Dartmouth Announces Test Scores Required Starting Next Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My UMC kid said this means she needs to get her 1530 up to 1550. I don't think so .. do you?

No.

It means her 1530 has returned to having value like it did pre-test optional.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A huge blow to the DEI crowd.

And with legacy beginning to be pulled as well at many colleges...hopefully, we can enter a 'merit-based' admissions era.

I feel like people aren’t reading the article.

Dartmouth is basically saying we will take lots of kids with SAT scores in the 1300s and 1400s coming from disadvantaged schools.

I don’t see how that will help the 1580 Asian kid from TJ. Those parents will be crying louder than ever.

That is not at all what the article said.

Ok, what did it say...here is a direct quote:

“We’re looking for the kids who are excelling in their environment. We know society is unequal,” Beilock said. “Kids that are excelling in their environment, we think, are a good bet to excel at Dartmouth and out in the world.” The admissions office will judge an applicant’s environment partly by comparing his or her test score with the score distribution at the applicant’s high schools, Coffin said. In some cases, even an SAT score well below 1,400 can help an application.

No,

You are misreading.

The article said that kids at those lower performing schools (such as a school where most kids graduate at a 3rd grade reading level or no one takes calculus) with scores in that range (1400+/-) are kids who have proven they can succeed at a school like Dartmouth. In contrast, a kid from a wealthy school with every resource at thier disposal who still only has a middling SAT score but high GPA will struggle.

That statement is talking about the potential to resources ratio. It is not a statement about a hard cut off of test scores.

You are completely misreading the entire article.

My comment was in response to someone claiming that now schools will admit purely on merit. Dartmouth's policy will now accept plenty of kids with a 1300 or 1400 from an under-resourced school vs. the TJ kid with a 1580. It's not even about a wealthy school vs. non-wealthy school (at least from the perspective of student-body wealth).

The TJ parents will continue to cry that the world is biased against them because their 1580 kid was rejected by Dartmouth while some 1300 kid from Harlem public schools was admitted.

Eliminating test optional means the 1580 TJ kid has a reasonable shot against all the other 1500+ applicants, instead of hetting shut out by a rich 4.0 kid with a 1200 SAT who went test optional.

This change benefits the brilliant 1500 kids from affluent or middle class backgrounds. It also benefits the poor white trailer park kid from the meth corridor of the midwest, or the Baltimore City Schools minority kid, who achieved a 1350 or 1400 SAT, in spite of attending a school district where 90% of the students are "graduated" functionally illiterate and unable to do more than 2nd grade math.

In all 3 of those cases, the 1580 TJ kid, the meth corridor poor white kid, and the minority Baltimore city schools kid, returning to test required means the system is returning to a merit based system.

The best and brightest will rise to the top in all 3 scenarios.

Test optional cuts those 3 brilliant kids from a fair shot, in favor of average kids with inflated grades and expensive extracurriculars, raised in wealth, stability and privilege.

I am sorry...you are giving those parents way too much credit. That's not how they define merit. They define merit fairly simplistically...1580 > 1350 period. They don't care about circumstances or potential. To them, the kid that showed more merit was rejected over a kid that showed far less merit.

Sure, they also are happy the rich TO kid is no longer a factor...but literally the way they would run college acceptances is send SAT scores and just go down the list from highest to lowest and that is the first cut of applicants (because there will be thousands with the same scores). So, basically only kids with probably a 1550+ would remain, and now you look at their application.

They don't care about potential.

I think this post shows that the ones freaking out about test optional going away are the rich dc moms demographic parents whose kids are average intelligence (roughly 65 to 85 stanines) with inflated grades.

The parents of kids with very high test scores are thrilled because they understand that this levels the playing field and makes admissions more fair, including for very smart kids from underserved communities.

It will be two groups...the group you mention above and the groups that believe that a high SAT score/high stats = guaranteed admission to a top school (which is also a large group).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My UMC kid said this means she needs to get her 1530 up to 1550. I don't think so .. do you?

