any colleges moving to "test aware"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He was also saying, just send it .. it's better than you think. (which I'm not so sure is true)

I'm looking for more test aware schools. Has anyone else heard of schools moving that way?

I heard that comment too. One way to look at it is that the scores do give admissions offices information, so of course they'd like them. Their 25th-75th percentile range for last year for admitted was 1500/1580, so the midpoint would be 1540. It's true that not submitting a 1530 is probably foolish--it's a great score and would probably only be seen as a positive. But, if a straight-A student with excellent extracurriculars submits a 1200, I can't imagine that that would help their application, and more likely would hurt it. It would be great if admissions offices would tell us to submit everything above a particular score, but that's against their own interests.

But why would a straight A student only score a 1200? That doesn’t make sense unless their school’s 4.0 is useless measure of ability.

Correct. For most (if not all) schools, this is the case.

Grade inflation and it isn’t that uncommon. Look at how many kids get 1s and 2s on ap exams, presumably they did ok in the class or they wouldn’t take the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a lot of colleges that said test optional really meant test blind. if you send it, we'll look at it. if you don't, we won't consider it.

now some colleges may be moving to a test optional policy that is more test aware. meaning, this isn't Georgetown and you dont have to send in your score, but if you don't we may draw our own conclusions about that

This. I was told a kid from a good school district or private with means --they are going to assume their scores weren't good enough to send in.

Our CC joked that nobody is [/i]not [i]sending in a 35-36 ACT, or 1580 SAT. It will be assumed you bombed it.

Also, with such grade inflation and professors/universities continually noting students are arriving less and less prepared, having both ACT/SAT and GPA weeds out grade inflation to a degree---if you submit you got all 4-5s on your AP exams, even stronger.

All of these kids - at places like Yale per a PP comment- that are unprepared aren't URMs coming from the inner city as some DCUMers think. They are mostly UMC, suburban, and white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are looking for ways to reject you quickly so they can cut 28,000 applicants into 1,800 admits.

If your scores aren't top notch, and you send them, then you are giving them the definite information they need to reject you.

If your scores aren't top notch, and you don't send them, then you have not given them definite information, whatever they might suspect.

I'd lean towards not sending them if you're not above midpoint for the previous year's 25/75.

Exactly. Then they have to read your essays. I listen to a different podcast not from the Dartmouth admissions Director but from someone else who mentioned that a lot of ivies want the score because it’s an auto reject pile for GPA and Test score They don’t even read anything unless you pass that first stage.

Highly selective schools want you to submit the scores and want you to pay the fee and want you to add to their great application numbers and eventual yield. They want the score bc it’s entered into a data management system (like ptr-Vovid) along with zip code and gpa and school code, for auto sorting.

But if your score is below the 50th percentile mark and you do not have something really special… Not great… Not even normal awards… Something magical, and so unique… It’s a waste of time.

So for those kids if they are below the 50th percentile, I would say no don’t submit. Because it’s true they don’t even read your application if you were below unless there is some other hook

If you do not submit the score, you are automatically put into another pile. Read usually by different people/committee members.

Did you notice strangely a lot more test optional kids got into really good schools last year then kids with perfect stats in your circle?!? Maybe just a private school thing but I think not.

Not even remotely true at our private. Those with great test scores did the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are looking for ways to reject you quickly so they can cut 28,000 applicants into 1,800 admits.

If your scores aren't top notch, and you send them, then you are giving them the definite information they need to reject you.

If your scores aren't top notch, and you don't send them, then you have not given them definite information, whatever they might suspect.

I'd lean towards not sending them if you're not above midpoint for the previous year's 25/75.

Exactly. Then they have to read your essays. I listen to a different podcast not from the Dartmouth admissions Director but from someone else who mentioned that a lot of ivies want the score because it’s an auto reject pile for GPA and Test score They don’t even read anything unless you pass that first stage.

Highly selective schools want you to submit the scores and want you to pay the fee and want you to add to their great application numbers and eventual yield. They want the score bc it’s entered into a data management system (like ptr-Vovid) along with zip code and gpa and school code, for auto sorting.

