Let's discuss "Test Optional"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is fascinating. Do you have any additional information or links to articles?

This will also apply to women’s sports as well I’m sure.

Sports admit should be limited to certain majors like physical education

You can tell a lot about the priorities and values of a school by looking at their current rosters, which usually have a bio section for at least the starters. You'll see where they are from and their majors. SM will also usually communicate some of this (with top schools broadcasting their team GPAs). Many, many schools recruit from out of the country. For my child's sport, for example, if you plan on going Ivy and playing- forget it. Harvard, for example, has a roster that is 3/4 out of the country. Even lots of d3 schools recruit from out of the country. I don't know if they are all test optional or not. Do they have SAT in Argentina? Netherlands? Etc.?

Top academic schools let you major in whatever you want, but USUALLY (not always) the sport success suffers. For top sports teams (again, not all) you will see a lot of "communications" and "exercise science" majors. You can forget a lot of the stem pathways b/c it's just not doable. My neighbor was a D1 athlete and was told he could pick his sport or engineering (he picked the sport). And I have other friends whose kids have similar stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

I just saw something from UVA the other day -- For the ~50,000 applicants for the HS class of 2022, 43% did not submit test scores and 28% of the students admitted did not submit test scores.
I do not know the breakdown of in state vs OOS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

CB might also consider not letting kids take the test 6X. Those are the kids whose parents pay for test prep and for multiple tests so they can superscore. Or make the tests free so it's not just rich kids who can take the test 4X. It's hard to figure out how to make this equitable with the tests or not. I worry without the tests, the process is completely not transparent and there is no way to compare student across schools (except using the college's own internal ways of comparing schools based on students they have seen in the past.)

Non-asians loved the holistic process and loved that it wasn't all about gpa and test scores. I read it here over and over. Any time someone complained that a kid with high gpa and test scores didn't get into a school over a kid with lower scores, someone would quickly chime in, "it's not just about test scores, you know." But now, as the process moves even more holistic to test-optional, funny, I hear a lot of complaining.

How did race enter the conversation? You have no idea of the race of the people lamenting test optional. They could be Asian for all you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

I just saw something from UVA the other day -- For the ~50,000 applicants for the HS class of 2022, 43% did not submit test scores and 28% of the students admitted did not submit test scores.
I do not know the breakdown of in state vs OOS.

This is interesting because uva downplays the importance of test scores in its cds and though the comments of its admissions staff. Yet more than 70 percent of the admitted class submitted test scores which is on par with schools like BC which say they do care a lot about scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More work and burden to students
Now they have to compute whether to send or not send score to each of the school they apply.

My son applied to 10 schools. He just looked at the SAT ranges for each school (easy to find) and saw that his SAT scores fell below the lowest score in the range except for one school. He didn't send scores to any of them and got into all 10 EA. It wasn't a lot of work. It took maybe 40 minutes to find these score ranges.

My DD did the same and is in to 7 and has 2 deferrals so far. She ended up going TO everywhere, even though she was in range for a couple of schools. E are from CA and many in her class did not even bother to test. She got in to her #1 choice so she’s happy.

Not top schools because I know someone will ask.

Your last sentence is the critical point.

Despite what you read on DCUM, most students are not applying to top schools. People on here just seem to discount them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

I just saw something from UVA the other day -- For the ~50,000 applicants for the HS class of 2022, 43% did not submit test scores and 28% of the students admitted did not submit test scores.
I do not know the breakdown of in state vs OOS.

This is interesting because uva downplays the importance of test scores in its cds and though the comments of its admissions staff. Yet more than 70 percent of the admitted class submitted test scores which is on par with schools like BC which say they do care a lot about scores.

22,000+ of applicants didn't submit test scores to a T25 school. 6,000+ got accepted.

Try putting the TO genie back in the bottle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

I just saw something from UVA the other day -- For the ~50,000 applicants for the HS class of 2022, 43% did not submit test scores and 28% of the students admitted did not submit test scores.
I do not know the breakdown of in state vs OOS.

