.
Good luck with the connections, those matriculating in 2025. You paid a bunch of money. That does not impress anyone anymore, and if it impresses yourself, well: that speaks for itself too, doesn’t it?
Please don’t disparage Slippery Rock. Better school than Harvard which is basically a community college now. The Rock prepared my son for a very successful career
Fewer Harvard grads care about the private sector, because they wanna go where the POWER is: government. And their degree opens those doors, courtesy of *other* Hahvahd grads already in government and hiring members of their tribe.
Ivy League Comeuppance!
All Hat, No Cattle!
All Hat, No Cowboy!
Too Funny! Soon a degree from that place will be no more prestigious than one from a B Tier state college! And just think – the idiot graduates will only need 40 years to finish paying off the loans for that smelly sheepskin!!!
More of MAGA-media purchased advocacy by Turley–attacking educated people–a very frequent MAGA theme–because MAGA appeals to non college educated whites who resent the accomplishments of educated people, especially women and minorities. Here’s my take on Trump’s tariffs: Most MAGA probably have never watched the cartoon series “South Park”, but there are a couple of episodes involving “Underwear Gnomes”–intelligent creatures whose economic plan is to steal everyone’s underwear and somehow get rich. They spell out their theory as follows:
Phase 1–Steal Underwear
Phase 2–?
Phase 3–Profit.
Just like the Underwear Gnomes, neither Trump nor his minions can explain how, after he destroys our economy with his stupid tariffs, causing a recession, which many economists believe we already are in, and which may lead to an all-out depression–the odds of which go up every day–that somehow this will stimulate companies to build factories and manufacture the consumer goods that China, Viet Nam, India and other countries can make and we can import at a much lower cost than if the goods were made here. Does Trump really believe that we’re going to set up sweat shops to make clothes and shoes and factories to make plastic goods, car parts, electronics, televisions, appliances, toys and other consumer products? Even if we did, because we pay a living wage in the US, the goods would be much more expensive than they are now. As to cell phones, estimates are that if they were completely made in the US, they would cost about $3,000 more than they do now.
Trump’s trade war is all about attention, exercising power and bullying people, juust like everything else in his pathetic universe–the world revolves around him. The world is supposed to come to him to beg his indulgence, just like Zelenskyy was supposed to beg him for aid that Congress already appropriated. As he said when asked about people’s 401 Ks, he doesn’t care–because tariffs aren’t about us–they are about him. So, Trump and his minions lie by claiming that tariffs will produce wealth for all of us, just like the Underwear Gnomes couldn’t explain how stealing underwear will lead to profit.
See? This is why you should want to learn math. You don’t want to wind up like Girly-Girl, do you?
Turley is not attacking “ educated people “ he is exposing indoctrinated people. Take a peek at the mirror . He’s pretty brave and confident to let you keep lowering the IQ on his site .
Gigi, you’re a special kind of Democrat, Trump-hating shill. You either don’t know the purpose of imposing tariffs on trading partners at roughly just HALF the rate they charge on U.S. goods they import, or else brazenly lie about it, confident that most Americans don’t know. You sound like a DNC staffer.
I was a forest fire-fighter, and we hired a Harvard grad, and several people attempted to teach him how to use a pulaski (axe/adze) and I worked with him for a few days, yes 8 hours a day. He finally ended his fire-fighting career by splitting his foot between the big toe and the other toes with his axe. Just saying and this was back in 1969.
That lack of exposure to “hands-on” experience has become exponentially worse in today’s America. All but a small percentage of youth today know how to properly use basic hand tools, let alone, inflate a flat tire. It has become a hallmark of the basic stupidity in our workforce.
frank: what does swinging an axe have to do with intelligence? There are physical talents and skills and intellectual talents, each of which we need, but for different reasons. For you to imply that a Harvard graduate was intellectually inferior because he had an accident with an axe, is MAGA thinking.
Perfect….Harvard Class of Planet of the Apes….double major in eating bananas and setting chicken bones in noses
Really wonder how math tests will be scored . . . for Modern Math will dictate that the equation of 6 X 6 – 9 + 15 X 7 X 0 does not equal to ZERO based upon PEMDAS (Perform Multiplication and Division before Addition and Subtraction).
27. But on these kinds of problems, why not use the GD ( ) ‘s, like the old days. Modern Math is an evil plot to destroy math skills. My first encounter was in 4th grade way back in the 60s, and it was stupid then. Modern Math is the counterpart of Look-See versus Phonics.
I saw their multiplication grids, and thought no wonder kids are math illiterate. They can’t even make change for a dollar via 100 cents, less n-cents = 100 – n. I found change to cover 100 – n and they were stumped.
I’ve tutored college students for 40 years in physics, chem, organic, calculus and econ, and it’s not unusual for students to have no idea what six times seven is. Or whether 86/225 is bigger or smaller than one. This failing isn’t Hahvahd’s fault, but that of teachers’ unions and K-12 school boards failing to teach basic math.
I guess this answers the question why a congressional representative feared if 8,000 Marines were stationed on Guam it would “become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”
Combine these low admission standards with the fact that about 90% of grades awarded at Harvard are As and you get that a Harvard degree ain’t worth the paper is printed on.
Is there a source for the grades? Not that I dispute it 😞
H.S.dropout and Harvard graduate, Thomas Sowell said that,”The value of having a Harvard diploma is how unimpressed I am of anyone who claims that they are a Harvard graduate.”
I once heard that you get 3 things with a Harvard degree:
1. A pedigree,
2. A network, and,
3. An attitude.
An education was conspicuously absent.
Anybody reading David Hogg’s tweets as a Harvard student would have to wonder why they wasted a DE&I slot on a white male, given the low quality of his reasoning. But he was on the same campus as the Parkland killed, a mere two w away. And that was enough to make him a survivor activist