No.

It means her 1530 has returned to having value like it did pre-test optional.

+1

[Anonymous]

Every school's grading system and every teacher's grading style is different, also favoritism and corruption exist, hence having outside evaluation and scores of AP, IB, SAT, PSAT are crucial to have know real depth of a student.

[Anonymous]

I think that a lot of you are wrongly assuming that this will clear the path for your high scoring kids. It might a bit, but as many other posts on this board show, it is entirely possible for selective schools to bypass high scores for lower scores for many reasons. They don’t, and won’t start, admitting solely on the basis of scores and grades. Dartmouth even says as much.

[Anonymous]

However, corruption, favoritism and social engineering would still matter and highly intelligent Asian students would still get the short end of the stick at Ivies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A huge blow to the DEI crowd.

And with legacy beginning to be pulled as well at many colleges...hopefully, we can enter a 'merit-based' admissions era.

I feel like people aren’t reading the article.

Dartmouth is basically saying we will take lots of kids with SAT scores in the 1300s and 1400s coming from disadvantaged schools.

I don’t see how that will help the 1580 Asian kid from TJ. Those parents will be crying louder than ever.

That is not at all what the article said.

Ok, what did it say...here is a direct quote:

“We’re looking for the kids who are excelling in their environment. We know society is unequal,” Beilock said. “Kids that are excelling in their environment, we think, are a good bet to excel at Dartmouth and out in the world.” The admissions office will judge an applicant’s environment partly by comparing his or her test score with the score distribution at the applicant’s high schools, Coffin said. In some cases, even an SAT score well below 1,400 can help an application.

No,

You are misreading.

The article said that kids at those lower performing schools (such as a school where most kids graduate at a 3rd grade reading level or no one takes calculus) with scores in that range (1400+/-) are kids who have proven they can succeed at a school like Dartmouth. In contrast, a kid from a wealthy school with every resource at thier disposal who still only has a middling SAT score but high GPA will struggle.

That statement is talking about the potential to resources ratio. It is not a statement about a hard cut off of test scores.

You are completely misreading the entire article.

My comment was in response to someone claiming that now schools will admit purely on merit. Dartmouth's policy will now accept plenty of kids with a 1300 or 1400 from an under-resourced school vs. the TJ kid with a 1580. It's not even about a wealthy school vs. non-wealthy school (at least from the perspective of student-body wealth).

The TJ parents will continue to cry that the world is biased against them because their 1580 kid was rejected by Dartmouth while some 1300 kid from Harlem public schools was admitted.

Eliminating test optional means the 1580 TJ kid has a reasonable shot against all the other 1500+ applicants, instead of hetting shut out by a rich 4.0 kid with a 1200 SAT who went test optional.

This change benefits the brilliant 1500 kids from affluent or middle class backgrounds. It also benefits the poor white trailer park kid from the meth corridor of the midwest, or the Baltimore City Schools minority kid, who achieved a 1350 or 1400 SAT, in spite of attending a school district where 90% of the students are "graduated" functionally illiterate and unable to do more than 2nd grade math.

In all 3 of those cases, the 1580 TJ kid, the meth corridor poor white kid, and the minority Baltimore city schools kid, returning to test required means the system is returning to a merit based system.

The best and brightest will rise to the top in all 3 scenarios.

Test optional cuts those 3 brilliant kids from a fair shot, in favor of average kids with inflated grades and expensive extracurriculars, raised in wealth, stability and privilege.

I am sorry...you are giving those parents way too much credit. That's not how they define merit. They define merit fairly simplistically...1580 > 1350 period. They don't care about circumstances or potential. To them, the kid that showed more merit was rejected over a kid that showed far less merit.

Sure, they also are happy the rich TO kid is no longer a factor...but literally the way they would run college acceptances is send SAT scores and just go down the list from highest to lowest and that is the first cut of applicants (because there will be thousands with the same scores). So, basically only kids with probably a 1550+ would remain, and now you look at their application.