This is interesting because uva downplays the importance of test scores in its cds and though the comments of its admissions staff. Yet more than 70 percent of the admitted class submitted test scores which is on par with schools like BC which say they do care a lot about scores.

22,000+ of applicants didn't submit test scores to a T25 school. 6,000+ got accepted.

Try putting the TO genie back in the bottle.

Personally I’d rather have my student in the group that makes up more than 70 percent of the admitted class, but you play your own odds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is fascinating. Do you have any additional information or links to articles?

This will also apply to women’s sports as well I’m sure.

Sports admit should be limited to certain majors like physical education

You can tell a lot about the priorities and values of a school by looking at their current rosters, which usually have a bio section for at least the starters. You'll see where they are from and their majors. SM will also usually communicate some of this (with top schools broadcasting their team GPAs). Many, many schools recruit from out of the country. For my child's sport, for example, if you plan on going Ivy and playing- forget it. Harvard, for example, has a roster that is 3/4 out of the country. Even lots of d3 schools recruit from out of the country. I don't know if they are all test optional or not. Do they have SAT in Argentina? Netherlands? Etc.?

Top academic schools let you major in whatever you want, but USUALLY (not always) the sport success suffers. For top sports teams (again, not all) you will see a lot of "communications" and "exercise science" majors. You can forget a lot of the stem pathways b/c it's just not doable. My neighbor was a D1 athlete and was told he could pick his sport or engineering (he picked the sport). And I have other friends whose kids have similar stories.

I’m the original PP in this thread who started the post about coaches. To be entirely clear, I have no problems whatsoever with schools choosing to admit athletes. Those students have traditionally gone on to be very successful and are disproportionately big donors, so they give back in a way other alumni don’t. I also like the team spirit they bring to campuses, and at the top level schools the athletes have traditionally been very good students themselves, while also excelling at their sport. As a group they tend to be driven and campus contributors. I do not share some DCUM posters’ anti-athlete fervor (in fact I think it’s ridiculous for the most part). FWIW the only category of admits I think should be removed or restricted are legacies.

But I do wonder if the profile of athletes at schools will be changed because of TO. Now coaches can freely recruit globally and do — for instance D1 mens soccer rosters are filling up quickly with 22-year-old freshmen who played essentially semi-pro in their home countries — because the removal of testing means international candidates no longer have to show any real academic proficiency to get in (note this doesn’t apply to US athlete applicants the same way — in fact high SATs will be valued for US athlete applicants because a high GPA and test scores means a coach doesn’t have to use a preferred slot for that admit).

There used to be a sort of academic quid pro quo for non-revenue sports on the men’s side: schools (up to and including Ivies) would let coaches in revenue sports take kids who somewhat skewed the incoming GPAs and SAT scores downwards with the understanding that the non-revenue sports would admit athletes with higher GPAs and SAT scores, so that the athlete population as a whole wasn’t actually too far off from the general pool. But now, with GPAs only considered, there isn’t really anything blocking international applicants in non-revenue sports, whereas their very low SATs used to make them non-starters for admissions. It has vastly expanded the potential player pool for certain sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is fascinating. Do you have any additional information or links to articles?

This will also apply to women’s sports as well I’m sure.

Sports admit should be limited to certain majors like physical education

You can tell a lot about the priorities and values of a school by looking at their current rosters, which usually have a bio section for at least the starters. You'll see where they are from and their majors. SM will also usually communicate some of this (with top schools broadcasting their team GPAs). Many, many schools recruit from out of the country. For my child's sport, for example, if you plan on going Ivy and playing- forget it. Harvard, for example, has a roster that is 3/4 out of the country. Even lots of d3 schools recruit from out of the country. I don't know if they are all test optional or not. Do they have SAT in Argentina? Netherlands? Etc.?

Top academic schools let you major in whatever you want, but USUALLY (not always) the sport success suffers. For top sports teams (again, not all) you will see a lot of "communications" and "exercise science" majors. You can forget a lot of the stem pathways b/c it's just not doable. My neighbor was a D1 athlete and was told he could pick his sport or engineering (he picked the sport). And I have other friends whose kids have similar stories.

