Dartmouth Announces Test Scores Required Starting Next Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good. There may not be much difference between at 1500 and a 1600, but a 1200 does speak to the ability of a kid with a great GPA to succeed in a competitive college environment

There is no reason a college environment should be competitive.

Did you read the article? It's saying the opposite. Dartmouth wants to find people with SAT scores below 1400, and they were frustrated that their target audience wasn't taking the SAT.

The 1500 parents still don't get it and never will. The point isn't to find the highest test scorers and admit them all on a sliding scale. The test is another data point to show whether or not students can be successful. Frankly, a kid with a strong GPA at a decent school and a 1300 SAT will do just fine at Dartmouth, and Dartmouth wants to find them. This will really blow all your 1500+ parents' minds. My kid's highest SAT was a 1360, and he got into Georgetown--this was class of 2022. He's a sophomore. Doing very well. These schools don't want to reinstate test scores to find more high scores. They want a diverse class of students who will do well. Not a class of grinders. You all are celebrating way too soon. This doesn't make it any easier for your above average 1500+ kid to get into Dartmouth.

Did you two actually read the article?

Because that is not what it said.

That lower SAT range was in reference to a specific subset of kids, not found on the DC moms message boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good. There may not be much difference between at 1500 and a 1600, but a 1200 does speak to the ability of a kid with a great GPA to succeed in a competitive college environment

There is no reason a college environment should be competitive.

Did you read the article? It's saying the opposite. Dartmouth wants to find people with SAT scores below 1400, and they were frustrated that their target audience wasn't taking the SAT.

Comprehension is not a strong suit here.

They are in favor of TO do the gene pool isn’t strong there. Kids probably can’t score well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great.

People seem to have forgotten why the SAT was created in the first place. It was to demonstrate that non-WASPs had what it takes to thrive at elite universities. There weren't a lot of underprivileged URMs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1953. The SAT was a big reason why that changed. And as the article noted, test optional has benefitted the wealthy and the privileged and harmed smart students from lower and middle class backgrounds.

I guess we’re saying goodbye to the argument that tests benefit those from wealthy backgrounds who can buy test prep to inflate their scores artificially? 🙄

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can't even handle that little test, you are not a material for selective schools. Common Sense.

YES!! The ACT/SAT in 2024 are not the tests we remember. Have you all looked at one? They're not tricky and they literally test basic grammar, reading and math. I mean, look at a test when you have a minute. It's all very basic stuff: the proper use of colons, reading a paragraph for content, doing basic geometry, etc. They're not complex questions!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YES!

As a former poor kid, I have been arguing this point here for several years now, that test optional hurts smart and brilliant poor kids and students from underrepresented communities, and only helps mediocre rich and upper middle class kids.

The SATs captures those smart and brilliant kids from less than ideal circumstances who will thrive in a challenging school environment.

Of course, most of the DCUM posters were emphatically against my posts.

I am happy to see the schools are starting to swing back towards the center, and away from fads that are not based on facts.

"...There are hundreds of less-advantaged applicants with scores in the 1,400 range who should be submitting scores to identify themselves to admissions, but do not under test-optional policies.” Some of these applicants were rejected because the admissions office could not be confident about their academic qualifications. The students would have probably been accepted had they submitted their test scores, Lee Coffin, Dartmouth’s dean of admissions, told me...."

I went to a small rural school an went to a NESAC. My parent were from DC, but my dad wanted to be a rural doctor. The schools I was applying to had never heard of my high school. SAT and AP scores validated my GPA. Without them, I'd probably have gone to Furman

[Anonymous]

Congratulations Dartmouth on making a solid data driven decision and hopefully starting a trend that will help to return some level of sanity to the college admission process as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I applaud Dartmouth…but once again they still leave the admissions process opaque.

Why not just tell folks that anyone with a score of X and above on average does well at Dartmouth, so if you score X or above you have cleared our SAT threshold and we no longer care about your absolute score.

Also, this article kind of argues for the SAT hardship index that was attempted several years back. It essentially took your raw score and multiplied it by a factor to account for underperforming school.

That idea was quickly abandoned, but this article basically says Dartmouth is creating their own hardship index. Hence, why a 1400 if your school average is 1100 is better than a 1500 if your school average is 1450.

Considering SAT in context is roughly the same as considering class rank — except that unlike with grades, high schools don’t control either the creation of or access to the data.

And Dartmouth is also clearly using an objective threshold as well as a relative score. A 1050 at a high school where the average score is 800 will not get you into Dartmouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great.

People seem to have forgotten why the SAT was created in the first place. It was to demonstrate that non-WASPs had what it takes to thrive at elite universities. There weren't a lot of underprivileged URMs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1953. The SAT was a big reason why that changed. And as the article noted, test optional has benefitted the wealthy and the privileged and harmed smart students from lower and middle class backgrounds.

I guess we’re saying goodbye to the argument that tests benefit those from wealthy backgrounds who can buy test prep to inflate their scores artificially? 🙄

It depends on how you use the test. Test optional helps the kid who can assemble an amazing resume thanks to money and nepotism, but can't crack a 1300 because they really aren't very bright. Test required helps the kids who can afford the tutoring to turn a 1400 into a 1500. IF you have to chose one, at least the second group is putting in the work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

That is hilarious. How did they do on exams, midterms, finals.
Colleges are full of exams, midtems, and finals.
If you are bad at test taking, you can go to the colleges that have exams, midterms, and finals.

Inflated grades and cheating, like most of the high schools post covid.

My kid graduated right before covid from a high performance high school. Around 30% of the class was honor grad (over a 4.0)

This was on par to previous years, of around 25-30% of the class achieving this.

