BTDT Test Optional...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people who are applying TO without having taken an official SAT/ACT alert the universities to that fact in their application? I feel like openly stating that fact would help clarify any AO assumption that they simply did worse than their classmates at a competitive DMV school.

I don’t think that makes the student look any better. If they thought they would do well, they would take the test.

Agree that it would not necessarily help. For what it’s worth, I’m in California and many kids in my DC’s class are not taking the tests, so in some places, it’s not uncommon to skip it

but are they URM, first-generation or otherwise hooked? Big difference.

I think they are of all races. The UC and CalState system went test-blind so there’s no Eason to take the SAT.

There is if you don’t plan on going to a UC school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you’re white or Asian, student is going to do well test optional at the top schools unless they have something else exceptional on their resume. If urm or first gen, likely to do well with test optional.

Do you have any stats or even one quote from an AO to support this?

Look at the increase in URM and first gen admissions in the past two years of test optional and do the math. No school is going to say this out loud, it’s how they are going to get around the imminent end of AA. They are not going to invite the next series of law suits.

And this is what we were told by two different sets of counselors, one school, one private.

Yep. It's a completely rational theory, and supported by circumstantial evidence, but no university is going to release the data to verify that it's true.

This. of course it's true. All you have to do is go back and read the results here in this forum for particular schools Ed, EA and RD results and where TO is mentioned you will see that it gives a leg up only to URM, first-generation, etc. Now no college or university is actually going to tell you that, but that is what is happening. That's why the UC system has done away with testing - it knows what SCOTUS is going to do and knows this is the way (not requiring testing) that it can still engage in social engineering. Colleges and universities in America don't want a meritocracy. They want to be able to do social engineering. So getting rid of TO is a step in the right direction, according to them. Read up on this. Chronicle of Higher Education and other sources. Do not believe what admissions directors tell you - they are - above all else - now marketing people for the college. Their job isn't to tell you (the applicant's parents) the truth - their job is to push the college up USNWR rankings whether that be just by lying to you to get your kid to apply in order to reject them (thereby increasing the numbers of applicants and pushing down the acceptance percentage) or other means.

This may be the intent of TO but the data shows that it's not working to significantly increase diversity:

Slay’s work gives us a rare, unvarnished glimpse inside college admissions offices. It’s especially significant now because a college admissions case is currently before the Supreme Court that could strike down affirmative action, a practice that gives preferences to groups that have been discriminated against. As colleges experiment with alternative solutions, these interviews help shed light on why test-optional policies haven’t been helpful for increasing diversity on college campuses.

Earlier quantitative studies found that the test-optional movement, which has spread to over 1,700 colleges, failed to substantially raise the share of low-income students or students of color. For example, one study published in 2021 found that the share of Black, Latino and Native American students increased by only 1 percentage point at about 100 colleges and universities that adopted the policy between 2005-06 and 2015-16. A separate study of a group of selective liberal arts colleges that adopted test-optional policies before 2011 didn’t find any diversity improvements on those campuses.

https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-colleges-that-ditched-test-scores-for-admissions-find-its-harder-to-be-fair-in-choosing-students-researcher-says/?fbclid=IwAR3zjdseoxAVtQpUC3BPge5GLEVegplZyuGfVNbMQYWNlzc4_bVd2zX9by4

The data used in the article is older and I can't post a link to the current research discussed in the article (beyond a paywall) but the pandemic TO data I have seen as a faculty member at an R1 is consistent with pre-Covid TO data. What TO has done is significantly increase the diversity of the pool of applicants but has not significantly increased the number of URM students accepted and enrolled, especially at R1 public and private universities. The exception is test blind and the UC system which has significantly increased the pool of URM applicants (primarily Hispanic) and increased enrollment by 20-30% at Berkeley and UCLA.

This data is all pre-Covid and therefore not relevant. URM and first generation numbers are up a ton at top schools in their to admissions classes, just peruse press releases for the past two admission years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you submit an 1190 SAT to Penn State if trying for University Park?

No. Your kid will never get into University Park. Maybe 2+2 which is not worth it if you are out of state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

Maybe for highly selective schools, but not outside T50 or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

Maybe for highly selective schools, but not outside T50 or so.

Yes, but that generally isn’t the focus of this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

Maybe for highly selective schools, but not outside T50 or so.

Yes, but that generally isn’t the focus of this forum.

