An influential committee of the University of California Academic Senate weighed in again last month on the contentious issue of how much math high school students must take to qualify to attend a four-year California state university.
It ruled that high school students taking an introductory data science course or Advanced Placement Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University, starting in the fall of 2025.
The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, or BOARS, reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course.