Who Is Zvezdelina Stankova, the Berkeley Professor Who Says Calculus Freshers Can't Do Fractions?

A University of California, Berkeley teaching professor says some students arrive in calculus with gaps in mathematics extending to fractions and basic algebra, intensifying a debate over the UC system's test-free admissions policy.

Zvezdelina Stankova set out the claim on 15 August 2026 in the San Francisco Standard, pointing to diagnostic results she says deteriorated after SAT and ACT scores were dropped from undergraduate admissions.

Stankova and the Berkeley Math Circle

Zvezdelina Entcheva Stankova was born on 15 September 1969 in Ruse, then in Bulgaria.

She won silver medals for Bulgaria at the International Mathematical Olympiads in 1987 and 1988. She completed a B.A./M.A. at Bryn Mawr College in 1992 and earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1997 under mathematician Joe Harris.

She founded the Berkeley Math Circle in 1998 and she also helped establish the Bay Area Mathematical Olympiad . The Mathematical Association of America gave her the Alder Award in 2004 and the Haimo Award in 2011.

Her official title is Teaching Professor and Director, Berkeley Math Circle. BMC-Upper was forced to close in May 2025 after UC Berkeley's fingerprinting requirements for guest speakers severely limited its pool of speakers; the program remains suspended for 2026–27.

Classroom Diagnostics After Test-Blind Admissions

Stankova wrote that she stands three days a week before lecture halls of 500 to 1,400 students.

Stankova wrote, 'Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school.'

Among about 2,200 Calculus I students tested between 2018 and 2020, 71 per cent were ready or nearly ready and 0.14 per cent tested below basic algebra.

Among about 2,800 students tested from 2021 to 2023 on an eight-topic diagnostic, the ready share fell to 51 per cent and to 44 per cent by 2023. In 2023, 17% answered none of the eight topics correctly. By 2022–23, Stankova said more than one-third of students had severe mathematical deficits, with zero the most common score.

Key facts: Stankova is a Harvard-trained mathematician, Olympiad coach and Berkeley teaching professor. The readiness figures she cites come from diagnostic assessments of incoming Calculus I students and are not presented as a university-wide audit. The comparison spans the period before and after UC phased out standardised-test consideration, although the two periods used different diagnostic instruments.

Faculty Letters and the SAT Review

UC made admissions test-blind after 2020. Thousands of faculty across ten campuses, including more than two-thirds of UC mathematics faculty, signed open letters this year urging restoration of the SAT and ACT.

UC President James B. Milliken has called student readiness a priority and backed a data-driven review. After the UC Academic Senate revised its review timetable in July, Regents Chair Maria Anguiano said the Senate should provide a recommendation on standardised testing by June 2027.

Stankova later said AI had been used to help edit the piece and locate related documents and articles; she said the broader project involved several hundred person-hours, about 80 of them her own.

The university has not issued a detailed public rebuttal of the classroom figures Stankova cited. UC remains test-blind for applicants in the present admissions cycle, with any policy change unlikely before a faculty recommendation due in June 2027.