Test optional over

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They aren’t looking for the smartest kids. That’s not holistic admissions.
They need a baseline/threshold. That # varies per selectivity of institution.

After that, they want to know what your kid will be doing on campus all day. After all they are only in class for 1-3 hrs a day. What will they be doing? How will they engage?
That’s what they really care about. That’s also what fills their discussions in AO Cmte. They aren’t talking about scores.

This!!!
Wake up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

What about writing? A kid may not test well but could be Ana amazing writer. That counts for nothing since they did normal in bubbles?

What about writing? Do you really care if the surgeon operating on your loved one is an excellent writer? Or the engineer who inspects the bridge you have to cross over every day?

Writing is thinking on paper. It’s actually not some frivolity. A doctor who can’t use words to explain a complex diagnosis is a worse doctor.

I really don't care about the doctors words if he can heal my sick child. If your kid was dying, you'd really choose the doctor who "wrote well" over the one that could save your child's life?

A large part of successful medicine is skillfully managing the patient (and family). If the patient doesn't trust their MD or doesn't do what the MD tells them to do, no amount of medical knowledge or experience will be useful. Same goes for effective communication with their team during a procedure, it’s essential.

Actually performing the surgery is important too. All the "skillfull management of the family" will be of no use when the patient is dead.

Which is what I said, communication with their team. Aware it’s both. Acutely aware of first one as of late with a parent that wants to stop going to a specialist as they have zero bedside manner. It’s a nightmare and getting in elsewhere would be months at best. They were turned off immediately and now it’s an uphill battle on listening to any of their suggestions.

I get it. I want my kid to live. You want your kid to die and then the doctor to write a poem about it. We're just different, is all.

If that’s really your concern, I hope you are honestly and truly as passionate as about stopping legacy preferences and sports recruiting as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Yes, as long as they admit non-URM at the same rate as URM students.

which would be a race-based admission quota, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

“The system should advantage what my kids are best at, otherwise it’s unfair and dangerous”

I’m sorry the entire higher education system is not rewriting itself around your VERY SPECIAL CHILD.

You don’t “deserve” anything and neither do do they.

Why do people feel so strongly about not using test scores? So interesting how soft we have gotten - I agree with others that the SAT isn’t even that hard. My kids used Khan academy (fee) and both scored over 1500 without too much effort. The private school mom “wealthy white” kid who posted earlier is the other side of the equation - if you look at private schools their kids are virtually automatically admitted due to improper influence and also are stealing spots from more qualified candidates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

Completely agree. If kid A tests better than kid B, it’s bc kid A IS SMARTER. Jeez.

No that is false. The SAT and ACT are timed test that do not require a great deal of deep thinking. It is more about your preparation for the test, what ones has been exposed to and tutoring.
Very complex hard to solve problems that require high intelligence are not solved 1 minute 11 seconds to 1 minute 35 seconds(SAT) or 52 seconds (ACT).

Classic public school parent: their kid had all A's (from grade inflation) and then gets a crappy SAT score. They insist their kid is smart, just not a "good test taker." There are also tons of public schools kids that crush the SATs and get excellent grades. These kids are not the same and shouldn't be viewed the same by college admissions. The SAT has been proven to be useful as a proxy measure for intelligence and academic success. It's that simple.

Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on IQ tests—so highly that the Harvard education scholar Howard Gardner, known for his theory of multiple intelligences, once called the SAT and other scholastic measures “thinly disguised” intelligence tests. Meanwhile, research has consistently shown that prep courses have only a small effect on SAT scores. For example, in one study of a random sample of more than 4,000 students, average improvement in overall score on the “old” SAT, which had a range from 400 to 1600, was no more than about 30 points.

Read this 2019 article published in the Journal of Intelligence.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6963451/

[Anonymous]

If a college doesn't believe the test is a strong indicator of a student's ability, they should go test blind, not test optional.

That said, the best example of test blind is the UC system, where it seems pretty obvious they adopted a test blind policy for diversity reasons. Their own hand-picked expert panel concluded that UC needed the SAT and ACT, but the board got rid of them anyway.

Anonymous wrote:Well it says IF a college uses test option IN ORDER TO achieve racial balance. But there are a lot of reasons to go test optional that have nothing to do with racial balance. Some colleges simply don’t believe they are strong indicators of a student’s ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can never level it all out, but I’d be fine as a parent of both adhd and non-adhd of having extended time for all. There is a ton of excellent free tools online to prepare. The cases that bother me most are the ones from privileged backgrounds in good schools that claim bad test taker and it’s sometimes more unwilling to do the work.

It is obscene how common these accommodations are at the top private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a few long term TO schools and that is fine, they are quirky and look for something other than academics. But for the vast majority of academic mainstream schools the thought of making admissions decisions with localized GPAs, chatgpt essays and unverified activities is just asinine. They have to have an agenda to agree to this and it’s not the find the highest performing academics, which are potentially America’s GREATEST natural resource. They are being cast aside for all sorts of nonsense while other countries plot our demise.

This.

America is losing it's competitive edge

Some people complain about H 1 B visas but if we don't bring them here, the job goes over there. The global economy of the future is not going to be kind to countries that play these sort of games

I’m a pp. This is kind of ridiculous. SAT doesn’t measure creativity and innovation.

