Why TO now?

[Anonymous]

For the schools just now announcing going or remaining test optional- I’m guessing application numbers are down this year. This is a direct result.

The consensus was scores are predictive, the Ivies (Minus Princeton and Cornell) and Hopkins immediately went back to test required. Other schools were following. Now the sudden reversal by Swarthmore, ND and Duke and I Chicago and Vandy always test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the schools just now announcing going or remaining test optional- I’m guessing application numbers are down this year. This is a direct result.

The consensus was scores are predictive, the Ivies (Minus Princeton and Cornell) and Hopkins immediately went back to test required. Other schools were following. Now the sudden reversal by Swarthmore, ND and Duke and I Chicago and Vandy always test optional.

Not a reversal. They went TO, stayed TO.

[Anonymous]

This thread already covers TO
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1302439.page

[Anonymous]

Delete this thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the schools just now announcing going or remaining test optional- I’m guessing application numbers are down this year. This is a direct result.

The consensus was scores are predictive, the Ivies (Minus Princeton and Cornell) and Hopkins immediately went back to test required. Other schools were following. Now the sudden reversal by Swarthmore, ND and Duke and I Chicago and Vandy always test optional.

Duke had a sudden reversal? What was it before and what is the reversal? Sorry, I haven’t been following.

[Anonymous]

We were at an info session at Carleton earlier this fall. They claim that they are keeping TO because they've found that the tests aren't reliably predictive of students' success once enrolled. That may differ from school to school, and I'd imagine that the SLAC applicant pool is more self-selecting than that of some of the larger colleges and universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were at an info session at Carleton earlier this fall. They claim that they are keeping TO because they've found that the tests aren't reliably predictive of students' success once enrolled. That may differ from school to school, and I'd imagine that the SLAC applicant pool is more self-selecting than that of some of the larger colleges and universities.

VT has also said in sessions that they didn’t find scores to be predictive of student’s gpa in college or job outcome.

It’s really been an interesting natural experiment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the schools just now announcing going or remaining test optional- I’m guessing application numbers are down this year. This is a direct result.

The consensus was scores are predictive, the Ivies (Minus Princeton and Cornell) and Hopkins immediately went back to test required. Other schools were following. Now the sudden reversal by Swarthmore, ND and Duke and I Chicago and Vandy always test optional.

It’s funny the lower ranked schools claim they aren’t predictive while the higher ranked schools for extensive study and tracking off it.

Maybe at more rigorous schools it really matters, but schools with less academic kids from grade inflated schools they can get by fine at schools outside of the T10-15-20 range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the schools just now announcing going or remaining test optional- I’m guessing application numbers are down this year. This is a direct result.

The consensus was scores are predictive, the Ivies (Minus Princeton and Cornell) and Hopkins immediately went back to test required. Other schools were following. Now the sudden reversal by Swarthmore, ND and Duke and I Chicago and Vandy always test optional.

It’s funny the lower ranked schools claim they aren’t predictive while the higher ranked schools for extensive study and tracking off it.

Maybe at more rigorous schools it really matters, but schools with less academic kids from grade inflated schools they can get by fine at schools outside of the T10-15-20 range.

Swarthmore, VT, and Carleton are pretty rigorous even if you consider them "lower ranked" somehow. If you think that a "less academic" kid is going to breeze through Swarthmore, I have news for you.

[Anonymous]

The mess at UC San Diego should be a wakeup call.

Liberal arts colleges always have lower scorers on the SAT. It isn't surprising that they keep TO.

The sub Ivies like Duke, Vanderbilt, UChicago want to keep getting as many applications as possible. Statistically, for these colleges a great (1530+) SAT is a spike.

[Anonymous]

Some of the schools – I’m looking at you Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern — bring in a lot of athletes.

Those schools want to continue to recruit athletes with lower scores without deluding their averages.

[Anonymous]

It's sad the number of people on DCUM that believe that SAT/ACT scores = IQ. There are plenty of kids who are highly intelligent, great students who apply TO. Standardized tests measure processing speed, grades and overall application measure true executive functioning.

[Anonymous]

I think it is because those with lower SAT scores won’t submit them which inflates their accepted student scores- only the very high ones are submitting them.