I’m the original PP in this thread who started the post about coaches. To be entirely clear, I have no problems whatsoever with schools choosing to admit athletes. Those students have traditionally gone on to be very successful and are disproportionately big donors, so they give back in a way other alumni don’t. I also like the team spirit they bring to campuses, and at the top level schools the athletes have traditionally been very good students themselves, while also excelling at their sport. As a group they tend to be driven and campus contributors. I do not share some DCUM posters’ anti-athlete fervor (in fact I think it’s ridiculous for the most part). FWIW the only category of admits I think should be removed or restricted are legacies.

But I do wonder if the profile of athletes at schools will be changed because of TO. Now coaches can freely recruit globally and do — for instance D1 mens soccer rosters are filling up quickly with 22-year-old freshmen who played essentially semi-pro in their home countries — because the removal of testing means international candidates no longer have to show any real academic proficiency to get in (note this doesn’t apply to US athlete applicants the same way — in fact high SATs will be valued for US athlete applicants because a high GPA and test scores means a coach doesn’t have to use a preferred slot for that admit).

There used to be a sort of academic quid pro quo for non-revenue sports on the men’s side: schools (up to and including Ivies) would let coaches in revenue sports take kids who somewhat skewed the incoming GPAs and SAT scores downwards with the understanding that the non-revenue sports would admit athletes with higher GPAs and SAT scores, so that the athlete population as a whole wasn’t actually too far off from the general pool. But now, with GPAs only considered, there isn’t really anything blocking international applicants in non-revenue sports, whereas their very low SATs used to make them non-starters for admissions. It has vastly expanded the potential player pool for certain sports.

I'm who you are responding to and I have no issue with athletes, either. My child is one but will not be TO. I was just responding to those posts who were commenting on TO and other flexibilities for athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This is fascinating. Do you have any additional information or links to articles?

This will also apply to women’s sports as well I’m sure.

Sports admit should be limited to certain majors like physical education

You can tell a lot about the priorities and values of a school by looking at their current rosters, which usually have a bio section for at least the starters. You'll see where they are from and their majors. SM will also usually communicate some of this (with top schools broadcasting their team GPAs). Many, many schools recruit from out of the country. For my child's sport, for example, if you plan on going Ivy and playing- forget it. Harvard, for example, has a roster that is 3/4 out of the country. Even lots of d3 schools recruit from out of the country. I don't know if they are all test optional or not. Do they have SAT in Argentina? Netherlands? Etc.?

Top academic schools let you major in whatever you want, but USUALLY (not always) the sport success suffers. For top sports teams (again, not all) you will see a lot of "communications" and "exercise science" majors. You can forget a lot of the stem pathways b/c it's just not doable. My neighbor was a D1 athlete and was told he could pick his sport or engineering (he picked the sport). And I have other friends whose kids have similar stories.

I’m the original PP in this thread who started the post about coaches. To be entirely clear, I have no problems whatsoever with schools choosing to admit athletes. Those students have traditionally gone on to be very successful and are disproportionately big donors, so they give back in a way other alumni don’t. I also like the team spirit they bring to campuses, and at the top level schools the athletes have traditionally been very good students themselves, while also excelling at their sport. As a group they tend to be driven and campus contributors. I do not share some DCUM posters’ anti-athlete fervor (in fact I think it’s ridiculous for the most part). FWIW the only category of admits I think should be removed or restricted are legacies.

But I do wonder if the profile of athletes at schools will be changed because of TO. Now coaches can freely recruit globally and do — for instance D1 mens soccer rosters are filling up quickly with 22-year-old freshmen who played essentially semi-pro in their home countries — because the removal of testing means international candidates no longer have to show any real academic proficiency to get in (note this doesn’t apply to US athlete applicants the same way — in fact high SATs will be valued for US athlete applicants because a high GPA and test scores means a coach doesn’t have to use a preferred slot for that admit).

