Swarthmore College will continue its test-optional admissions policy for up to five more years.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Current Swattie parent here. My kid had 4.0 uw GPA and 4.9 w GPA with a 35 ACT. Was deferred ED and accepted RD. Very happy with the diversity, academic rigor, studiousness, and friendliness of the school. It is small, though. I don't think the test scores matter because I think the admissions team is looking to build a diverse class. The FGLI students are a big part of the campus.

+1. Parent of a student another WASP LAC with TO policies. My kid was valedictorian, 35 ACT, 13 APs with strong scores, very strong ECs, admitted to multiple Ivies, etc., etc. The student body is damned impressive as is the community. No complaints about continuing TO policies. (BTW, Swat was my DC's second choice. It's a fantastic school.)

People put way too much emphasis on test scores, which are just one, small part of the criteria that makes an applicant a strong candidate. It just so happens to be a quantifiable one, and so the nuance-challenged among us overly fixate upon it.

I bet the kids who graduate from Swarthmore with physics degrees have really, really high SAT scores. Both math and verbal. It would be interesting to see the numbers. My guess is the test scores are a strong predictor, but okay let’s not put too much emphasis on that little inconvenience.

Perhaps. On the other hand, my DC is a studio art major and still had extremely high stats.

That’s great but does not address the fact that about half the students there are hiding behind TO.

I did not believe you and thought it was hyperbole, but I looked it up. More than half of freshman didn't submit an SAT or ACT score!!!

Believe or not, there are still a LOT of under resourced kids who cannot take tests or have other responsibilities (jobs, care for elderly) that preclude them from preparing for the tests.

The college board makes SAT free for low income students. Also, Khan Academy is completely free. It takes at most a few hours a week for a few weeks to prepare for the SAT. So now all of a sudden underresourced kids can't spare a few hours? This excuse making is nauseating.

The only reason not to submit an SAT score is because you bombed the SAT. Everyone knows this.

My kid didn't submit an SAT score because she aced the ACT and thus never took the SAT. I'd think that someone who prizes standardized tests would understand the logical pitfalls of making sweeping statements based on universal quantifiers.

I think when writing that it was clear that SAT and ACT are interchangeable and not exclusive of ACT. Kind of obvious.

And yet PP’s overzealous post fails to articulate such nuance. To be fair, nuance, is not something many DCUM posters understand much less appreciate. See, e.g., this thread.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Current Swattie parent here. My kid had 4.0 uw GPA and 4.9 w GPA with a 35 ACT. Was deferred ED and accepted RD. Very happy with the diversity, academic rigor, studiousness, and friendliness of the school. It is small, though. I don't think the test scores matter because I think the admissions team is looking to build a diverse class. The FGLI students are a big part of the campus.

+1. Parent of a student another WASP LAC with TO policies. My kid was valedictorian, 35 ACT, 13 APs with strong scores, very strong ECs, admitted to multiple Ivies, etc., etc. The student body is damned impressive as is the community. No complaints about continuing TO policies. (BTW, Swat was my DC's second choice. It's a fantastic school.)

People put way too much emphasis on test scores, which are just one, small part of the criteria that makes an applicant a strong candidate. It just so happens to be a quantifiable one, and so the nuance-challenged among us overly fixate upon it.

I bet the kids who graduate from Swarthmore with physics degrees have really, really high SAT scores. Both math and verbal. It would be interesting to see the numbers. My guess is the test scores are a strong predictor, but okay let’s not put too much emphasis on that little inconvenience.

Perhaps. On the other hand, my DC is a studio art major and still had extremely high stats.

That’s great but does not address the fact that about half the students there are hiding behind TO.

I did not believe you and thought it was hyperbole, but I looked it up. More than half of freshman didn't submit an SAT or ACT score!!!

Believe or not, there are still a LOT of under resourced kids who cannot take tests or have other responsibilities (jobs, care for elderly) that preclude them from preparing for the tests.

The college board makes SAT free for low income students. Also, Khan Academy is completely free. It takes at most a few hours a week for a few weeks to prepare for the SAT. So now all of a sudden underresourced kids can't spare a few hours? This excuse making is nauseating.

The only reason not to submit an SAT score is because you bombed the SAT. Everyone knows this.

My kid didn't submit an SAT score because she aced the ACT and thus never took the SAT. I'd think that someone who prizes standardized tests would understand the logical pitfalls of making sweeping statements based on universal quantifiers.

No offense, but true high scorers will take the SAT to become NMSF. Sorry your daughter couldn't cut it.

NMSF turns on the PSAT, not the SAT, brainiac. Anyhow, DD was admitted to multiple Ivies and is thriving at her chosen school. You, on the other hand, are either a high school kid (whose current brand of aggressive stupidity can be somewhat forgiven) or another dumb adult whose force of opinion is much larger than the knowledge on which such opinions are based.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And the under resourced kid doing well on a test relative to their circumstances should certainly get credit for it.

That argument does not mean TO makes any sense

+1

Reward the FGLI student who gets a 31 on the ACT instead of admitting kids who are getting 25 and not reporting. There’s a big difference between scores once you get below 32.

Yep. Swarthmore and other similarly rejective schools aren’t looking for more data points and transparency though. They are instead encouraging applicants to essentially pick and choose which data they want to present, again encouraging a lack of transparency.

Swarthmore’s approach and other similar schools: We are holistic, but not totally holistic. We don’t need, like, the whole story about you if it’s not convenient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And the under resourced kid doing well on a test relative to their circumstances should certainly get credit for it.

That argument does not mean TO makes any sense

It does when you consider how it benefits rich parents who can snowplow their kids' way to ECs, essays, a good GPA, etc but can't cheat the SAT/ACT. It's where the buck stops.

[Anonymous]

Colleges like Swarthmore, Middlebury, Conn College just aren't attractive to the high scoring SAT takers so it's a vicious cycle where fewer and fewer of the students even bother to submit an SAT because they scored too low.

[Anonymous]

There’s going to be a donut hole of testers who are bright but not brilliant. That 1450 that was competitive at most schools pre-Covid now looks too low to submit. But if you don’t submit you’re lumped into a weird lottery with the people who scored 1180. And you’ll likely lose if you don’t have a hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges like Swarthmore, Middlebury, Conn College just aren't attractive to the high scoring SAT takers so it's a vicious cycle where fewer and fewer of the students even bother to submit an SAT because they scored too low.

Tell us more about the study you conducted with the Pew Research Center in cooperation with the College Board and NCES to arrive at this confident conclusion.