Critics said this is because the school has implemented an inferior learning model, which eliminated SAT testing requirements and allows students to achieve top grades by simply attending class.
A San Francisco high school where 94 percent of its students fail mathematics now has the highest acceptance rate to the University of California, Berkeley. Mission High School had a 45 percent acceptance rate to the elite university last fall, well above the state’s 15 percent average, according to data obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Critics said this is because the school has implemented an inferior learning model, which eliminated SAT testing requirements and allows students to achieve top grades by simply attending class. Earlier this month, a UC Berkeley math professor slammed the university’s admissions standards because students who are not proficient in basic fractions are being enrolled in her calculus courses.
Mission High School student Levi Lum told the paper: “Grades were sometimes too easy to learn. In many required classes, attendance and basic completion could be enough to receive a grade that would ordinarily signal strong proficiency.”
There are many socioeconomically disadvantaged students at Mission High. Although the school’s students frequently achieve high GPAs, detractors claim that the school’s liberal grading policies make them more likely to fail.
On the 2025 state assessment exam, only 17 percent of the school’s 11th graders scored proficient or above in English, and a shocking 6 percent in mathematics. These results are the lowest of any school in the San Francisco Unified School District, according to the data.
Lum said the school had a significant disadvantage. He quickly noticed he was behind in math and couldn’t keep up with Berkeley courses.
Numerous professors have urged the University of California colleges to re-implement standardized testing for admissions due to discrepancies between admission statistics and proficiency standards. Earlier this year, thousands of faculty members signed open letters advocating for the reinstatement of the SAT and ACT, per the Los Angeles Times.
