With only their senior year of high school left, tens of thousands of presumably college-bound students found out last month that they are not ready for university-level work in mathematics and English.

That is according to the California State University system, which on Wednesday released the results of a first-of-its-kind testing program intended to gauge the college readiness of the state's high school juniors.

According to the results of the Early Assessment Program, only 22 percent of high school students who participated in the program are prepared for university-level English courses, and only 55 percent are ready for college-level math courses.

And while the results perhaps are not pretty, CSU officials say the numbers themselves are not the important part. What is more important is sending a clear message to students about what they need to do to prepare for college.

"The Early Assessment Program is not to recognize those students who are already prepared for college at the end of their junior year," said David Spence, CSU executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer. "The reason we're doing this is to identify the students who are not on course ... so they will have at least a full senior year to prepare."

CSU officials partnered with the state Department of Education in offering the early assessment test, which is part of CSU's efforts to combat the staggering numbers of students who arrive at their campuses each year needing remedial course work in math and English.

The test is offered on a volunteer basis to public high school juniors and is added onto the statewide standards test students take anyway as part of their regular high school curriculum. Students who participate in the early assessment are asked to answer an additional 15 college-level questions in math and 15 in English, all multiple choice, and write an essay. Students can take one or both of the tests.

Students who score highly on the additional assessments are certified as college-ready and, if they eventually are accepted into a CSU campus, can skip placement tests the system gives annually to incoming freshmen. Participation in the assessment tests does not signal automatic acceptance into CSU.

Those who score poorly are given advance notice that they need more preparation for college-level work. CSU on Wednesday also announced a complement of enrichment and teacher-training programs that will help students improve their skills, including math tutorials and a program to build expository writing and reading skills.

Some 115,762 California juniors took the early assessment math test when it was offered in April, and 153,846 took the English test. More than 385,000 11th-graders were eligible to take the assessment.

According to the results, 63,504 of the math test takers, or 55 percent, scored high enough to be deemed college-ready, while 33,720, or 22 percent, of the English test takers scored high enough.

"The results were definitely about what we predicted," Spence said, "and we have no reason to believe that the results would be very dissimilar (if the test were offered) across the nation."

The students and their school districts received the scores last month, but Spence said the scores will be released no later than Aug. 15 in future years to give students more time to prepare.

The numbers bear out a problem that has plagued CSU, which spends about $30 million a year to provide remedial courses in math and English.

In fall 2003, 58 percent of the freshmen who entered one of CSU's 23 campuses needed remedial help in math, English or both -- even though CSU admits only the top one-third of California's high school graduates, those who have earned a B-average or better.

CSU has set an internal goal of curbing the numbers needing remediation to 10 percent by 2007. Officials say the assessment and its related enrichment programs -- which together will cost about $7 million annually -- will help them achieve that goal.

Spence said he anticipates student participation in the testing program -- and student performance -- will increase in future years. Already, the number of students who took the test exceeded officials' first-year expectations by about 50,000 students.