The graduations I have attended since 2022 had over 50% of the class as honor grads. Did the kids suddenly get smarter to the tune of doubling the number of 4.0+ students? Nope.

Grade inflation and cheating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congratulations Dartmouth on making a solid data driven decision and hopefully starting a trend that will help to return some level of sanity to the college admission process as a whole.

Agree 100%! And I totally appreciate their commentary on WHY this will be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great.

People seem to have forgotten why the SAT was created in the first place. It was to demonstrate that non-WASPs had what it takes to thrive at elite universities. There weren't a lot of underprivileged URMs at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1953. The SAT was a big reason why that changed. And as the article noted, test optional has benefitted the wealthy and the privileged and harmed smart students from lower and middle class backgrounds.

I guess we’re saying goodbye to the argument that tests benefit those from wealthy backgrounds who can buy test prep to inflate their scores artificially? 🙄

There are ton of good free materials available these days.
It's a more like a matter of will.

My kids had a prep class for one Summer paying like $1500?
It was more like forcing them to do the practice tests.

Colleges are full of tests.
You should study and prepare for any type of tests.
Common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good. There may not be much difference between at 1500 and a 1600, but a 1200 does speak to the ability of a kid with a great GPA to succeed in a competitive college environment

There is no reason a college environment should be competitive.

Did you read the article? It's saying the opposite. Dartmouth wants to find people with SAT scores below 1400, and they were frustrated that their target audience wasn't taking the SAT.

The 1500 parents still don't get it and never will. The point isn't to find the highest test scorers and admit them all on a sliding scale. The test is another data point to show whether or not students can be successful. Frankly, a kid with a strong GPA at a decent school and a 1300 SAT will do just fine at Dartmouth, and Dartmouth wants to find them. This will really blow all your 1500+ parents' minds. My kid's highest SAT was a 1360, and he got into Georgetown--this was class of 2022. He's a sophomore. Doing very well. These schools don't want to reinstate test scores to find more high scores. They want a diverse class of students who will do well. Not a class of grinders. You all are celebrating way too soon. This doesn't make it any easier for your above average 1500+ kid to get into Dartmouth.

disagree. I think the SAT allows schools to find the kid who is 250 over their high school's average, even if it's far under Dartmouth's average. So the 1400.

That's a good thing. Bring them in.

The bad thing is the kid at Scarsdale High (or private equivalent) who somehow has a 4.0 because of grade inflation, published research (cause they paid for it), tennis player, and impressive internship (at Aunt's job). And because of TO, doesn't have to let their 1300 hold them back.

Completely agree.

yep, like MCPS, Fairfax and the worst offender: DCPS (JR with their 4.8s and yet can't crack 1400 on the SAT--my kid has so many white, upper middle class friends like this at JR)

Not sure why JR was drug into this. JR did have 10 Presidential Scholars and I believe 8 came from SAT scores of 1580+.

Also, you literally can’t get a 4.8 due to how classe are weighted and required PE and other classes.

There are plenty of kids exceeding 1400, but the school overall performs poorly. If 30% of the school does not attend college and yet is required to take the SAT in March of their junior year…well, do you think they care about their score?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting to learn that AOs have access to test score after the applications process. I was not aware of that. The article points out the underprivileged kids who might have been helped with a solid even if not stellar SAT score. I wonder though, if after three years, the college also found that it admitted a less qualified student body overall. We will never know this of course.

My kid’s scores were known by schools right after he took the ACT. Colleges purchase the list from the college board according to criteria they want. Later that month he had mailings from Yale and Harvard that specifically commended him on his recent test scores.

Exactly.

My older 2 were high performers, 1500+ on the SATs. Right after taking the tests, they were flooded with mailings from ivy schools, Michigan, U of Chicago and the like.

My youngest is more in the middle with schools. They took the 10th grade PSAT, and scored in the 80% range. They started getting mailings from schools like Syracuse, state schools, and a bunch of smaller mid range liberal arts colleges, none of which sent mailings to my older two.

The colleges have all the SAT scores, names and addresses of the kids, and know which kids are their target consumer based on test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can't even handle that little test, you are not a material for selective schools. Common Sense.

YES!! The ACT/SAT in 2024 are not the tests we remember. Have you all looked at one? They're not tricky and they literally test basic grammar, reading and math. I mean, look at a test when you have a minute. It's all very basic stuff: the proper use of colons, reading a paragraph for content, doing basic geometry, etc. They're not complex questions!!

Those are the things are public school system fails kids. Writing instruction is atrocious. They also tend to accelerate kids in math too quickly and pass them along with inflated grades so there is no strong foundation. We had our kids do a short boot camp with a tutor before their private high school entrance exams in grammar.

Senior knocked ACT out of the park after 4 years with almost no ACT test prep. 36 in verbal and reading. 35 math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting to learn that AOs have access to test score after the applications process. I was not aware of that. The article points out the underprivileged kids who might have been helped with a solid even if not stellar SAT score. I wonder though, if after three years, the college also found that it admitted a less qualified student body overall. We will never know this of course.

My kid’s scores were known by schools right after he took the ACT. Colleges purchase the list from the college board according to criteria they want. Later that month he had mailings from Yale and Harvard that specifically commended him on his recent test scores.

Exactly.

My older 2 were high performers, 1500+ on the SATs. Right after taking the tests, they were flooded with mailings from ivy schools, Michigan, U of Chicago and the like.

My youngest is more in the middle with schools. They took the 10th grade PSAT, and scored in the 80% range. They started getting mailings from schools like Syracuse, state schools, and a bunch of smaller mid range liberal arts colleges, none of which sent mailings to my older two.

The colleges have all the SAT scores, names and addresses of the kids, and know which kids are their target consumer based on test scores.

+1