TO success stories at top 20 schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all of the top 20 still test optional? Not one is requiring test scores for this c/o 2024 cycle?

Surprising.

No, MIT requires scores.

That's...it? No scores required for UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC either?

Florida, Georgia, Ga Tech, Georgetown and Purdue all require scores.

[Anonymous]

I am surprised that the test required schools don’t come up more in these discussions given there are several in the T50. My own student applied to Georgetown, Florida and GaTech last year, skipping the test or not having a good enough score to send simply not an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all of the top 20 still test optional? Not one is requiring test scores for this c/o 2024 cycle?

Surprising.

No, MIT requires scores.

That's...it? No scores required for UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC either?

As for Berkeley, the UCs are entirely test blind now, since fall 2021 and for the foreseeable future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all of the top 20 still test optional? Not one is requiring test scores for this c/o 2024 cycle?

Surprising.

No, MIT requires scores.

That's...it? No scores required for UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC either?

As for Berkeley, the UCs are entirely test blind now, since fall 2021 and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, UCs also don’t look at counselor letters or freshman or senior year grades. They also limit the rigor they consider by using capped weight averages for sophomore and junior year, giving credit for only 4 year long advanced classes in their calculation. And they get well over 100,000 apps each. Hard to imagine they are going to be able to maintain their rankings long with such nonsensical admissions review (this is only third cycle of this madness).

[Anonymous]

^^^Would love to be a fly on the wall for that admissions committee meeting. They must literally pick names out of a hat with such limited information about applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all of the top 20 still test optional? Not one is requiring test scores for this c/o 2024 cycle?

Surprising.

No, MIT requires scores.

That's...it? No scores required for UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC either?

As for Berkeley, the UCs are entirely test blind now, since fall 2021 and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, UCs also don’t look at counselor letters or freshman or senior year grades. They also limit the rigor they consider by using capped weight averages for sophomore and junior year, giving credit for only 4 year long advanced classes in their calculation. And they get well over 100,000 apps each. Hard to imagine they are going to be able to maintain their rankings long with such nonsensical admissions review (this is only third cycle of this madness).

au contraire. this test optional stuff jukes all the stats and help you RISE in the rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Still no one with an example of a non-URM, non-first generation, and presumably non-recruited athlete getting accepted into a T20 without submitting test scores.

If such students do exist, they're unicorns or statistical anomalies. Have gone through two cycles in the past three years with our kids. Both go to T20 schools. Many of their friends also go to very selective schools. All of them studied really hard for the SAT or the ACT. No one in that cohort went TO.

I suspect beyond the top 40 or so schools, test scores don't really matter. Submit or don't submit. Whatever works best. But for unhooked kids from the burbs applying to T20 schools with single digit acceptance rates, test scores absolutely matter. And with averages in the stratosphere these days, taking the SAT or ACT is more stressful than it's ever been.

Yep, TO (test scores were really low) and no hooks, except geographic diversity and serious EC’s - national debate, environmental award, testified in state legislature. Perfect grades, although not great rigour, public school. At Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me update the example I gave with what it actually was. This journalist used Duke as an example - these are kids who were accepted.

SAT 47% submitted
ACT 46% submitted

Journalist was trying to say, look, together thanks 93%.. even with some overlap that's 90%.

But I wouldn't be surprised if most of those ACTs submitted their SATs. And the number submitted any score was about 65%. But I wish I knew for sure.

I don't think there are very many kids submitting both SAT and ACT scores. At the T20 level, applicants tend to focus on either the SAT or the ACT. Not both. They're different tests and people tend to be stronger in one or the other. No one is wasting time taking both. I think the 90+ number is likely to be accurate. TO is an illusion at T20 schools - with the exception of Berkeley and UCLA. But those two schools have no business being in the T20 and are only included because of the change in methodology.

[Anonymous]

I am going to reach out to the CDS people and ask for more transparency on all these issues in their spreadsheet format. It’s ridiculous that the schools can get away with the obfuscation. I implore you to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all of the top 20 still test optional? Not one is requiring test scores for this c/o 2024 cycle?

Surprising.

No, MIT requires scores.

That's...it? No scores required for UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, and UNC either?

As for Berkeley, the UCs are entirely test blind now, since fall 2021 and for the foreseeable future.

oops, correction, I meant fall 2020, sorry

[Anonymous]

TO has completely changed the admissions landscape. High school students now expect test optional. You see kids on reddit routinely planning to apply TO to top schools when these schools would never have entered their minds back when scores were required. Some do get in, though schools typically do not reveal the % applied and admitted TO, or reveal so little that it's difficult to determine much the effect of submitting or not submitting scores. Plenty are now wiling to shoot their shot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no one with an example of a non-URM, non-first generation, and presumably non-recruited athlete getting accepted into a T20 without submitting test scores.

If such students do exist, they're unicorns or statistical anomalies. Have gone through two cycles in the past three years with our kids. Both go to T20 schools. Many of their friends also go to very selective schools. All of them studied really hard for the SAT or the ACT. No one in that cohort went TO.

I suspect beyond the top 40 or so schools, test scores don't really matter. Submit or don't submit. Whatever works best. But for unhooked kids from the burbs applying to T20 schools with single digit acceptance rates, test scores absolutely matter. And with averages in the stratosphere these days, taking the SAT or ACT is more stressful than it's ever been.

Yep, TO (test scores were really low) and no hooks, except geographic diversity and serious EC’s - national debate, environmental award, testified in state legislature. Perfect grades, although not great rigour, public school. At Harvard.

yea, the hook would be the geographic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me update the example I gave with what it actually was. This journalist used Duke as an example - these are kids who were accepted.

SAT 47% submitted
ACT 46% submitted

Journalist was trying to say, look, together thanks 93%.. even with some overlap that's 90%.

But I wouldn't be surprised if most of those ACTs submitted their SATs. And the number submitted any score was about 65%. But I wish I knew for sure.

I don't think there are very many kids submitting both SAT and ACT scores. At the T20 level, applicants tend to focus on either the SAT or the ACT. Not both. They're different tests and people tend to be stronger in one or the other. No one is wasting time taking both. I think the 90+ number is likely to be accurate. TO is an illusion at T20 schools - with the exception of Berkeley and UCLA. But those two schools have no business being in the T20 and are only included because of the change in methodology.

In my kids' high school, some kids take both tests and presumedly submit them -- but you are right that many kids do not. On the second point, I didn't realize the President of Vanderbilt was on this forum, but UCLA and Berkeley tied for 20th last year in USNWR with the old methodology

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am going to reach out to the CDS people and ask for more transparency on all these issues in their spreadsheet format. It’s ridiculous that the schools can get away with the obfuscation. I implore you to do the same.

? Schools are not obligated to publish this data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think like an admissions person. What would make you take a kid with no scores, when you have a deluge of similar applicants who did submit and can also raise your institution’s average score? The non-submitter has to have something rare or hard to find that the school needs.

Or…you can take a TO candidate who is a great fit for your institution and have it make no impact on your average score in either direction.

That's what pp stated.

No. The PP is saying
AO: no test. Musta been an 1100. Deny

Vs what other is saying
AO. I like this kid. Impressive. And I don’t have to worry about some test score or how it impacts our data. Accept

AO- We reject 95% of applicants, prove to me you shouldn't be one of them.
This is much harder to do without a test score.

Why is it harder? If the school’s data shows that anyone with a 1400 or 33 does well at the school and 80% of the class in the past has that score then the test doesn’t differentiate in any meaningful way. You don’t know what score matters nor do you know that a 1550 is better than a 1500 than a 1450.