There used to be a sort of academic quid pro quo for non-revenue sports on the men’s side: schools (up to and including Ivies) would let coaches in revenue sports take kids who somewhat skewed the incoming GPAs and SAT scores downwards with the understanding that the non-revenue sports would admit athletes with higher GPAs and SAT scores, so that the athlete population as a whole wasn’t actually too far off from the general pool. But now, with GPAs only considered, there isn’t really anything blocking international applicants in non-revenue sports, whereas their very low SATs used to make them non-starters for admissions. It has vastly expanded the potential player pool for certain sports.

I'm who you are responding to and I have no issue with athletes, either. My child is one but will not be TO. I was just responding to those posts who were commenting on TO and other flexibilities for athletes.

Got it. You are correct that some majors are not possible for some sports/athletes — the coaches won’t allow it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS virtual session on this recommended submitting test scores for (I may not be remembering everything 100% correctly):
- merit aid
- athletes
- competitive majors
- if test scores are high and grades are not tip top

For test optional, they recommended:
[/b]- Look at how many applicants in the prior cycle were accepted test optional[b]
- Are students' grades/EC strong enough to make a case for admission

This is info people want to know. Why can’t school college counselors be candid about this?? Give some real statistics one way or another.

You do realize that this is based on nothing other than opinion because the colleges themselves release almost no data on test optional.

I just saw something from UVA the other day -- For the ~50,000 applicants for the HS class of 2022, 43% did not submit test scores and 28% of the students admitted did not submit test scores.
I do not know the breakdown of in state vs OOS.

This is interesting because uva downplays the importance of test scores in its cds and though the comments of its admissions staff. Yet more than 70 percent of the admitted class submitted test scores which is on par with schools like BC which say they do care a lot about scores.

22,000+ of applicants didn't submit test scores to a T25 school. 6,000+ got accepted.

Try putting the TO genie back in the bottle.

Personally I’d rather have my student in the group that makes up more than 70 percent of the admitted class, but you play your own odds.

That "70%" used to be 100% before test optional changed college admissions. No guarantee even if you do submit a test score.

Now there are test takers that get rejected and TO who accepted in their place.

Better adjust to the new landscape.

[Anonymous]

The is interesting. It also newly allows the Ivies to take excellent sports recruits from city schools. Kids who have a 3.5 GPA or whatnot but would never have obtained an SAT above 1000 are now signing to the Ivies. I'm seeing this in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

I think the top concern is making sure that kids who get in without using test scores are really prepared for the classes they’ll be taking.

I wonder what percentage of kids with SAT math scores under 700, or the ACT equivalent, actually pass first-year STEM classes for majors at T50 universities. The math SAT is a lot easier than any college math test or physics test I ever took, and my school wasn’t super highly ranked for math or physics.

Affluent, neurotypical DMV kids who have relatively low test scores and get in to tough scores need to try to get remediation before they go to college, arrange for tutoring in advance and be careful about how they pick their classes, not buy the hogwash about how test scores are meaningless. If test scores are used to shut poor kids who can’t afford test prep out of good schools, that’s bad. But, if affluent, neurotypical kids who get the test prep classes have truly weak scores, not just scores a little below average, that simply is not great.They might be wonderful kids, but they’re going to work really hard to survive STEM weedout classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

I think the top concern is making sure that kids who get in without using test scores are really prepared for the classes they’ll be taking.

I wonder what percentage of kids with SAT math scores under 700, or the ACT equivalent, actually pass first-year STEM classes for majors at T50 universities. The math SAT is a lot easier than any college math test or physics test I ever took, and my school wasn’t super highly ranked for math or physics.

Affluent, neurotypical DMV kids who have relatively low test scores and get in to tough scores need to try to get remediation before they go to college, arrange for tutoring in advance and be careful about how they pick their classes, not buy the hogwash about how test scores are meaningless. If test scores are used to shut poor kids who can’t afford test prep out of good schools, that’s bad. But, if affluent, neurotypical kids who get the test prep classes have truly weak scores, not just scores a little below average, that simply is not great.They might be wonderful kids, but they’re going to work really hard to survive STEM weedout classes.

Not everyone wants to major in stem and probably students who struggle with math fall into that category.