Are colleges secretly factoring test scores into decisions for test-optional applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But doesn't it also depend on the school? For example, if you're at a DMV private do you want to be the applicant who has no test score? That's what I'd be worried about.

My kid went TO and got in everywhere. Most of the schools he applied to have been TO for years. People just need to stop applying to so many reach schools. Do you homework so your kid will have plenty of choices that they actually like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But doesn't it also depend on the school? For example, if you're at a DMV private do you want to be the applicant who has no test score? That's what I'd be worried about.

My kid went TO and got in everywhere. Most of the schools he applied to have been TO for years. People just need to stop applying to so many reach schools. Do you homework so your kid will have plenty of choices that they actually like.

Why stop applying to many reach schools?
You don't need to apply to many safety schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

Kids and parents talk. I know a lot about who is legacy, TO, etc…from both my DC and from conversations with parents. Not everyone shares, but a good number do especially after they’ve been admitted somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

Np. At a private school. My junior knows and has a lot of senior friends…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

Np. At a private school. My junior knows and has a lot of senior friends…

I have junior/senior Big3 private kids and they both know a ton of seniors well from sports (one is a senior and one is friends with seniors) and they talk admissions nightly (who is in where) but never do they know testing status. No one talks about this.
I hold that it is very weird that your kid knows this about so many kids and she comes home and tells you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

Np. At a private school. My junior knows and has a lot of senior friends…

I have junior/senior Big3 private kids and they both know a ton of seniors well from sports (one is a senior and one is friends with seniors) and they talk admissions nightly (who is in where) but never do they know testing status. No one talks about this.
I hold that it is very weird that your kid knows this about so many kids and she comes home and tells you.

They know each others scores…..think they infer TO from that.

It’s a close school/class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TO has to be TO, at least for this year, based on the admissions this fall/winter. It has seemed like anything submitted under a 1550 is considered worse than TO, both for admission and for merit awards/honors colleges. My daughter has friends that have gotten in TO to Yale, Brown, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern, Bowdoin, and Notre Dame and that’s just off the top of my head. So hard to know how to proceed with a current junior.

how does your junior know that many seniors' college admissions results as well as their testing status? And then comes home and tells you? Just wondering how this works.

Our school isn’t that big. Are your juniors not close with seniors? And we’re in CT, not California.

[Anonymous]

So what about TO for the class of 2025? Scores will probably become more important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They know you aren’t smart, but they will admit you anyway if you fill a need.

If you’ve got a good gpa in a rigorous curriculum, they won’t conclude you’re not smart if you don’t submit a test score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But doesn't it also depend on the school? For example, if you're at a DMV private do you want to be the applicant who has no test score? That's what I'd be worried about.

My kid went TO and got in everywhere. Most of the schools he applied to have been TO for years. People just need to stop applying to so many reach schools. Do you homework so your kid will have plenty of choices that they actually like.

But where

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They know you aren’t smart, but they will admit you anyway if you fill a need.

If you’ve got a good gpa in a rigorous curriculum, they won’t conclude you’re not smart if you don’t submit a test score.

Not if your schools let students retake tests and everyone has 4.0 UW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They know you aren’t smart, but they will admit you anyway if you fill a need.

If you’ve got a good gpa in a rigorous curriculum, they won’t conclude you’re not smart if you don’t submit a test score.

Pandemic is over and most students are taking but not submit them. Why do colleges not consider one thing that is a measure of the student performance? Next to GPA, SAT is a good measure. It is not that once in college no more test. They have to to take MCAT or LSAT or college exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Colleges know that students who have worked their asses off for four years and built stellar portfolio of superior AP scores, near perfect GPA & diverse ECs, ... would have to be nuts to stop themselves from taking SAT/ACT.

+100

[Anonymous]

It is perfectly reasonable and logical for a college to assume that a test optional applicant has a score too low for that college.