Let's discuss "Test Optional"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you listen to AOs, they hate College Board and care more about rigor/GPA.

If you listen to everyone who is not an AO, testing is the most important thing in the world.

Total bullshit.
That's basically much less standard and much more work for AOs from it.
AOs don't like TO

Source?

If you were an AO, would you like better standard and more information or deal with more random stuff

You, untrained and inexperienced in doing their work, think your instinct lines up with how AOs do things. That's just weird.

[Anonymous]

Some info from AO and URM perspectives

It depends. Factor in the school, department, major, % applicants submitting, and stuff like how many athletes, mathletes, FGLI, AP & IB-heavy transcripts, yield rate targets, AO's personal preferences & biases, the weather, interest rates, sleep deprivation, yadda yadda

Do NOT overinvest time, money, stress on tests. Like GPAs, the jury is still out on how effective they are. Very unlikely currently optional schools will jump back to required for all in next 2 cycles.

College Board needs to either a) fix the innate privilege problem of SAT, LSAT, etc. or come up with hard data proving their testing model is worth it.

What does matter are AP test scores and IB High Level course grades (diploma scores don't matter in US). Good grade in summer college course for credit in subject your DC loves would also be more informative than SAT.

Breadth over depth. Same goes for ECs. Better two or three highly personal or unique ECs than laundry list of teams and clubs.

There's no magic formula

Encourage your kid to explore and take risks in things that matter to them. Somewhere there is a school that will appreciate and empower them.

It's not worth the emotional damage of trying to game a system with no rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m hearing it really varies by college.
I hate the TO system because it think it’s a never ending death spiral. Take a school that 3 years ago had admitted saga in the 1400-1450 range. 2 years ago kids would only submit if they were above 1425, so admitted range went up to 1425-1475. Last year kids only submit if above 1450, so admitted range goes up to 1450-1500. This year will go up again and next year again, etc. etc. that’s just an example but I’ve heard that is essentially what’s happening at many TO schools.
I personally think standardized tests are great for helping to ID promising kids from random schools in random towns. And the death of standardized test scores probably only helps kids whose applications are being crafted by their parents and consultants.

Yes, it varies a LOT by school. You have to dig into the data for each school to find out whether it's truly "optional."

[Anonymous]

DC had a 1430 and submitted it for ED.
Was right in the in the middle of 25th to 75th percentile and so was the GPA.

Was thinking of doing TO for a school where 1430 was below the 50th percentile but did submit the score because they were proud of it. And it's a good score.
Withdrew that application because was accepted ED.

[Anonymous]

Not every school places as much weight on scores as others. You'd need to their CDS to see if schools care about scores and/or put more emphasis on other factors.

This really is a school by school decision on when to submit/not submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you listen to AOs, they hate College Board and care more about rigor/GPA.

If you listen to everyone who is not an AO, testing is the most important thing in the world.

Total bullshit.
That's basically much less standard and much more work for AOs from it.
AOs don't like TO

Source?

If you were an AO, would you like better standard and more information or deal with more random stuff

You, untrained and inexperienced in doing their work, think your instinct lines up with how AOs do things. That's just weird.

Better standard and more information has nothing to do with untrained and inexperienced
DUH

[Anonymous]

I think if you have you good scores you always send them to bolster your case, and if you don’t then you don’t. My DD applied TO last year because she was below the mid range for all her schools and we didn’t want to give them a reason to say no. She had good grades and GPA so we wanted them to judge her off of those. We also aimed for schools she was qualified to attend and no real reaches. She got in everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you listen to AOs, they hate College Board and care more about rigor/GPA.

If you listen to everyone who is not an AO, testing is the most important thing in the world.

Total bullshit.
That's basically much less standard and much more work for AOs from it.
AOs don't like TO

Agreed. AOs would prefer a test score unless you are in some unique category. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Again? OP - the search function is a tremendous resource when looking to beat this dead horse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is difficult to show rigor when everyone is in Honors English and many kids graduate over 4.0 (MCPS)

Not true. There are plenty of kids in MCPS who don’t show rigor for UVA (or similar) but don’t realize it. They don’t take 4 years of language, or they don’t take AP science or AP Calc, etc. I see that with a lot of kids who think they have a rigorous transcript but it’s not rigorous enough and they don’t understand admissions at selective schools (see all the threads about dropping world language).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m hearing it really varies by college.
I hate the TO system because it think it’s a never ending death spiral. Take a school that 3 years ago had admitted saga in the 1400-1450 range. 2 years ago kids would only submit if they were above 1425, so admitted range went up to 1425-1475. Last year kids only submit if above 1450, so admitted range goes up to 1450-1500. This year will go up again and next year again, etc. etc. that’s just an example but I’ve heard that is essentially what’s happening at many TO schools.
I personally think standardized tests are great for helping to ID promising kids from random schools in random towns. And the death of standardized test scores probably only helps kids whose applications are being crafted by their parents and consultants.

Yes, it varies a LOT by school. You have to dig into the data for each school to find out whether it's truly "optional."

This. Each schools looks at testing differently. People need to stop treating it like it is the same policy across all schools. Further, each kid’s specific answer on whether to submit is different depending on what the test scores are and what their overall profile is.

[Anonymous]

Test Optional allows colleges to increase diversity, admit more full payers and increase applications.

AOs get to shape their class with more flexibility.

It's some PARENTS that can't get a desired outcome who try to make TO a bad thing.

Up to 40% of applicants don't submit test scores via the common app.

Some might not like it but it's not going away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think your school counselors are basically right. You’re getting hung up on the idea that colleges are trying to admit the strongest students. The vast majority of them are not. They’re trying to maximize revenue. TO increases the pool of admissible students who are willing and able to pay sticker price.

Such a good point.

[Anonymous]

NP. The people who really, really love TO the most are D1 coaches of men’s sports that are played internationally. It means they can now recruit young men who have been semi-pro in their home countries regardless of how paltry their high school education was (and often, it was very paltry) because there is no objective academic measure to be met. No 18-year-old US senior can compete against a 22-year-old semipro who doesn’t have to get a minimum SAT score any more, so TO is changing the face of D1 recruiting very quickly. Men’s swimming, water polo, tennis, golf, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. are all impacted by this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m hearing it really varies by college.
I hate the TO system because it think it’s a never ending death spiral. Take a school that 3 years ago had admitted saga in the 1400-1450 range. 2 years ago kids would only submit if they were above 1425, so admitted range went up to 1425-1475. Last year kids only submit if above 1450, so admitted range goes up to 1450-1500. This year will go up again and next year again, etc. etc. that’s just an example but I’ve heard that is essentially what’s happening at many TO schools.
I personally think standardized tests are great for helping to ID promising kids from random schools in random towns. And the death of standardized test scores probably only helps kids whose applications are being crafted by their parents and consultants.

Yes, it varies a LOT by school. You have to dig into the data for each school to find out whether it's truly "optional."

Yes, this was what we found too. There is info in the details. For example, when we reviewed Michigan’s CDS in the fall we found that 80-something percent of their admitted class had submitted scores, compared to like 40-something percent at Villanova. In addition, my kid’s school college counselor had recommendations on which in-state schools wanted to see scores regardless of their TO policy. DC was on the cusp at so many places that it was hard to decide what to do.