But if your score is below the 50th percentile mark and you do not have something really special… Not great… Not even normal awards… Something magical, and so unique… It’s a waste of time.

So for those kids if they are below the 50th percentile, I would say no don’t submit. Because it’s true they don’t even read your application if you were below unless there is some other hook

If you do not submit the score, you are automatically put into another pile. Read usually by different people/committee members.

Did you notice strangely a lot more test optional kids got into really good schools last year then kids with perfect stats in your circle?!? Maybe just a private school thing but I think not.

What’s the data system and who is using it

I went to a seminar with Selingo and he mentioned this type of data sorting too. Think it involved coding with colors (high schools; zip codes).

The schools that were test optional but not really test optional are already correcting for this. They (and everyone else) sees how it went wrong. It is not how many are doing this year's applications. They are putting the test optional kids in the same data system with a zero and not using a test-cut-off number.

Have not heard this. Went to private school event last night with asst directors of admin reps from NU; Pomona; Dartmouth; UofC; Wash U; and many 4 others…we asked about TO.

I’m not in DC btw.
They said TO really is TO.

It's still test optional, but not in a way that it was last year where test optional meant that they inadvertently favored those who didn't submit test scores. They are changing their database systems so that they are all in one pile and there isn't an explicit test score cut-off for those who submit test scores. So those with test scores will be directly compared with those without test scores rather than separately (My DH is involved in higher ed tech and this is not confidential information or anything)--they don't factor test scores on the first sort (unless it's marked as a very important criteria in the CDS for the school which is vanishingly rare for a test optional school-- so it's first sorted by recalculated GPA and region and then sent to review committees. Test optional now for many means not sorted by test score ever, but test scores are used as information in review.

This is what I assumed was happening all along. It never occurred to me that TO applicants were considered separately from others. It goes against everything I've ever heard about how schools do admissions. They look at applicants by region/school, and test scores are considered for those who submit and not for those who don't. Your saying schools were putting TO applicants in a separate process? Can you name a school that was doing it this way?

So I realize I should backpedal a bit--my actual knowledge is about how the databases/algorithms generally calculate scores that many schools use to sort applications and the changes schools have requested around how SAT scores are configured in this. This is not actual information about how school x or y used the tech. My inference is that it screwed things up a bit--but that's just me trying to put 2 and 2 together, and I could be wrong.

It's not like they are literally putting applications into different piles, but because the initial scoring/sorting (after regional sorting) is often based on numerical information and one group has just the recalculated GPA and the other has recalculated GPA and SAT (along with any other regional markers, other rubric scoring that some schools put into data entry), they end up with different number structures. Since they are not immediately comparable, they are necessarily sorted into standardized percentile ranks within group and given a Z score or set of scores depending on the school's approach that allows them to be compared. But if the population groups are different (e.g., if the students who submitted test scores are a stronger group overall --possibly in ways that aren't represented in the numbers) and they don't adjust for this, it could have a distorting effect.

It could be that schools added steps in their process to adjust for this and the requested database changes are just to make their work easier. But they requested technical changes that would better build this into the database (Additionally some test optional schools are re-weighting SAT in new ways--aligning with the idea of being "test aware.") In the end, schools do look at candidates with and without test scores from the same region/school together--just like you said. It's just that some of the numerical information on their application *could* end up putting someone in the 'unlikely' pile, when they would be in the 'maybe' pile by a different score sorting process, if that makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son with 35 in math and reading, 34 in science.
And 30 in English….cannot figure it out. Multiple tries.

Wondering if it’s a learning issue and was undiagnosed all those years bc of using grammarly.

Going TO sadly.
So he’ll be one of the TO kids you guys are referring to….

This is the problem with the highly skewed average test scores resulting from TO policies. You have parents who are advising their children not to send in their 1400+/32+ scores, even though they are objectively strong scores.
Your son SHOULD 100% send in his scores. These are fantastic, and the 30 in English is still a good score. The 35 is exceptional. It would be a mistake not to send in those scores.