Golden Nuggets: How will the world respond to a shortage of headlines about systemic academic failure at Cal?

Is it possible for academic issues to improve at Cal? Did Missy Franklin really win all of the awards?

By Leland Wong Dec 12, 2013, 3:30pm PST

Whatever will we do without news that the academic sky is falling at Cal‽ Is it possible those clowns finally got their act together‽

Eighty percent of this year's new recruits met UC's statewide admission requirements compared with 39 percent in 2011, suggesting a major shift as pressure grew for the prestigious university to require that its football players' brains match their brawn.

"We realized we had a potential problem ... and so we upped the floor," said Richard Rhodes, a linguistics professor who heads the Berkeley Academic Senate's admissions and enrollment committee.

...

This fall, just 7 percent of the new football players were in an admissions category considered most academically at-risk, which could include applicants with C-minus grades in high school. Between 2009 and 2011, by contrast, between 23 and 39 percent of the new players were seriously underprepared, and more than half fell short of UC's basic statewide admissions standards.

That article is a great read about how things are (hopefully) improving in the classroom with our student-athletes, with some other interesting points about the change in culture here and the admissions committee feeling "blackmailed" by a coach.

After reading that story, scroll on down to stay updated on all the Cal programs and to read all about all of Missy Franklin's awards. All of them! All of the awards!