Intelligence correlates with these things better than almost any other predictor.

[Anonymous]

Standardized tests have value in determining academic preparedness. Schools should publish the minimum SAT/ACT scores that their internal research indicates an applicant needs to be academically admissible, similar to what Canadian institutions like McGill publish. This score exists, and it's lower than most students think on this board, even at T10s. At a T10 I used to work at, it was around 1350 for most majors (not including CS/engineering).

--signed R1 chair/professor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a few long term TO schools and that is fine, they are quirky and look for something other than academics. But for the vast majority of academic mainstream schools the thought of making admissions decisions with localized GPAs, chatgpt essays and unverified activities is just asinine. They have to have an agenda to agree to this and it’s not the find the highest performing academics, which are potentially America’s GREATEST natural resource. They are being cast aside for all sorts of nonsense while other countries plot our demise.

This.

America is losing it's competitive edge

Some people complain about H 1 B visas but if we don't bring them here, the job goes over there. The global economy of the future is not going to be kind to countries that play these sort of games

I’m a pp. This is kind of ridiculous. SAT doesn’t measure creativity and innovation.

SAT measures how wealthy your parents are.

In the larger scheme of things, the test optional colleges and universities are not having problems filling their freshmen classes with qualified students. SAT and ACT scores at very competitive colleges like Stanford average between 1500-1560 and 33-35. That is average and if your kid got a B in one class you are not getting in.

No it doesn't. Not at the top end. We have peer reviewed studies confirming this. On average, a high scoring wealthy kid does almost exactly as well as a poor kid with the same score. And kids with better test scores do better than kids with worse test scores. If the test score were a reflection of wealth instead of ability, you wouldn't expect this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Yale podcast basically said they can assess capabilities without tests and have become quite good at it - but by becoming test flexible they just wanted to get rid of applicants who had no business applying. They prefer test flexible bc it gives them more flexibility with shaping the class.

See mythbusters podcast from the fall.

Flexibility in this case means racial discrimination

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

Completely agree. If kid A tests better than kid B, it’s bc kid A IS SMARTER. Jeez.

No that is false. The SAT and ACT are timed test that do not require a great deal of deep thinking. It is more about your preparation for the test, what ones has been exposed to and tutoring.
Very complex hard to solve problems that require high intelligence are not solved 1 minute 11 seconds to 1 minute 35 seconds(SAT) or 52 seconds (ACT).

Everything we know about standardized testing says you are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges can still admit students with low test scores even if they submit them!

Exactly. It doesn't mean kids who aren't great test takers won't get into college.

“Aren’t great test takers”, the foundation for academic measurement in every setting. Have you ever wondered if they “aren’t great test takers” but have a high GPA, how that occurred? Grade inflation? Retakes? Clearly it was not “test taking”. If there is one score I would use for college admissions it’s the SAT/ACT and secondarily AP scores. The amount of TO kids getting into colleges over my high stat GPA/SAT kids makes me crazy and I have every right to be.

What about writing? A kid may not test well but could be Ana amazing writer. That counts for nothing since they did normal in bubbles?

What about writing? Do you really care if the surgeon operating on your loved one is an excellent writer? Or the engineer who inspects the bridge you have to cross over every day?

Writing is thinking on paper. It’s actually not some frivolity. A doctor who can’t use words to explain a complex diagnosis is a worse doctor.

I really don't care about the doctors words if he can heal my sick child. If your kid was dying, you'd really choose the doctor who "wrote well" over the one that could save your child's life?

A large part of successful medicine is skillfully managing the patient (and family). If the patient doesn't trust their MD or doesn't do what the MD tells them to do, no amount of medical knowledge or experience will be useful. Same goes for effective communication with their team during a procedure, it’s essential.

Actually performing the surgery is important too. All the "skillfull management of the family" will be of no use when the patient is dead.

Which is what I said, communication with their team. Aware it’s both. Acutely aware of first one as of late with a parent that wants to stop going to a specialist as they have zero bedside manner. It’s a nightmare and getting in elsewhere would be months at best. They were turned off immediately and now it’s an uphill battle on listening to any of their suggestions.

I get it. I want my kid to live. You want your kid to die and then the doctor to write a poem about it. We're just different, is all.

If that’s really your concern, I hope you are honestly and truly as passionate as about stopping legacy preferences and sports recruiting as well.

legacy preference, sure.
Sports recruiting (for football and basketball, at least) is completely different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Standardized tests have value in determining academic preparedness. Schools should publish the minimum SAT/ACT scores that their internal research indicates an applicant needs to be academically admissible, similar to what Canadian institutions like McGill publish. This score exists, and it's lower than most students think on this board, even at T10s. At a T10 I used to work at, it was around 1350 for most majors (not including CS/engineering).

--signed R1 chair/professor

+1
This really is the crux of it. Schools should just publish their minimum required, toss out applications that don’t meet it, then review and admit based on the rest of the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well it says IF a college uses test option IN ORDER TO achieve racial balance. But there are a lot of reasons to go test optional that have nothing to do with racial balance. Some colleges simply don’t believe they are strong indicators of a student’s ability.

And let's face it, no college is even close to having a "racial balance."

15% of Harvard college is black. 12% is Hispanic. The most underrepresented group at Harvard is white. Particularly middle class or working class white.