Why not? There are more average kids than exceptional kids, but the neurotic parents have taken over the forum. Not every kid is a fit for or wants those schools. People make these blanket statements about things like TO, which are just not true for all types of schools and you steer people wrong. Your race conspiracy could be real at t50, but it’s the wrong strategy for less competitive schools where the AOs are specifically telling folks what to do. By definition, the top few schools are not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

Maybe for highly selective schools, but not outside T50 or so.

Yes, but that generally isn’t the focus of this forum.

Why not? There are more average kids than exceptional kids, but the neurotic parents have taken over the forum. Not every kid is a fit for or wants those schools. People make these blanket statements about things like TO, which are just not true for all types of schools and you steer people wrong. Your race conspiracy could be real at t50, but it’s the wrong strategy for less competitive schools where the AOs are specifically telling folks what to do. By definition, the top few schools are not the norm.

You are fighting a losing fight here, 90 percent of the posts are about T50 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, if my child chose not to take the SAT or ACT, I'd make it clear in the apps for TO schools avoid any misconception. It is true that not everyone is taking the SAT or ACT at this point. +1 to the CA comment after having lived there recently.

I don't understand why some here aiming for highly selective colleges just take the tests for the heck of it or after taking practice tests where they haven't regularly been scoring where they expect to.

Because test optional isn’t designed for rich white and Asian kids. If that’s your student, you should be shooting for high test scores.

Maybe for highly selective schools, but not outside T50 or so.

Yes, but that generally isn’t the focus of this forum.

Why not? There are more average kids than exceptional kids, but the neurotic parents have taken over the forum. Not every kid is a fit for or wants those schools. People make these blanket statements about things like TO, which are just not true for all types of schools and you steer people wrong. Your race conspiracy could be real at t50, but it’s the wrong strategy for less competitive schools where the AOs are specifically telling folks what to do. By definition, the top few schools are not the norm.

You are fighting a losing fight here, 90 percent of the posts are about T50 schools.

Agree but I intentionally post about less competitive schools to get people talking about them. Other parents are here but feel intimidated. F@&$ that! There are about 3,000 colleges. We need to talk about more than 25 or 50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what schools is your kid applying to. I think if you share that, you may get more specific information out of folks. I have thoughts (and a freshman in college from this area), but it really depends on what schools your kid is applying to.

Tulane - last year they admitted 45% of their class TO. Their middle 50 range is 1380-1490, middle 50% 1435. DC has a 1400.

DC had a 1410 … deferred then waitlisted.

[Anonymous]

Applied ED 1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what schools is your kid applying to. I think if you share that, you may get more specific information out of folks. I have thoughts (and a freshman in college from this area), but it really depends on what schools your kid is applying to.

Tulane - last year they admitted 45% of their class TO. Their middle 50 range is 1380-1490, middle 50% 1435. DC has a 1400.

DC had a 1410 … deferred then waitlisted.

Probably didn’t apply ED, rt? With Tulane, it’s more about ED than TO. Even if you made mistake and submitted too low of scores, they might admit you for spring start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what schools is your kid applying to. I think if you share that, you may get more specific information out of folks. I have thoughts (and a freshman in college from this area), but it really depends on what schools your kid is applying to.

Tulane - last year they admitted 45% of their class TO. Their middle 50 range is 1380-1490, middle 50% 1435. DC has a 1400.

DC had a 1410 … deferred then waitlisted.

Test score is only one factor if many, obviously gpa probably more important. And with Tulane, nothing is more important than demonstrated interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you submit an 1190 SAT to Penn State if trying for University Park?

No. Your kid will never get into University Park. Maybe 2+2 which is not worth it if you are out of state.

Agreed....No to a 1190 for University Park

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, what schools is your kid applying to. I think if you share that, you may get more specific information out of folks. I have thoughts (and a freshman in college from this area), but it really depends on what schools your kid is applying to.

Tulane - last year they admitted 45% of their class TO. Their middle 50 range is 1380-1490, middle 50% 1435. DC has a 1400.

DC had a 1410 … deferred then waitlisted.

Test score is only one factor if many, obviously gpa probably more important. And with Tulane, nothing is more important than demonstrated interest.

I'm learning that demonstrated interest can be code for ED, which I did not realize. DC doesn't want to ED and I won't push that. They'll EA. They've attended local events and the one hosted at school, done online tours, and they're going to reach out to the AO, but our only chance of getting there for a visit to prove interest will have to be after the EA deadline. Would that still be worth it?