They don't care about potential.

I think this post shows that the ones freaking out about test optional going away are the rich dc moms demographic parents whose kids are average intelligence (roughly 65 to 85 stanines) with inflated grades.

The parents of kids with very high test scores are thrilled because they understand that this levels the playing field and makes admissions more fair, including for very smart kids from underserved communities.

It will be two groups...the group you mention above and the groups that believe that a high SAT score/high stats = guaranteed admission to a top school (which is also a large group).

You clearly do not have a kid in the top SAT tier.

I have 2, and one below in the mid 80s stanine.

Parents of kids in that range are perfectly understanding of their kids losing slots to kids also in that range.

They understand slots going to a kid from a school such as a Baltimore public high school, who demonstrated their brilliance with a 1400 score range, in spite of goi g to such a horrible incompetent school system.

They are not okay with their rich classmate who cheats in class to get a high GPA, but submitted test optional because of their 1200 SAT, getting spots over the 2 brilliant kids described above.

[Anonymous]

Excited! None of the taking test 4-6x anymore to get a 36!
34 is great!! Like it was in 2019! Move on!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that a lot of you are wrongly assuming that this will clear the path for your high scoring kids. It might a bit, but as many other posts on this board show, it is entirely possible for selective schools to bypass high scores for lower scores for many reasons. They don’t, and won’t start, admitting solely on the basis of scores and grades. Dartmouth even says as much.

We aren't assuming that.

We are seeing that requiring test submission will clear away most of the kids with lower and middle range SATs, that are now applying in high numbers to schools that they are not qualified for.

[Anonymous]

^^ And it will also stop the insanity of kids with 1460-1520 SATs freaking out and retesting because they feel these incredible scores are not high enough to submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that a lot of you are wrongly assuming that this will clear the path for your high scoring kids. It might a bit, but as many other posts on this board show, it is entirely possible for selective schools to bypass high scores for lower scores for many reasons. They don’t, and won’t start, admitting solely on the basis of scores and grades. Dartmouth even says as much.

We aren't assuming that.

We are seeing that requiring test submission will clear away most of the kids with lower and middle range SATs, that are now applying in high numbers to schools that they are not qualified for.

Exactly. It's going to reduce the insane number of applications schools are receiving currently. It will also lessen the number of applications students will submit, going back to the average 5-6 instead of the 17-20+ of current. This is good for everyone...accept the schools gaming the system by driving up applicants to falsely appear more selective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ And it will also stop the insanity of kids with 1460-1520 SATs freaking out and retesting because they feel these incredible scores are not high enough to submit.

Yes. Only in today's crazy environment do kids stress that their 33 ACT isn't good enough and shouldn't be submitted. It's gotten insane and causing kids undue stress. And then a kid with a 27 that didn't submit is getting in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that a lot of you are wrongly assuming that this will clear the path for your high scoring kids. It might a bit, but as many other posts on this board show, it is entirely possible for selective schools to bypass high scores for lower scores for many reasons. They don’t, and won’t start, admitting solely on the basis of scores and grades. Dartmouth even says as much.

True but it adds need for some transparency hence decreasing level of unfairness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will be no test optional selective schools by 2028-ish. Read the article; the data are totally convincing. Tests both better predict success and better find disadvantaged kids who can do the work. The idea that standardized tests were "racist" was always foolish; test optional helped dumb rich kids, not smart poor kids. Sanity prevailing, finally.

2028 feels a long time away... that's the current 8th graders application cycle?

2028 refers to their college graduation year. That is the year's group of seniors (i.e., 2024 HS graduates).

wut

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ And it will also stop the insanity of kids with 1460-1520 SATs freaking out and retesting because they feel these incredible scores are not high enough to submit.

Yes. Only in today's crazy environment do kids stress that their 33 ACT isn't good enough and shouldn't be submitted. It's gotten insane and causing kids undue stress. And then a kid with a 27 that didn't submit is getting in.

Yes. That happened to my high SAT kid at several schools.