Test Optional Policy at UVA in Fall of 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

+1

Apparently, TO is bad - except when whites use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

In the 1980s, they would have had test scores for everyone, pre-grade inflation GPA, class rank for everyone, and nothing written by ChatGPT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

+1

Apparently, TO is bad - except when whites use it.

TO seems to be great from the perspective of the schools in many ways. They can admit who they want without it negatively impacting the metrics they report for ranking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

Vandy is an interesting case. Pre-TO, Vandy seemed to really, really like high scores, but now seems obsessed with only their published score ranges, and their low score submission rate is getting embarrassing compared to peer schools.

Trying to get URMs to apply is only one reason colleges like TO. The other one is yield - statistically, TO applicants are more likely to enroll. In the Vandy example, when score submission rates dropped from 61% (assuming no overlap) for fall 2022 to 51% for fall 2023, yield went from 52% to 57%. There's more to yield changes than just TO, but it seems a likely contributor.

[Anonymous]

With Penn back to test required, I hope that kicks off all of these announcements happening sooner (rather than later)

[Anonymous]

Apparently not…

[Anonymous]

Actually, I wondered if they will announce today. DeanJ just posted that she’s having a Q&A at 3pm and didn’t include “we don’t know about test optional yet!” like she’s been doing lately

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

+1

Apparently, TO is bad - except when whites use it.

TO seems to be great from the perspective of the schools in many ways. They can admit who they want without it negatively impacting the metrics they report for ranking.

TO is only good for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, I wondered if they will announce today. DeanJ just posted that she’s having a Q&A at 3pm and didn’t include “we don’t know about test optional yet!” like she’s been doing lately

The BOV meets tomorrow, but it's about the gender affirming care executive order. Doubt the powers that be are spending time on TO with all the EOs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop with the URM BS. If 50% of the kids at Vandy were TO, you know darn good and well that most of them were white. This isn't 1980's admissions with paper applications. Colleges have so much more data on applicants and their high schools. A test score is only one metric.

+1

Apparently, TO is bad - except when whites use it.

TO seems to be great from the perspective of the schools in many ways. They can admit who they want without it negatively impacting the metrics they report for ranking.

TO is only good for schools.

It is also good for kids that get in TO.

[Anonymous]

UVA is doing an awful job of managing expectations here. It's as if nobody on BOV are parents themselves and do not know what it's like to have kids this age. Most juniors have upcoming summer jobs (or year-round jobs), internships, take summer classes to free up space for electives. They need to be giving kids as much notice to prep for these tests. Most juniors (especially applying to UVA) don't have a lot of free time and are already focused on AP tests in May/June. Kudos to schools who have already decided and announced for next year and even years beyond. If schools decide to go back to requiring tests, that's their right, but give people ample notice. UVA is failing here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA is doing an awful job of managing expectations here. It's as if nobody on BOV are parents themselves and do not know what it's like to have kids this age. Most juniors have upcoming summer jobs (or year-round jobs), internships, take summer classes to free up space for electives. They need to be giving kids as much notice to prep for these tests. Most juniors (especially applying to UVA) don't have a lot of free time and are already focused on AP tests in May/June. Kudos to schools who have already decided and announced for next year and even years beyond. If schools decide to go back to requiring tests, that's their right, but give people ample notice. UVA is failing here.

Indeed, UVA is failing here.

Perhaps the powers-that-be who are in favor of test optional are hoping to ride out, time wise, the conflict with the powers-that-be who want to return to test required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA is doing an awful job of managing expectations here. It's as if nobody on BOV are parents themselves and do not know what it's like to have kids this age. Most juniors have upcoming summer jobs (or year-round jobs), internships, take summer classes to free up space for electives. They need to be giving kids as much notice to prep for these tests. Most juniors (especially applying to UVA) don't have a lot of free time and are already focused on AP tests in May/June. Kudos to schools who have already decided and announced for next year and even years beyond. If schools decide to go back to requiring tests, that's their right, but give people ample notice. UVA is failing here.

+1

[Anonymous]

When are people going to realize that the BOV and the "powers that be" don't care about your junior in high school. They just don't. UVA is a business and a political organization. If the BOV and UVA did care, they would have announced this decision last fall (or earlier) and given students plenty of time to prepare if the decision was going to be go back to test required. UVA and its leadership is absolutely failing by not announcing a decision on a timely basis. The only right decision at this point is to stay test optional for Fall 2026's admissions cycle and, if UVA wants to return to test required, articulate a roadmap for that going forward. As an aside, going back to test required would be a big mistake and run counter to UVA's public statements regarding the importance of the high school transcript as well as the fact that the number of college-aged students will not be working in their favor going forward the next ten years. If UVA wants its application numbers to drop, go back to test required and see what happens. Finally, I just don't see the value in answering the silly questions the College Board asks. Two hours and 15 minutes is not a reflection of who someone is as a student. Stay test optional UVA. It's the right decision.

[Anonymous]

UVA has seen its 25th percentile rise 70 points under test optional.

Those in favor of test optional, keep in mind that even back when tests were last required, they were far outweighed in admission decisions by the transcript grades, gpa, rigor. We know this because the gender ratio was just as heavily female back then as it is now.