Test Optional - Admissions

[Anonymous]

Quite a few schools are staying test optional for next year. My question is, how can admissions officers honestly keep an unbiased opinion looking at kids who didn’t send in test scores? Despite wanting to stay neutral, I know I would be biased and assume that the kid bombed or didn’t do as great as they had hoped on the tests. Can they honestly look at the applications without bias? Worried if my kid should need to go test optional.

[Anonymous]

It may be technically optional, but a good score will help in many cases.

[Anonymous]

Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

There are like 100 threads on this already.

[Anonymous]

Test blind means that are not supposed to hold it against you. Test optional does not mean that. I would think they assume you do not have great scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

In a pile of virtually indistinguishable applications, a good score will put one above all the others that don’t include a score.

In a test optional environment, if score free applications are chosen over ones with great scores it’s because something else stood out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

In a pile of virtually indistinguishable applications, a good score will put one above all the others that don’t include a score.

In a test optional environment, if score free applications are chosen over ones with great scores it’s because something else stood out.

In a pile of indistinguishable applications, hardly anyone gets admitted: they are indistinguishable.

Admissions officers know who they want to create a class. For the selective colleges, those they admit meet the requirements - test score or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test blind means that are not supposed to hold it against you. Test optional does not mean that. I would think they assume you do not have great scores.

Nope. Test blind is the few schools (eg UCs and Dickinson) who refuse SAT and ACT scores.

[Anonymous]

I read that they just put more weight on other aspects of the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

In a pile of virtually indistinguishable applications, a good score will put one above all the others that don’t include a score.

In a test optional environment, if score free applications are chosen over ones with great scores it’s because something else stood out.

In a pile of indistinguishable applications, hardly anyone gets admitted: they are indistinguishable.

Admissions officers know who they want to create a class. For the selective colleges, those they admit meet the requirements - test score or not.

Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that a good score differentiates that application from similar ones without a submitted score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

In a pile of virtually indistinguishable applications, a good score will put one above all the others that don’t include a score.

In a test optional environment, if score free applications are chosen over ones with great scores it’s because something else stood out.

In a pile of indistinguishable applications, hardly anyone gets admitted: they are indistinguishable.

Admissions officers know who they want to create a class. For the selective colleges, those they admit meet the requirements - test score or not.

Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that a good score differentiates that application from similar ones without a submitted score.

Of course this is true. If a school wouldn't weigh a test score at all, then it wouldn't be test optional but test blind (.e., won't even look at a score if you try to send it in).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions staff is trained to evaluate a applicant based on what's submitted. Test Optional didn't just happen yesterday and some of the highly selective colleges have been test optional for years (U of Chicago, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, etc).

Based on the gripes from some DCUM parents, some TO applicants have been accepted over 1500+ SAT applicants. If your kid has a great application with academic rigor, ECs, essays, recommendations, if he/she goes test optional, the one testing data point won't be any more of a deal breaker than the thousands of kids who get rejected with high SAT scores.

In a pile of virtually indistinguishable applications, a good score will put one above all the others that don’t include a score.

In a test optional environment, if score free applications are chosen over ones with great scores it’s because something else stood out.

In a pile of indistinguishable applications, hardly anyone gets admitted: they are indistinguishable.

Admissions officers know who they want to create a class. For the selective colleges, those they admit meet the requirements - test score or not.

Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that a good score differentiates that application from similar ones without a submitted score.

Of course this is true. If a school wouldn't weigh a test score at all, then it wouldn't be test optional but test blind (.e., won't even look at a score if you try to send it in).

We’ve come full circle in this conversation.

[Anonymous]

If you score helps your application, and is better than college’s typical reported scores, submit them. If you are just marginally above, then you need to balance and decide. If your score is negative to both, then of course don’t submit. Unspoken is that unless you are a recruited athlete or a hook they love, you are not getting in.

The whole strategy now for students just highlights the colleges sought to get rid of meritocracy so they can get more of their preferred types of students, despite weaker objective scores and not ruin the schools published scores and therefore rating…That’s simply awful.

[Anonymous]

Our college counselor said it’s a bit of a game. TO has raised average SAT at schools, but they are basically taking the same kids. They are just accepting them TO to keep their acaerage scores high. We live in CA. Lots of kids here aren’t even taking the tests because the UCs are test blind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test optional us only got URMs and first generation.

And rich people..

There's tacit support for TO on these forums, especially from the private school or elite public school crowd.. you know the "Big 3" (or is it Big 5), "W" or whatever type schools. A lot of posts about how their kids are unable to cross 1400, yet have 3.5+ GPAs. Such parents love TO. They just won't admit it.

The whole college process is corrupt, where "greasing the ***" to squeeze a kid in is called "hooks", pointless athletics (what real life value does the ability to play lacrosse have in real life? Don't bother me with teamwork nonsense), and staged ECs, gets the kids in. Test scores were a glaring gap and now that it's gone, rich folks are thrilled.

URMs and First gen get what they deserve/owed anyways. Besides, most of them don't really want to be know for their accomplishments, not what they are.

[b]As usual, it's the middle class and Asians that get fu**ed!

Middle class and Asians are overrepresented on college campuses.

Wake up.