Little known fact about “test optional” announcements

[Anonymous]

Read the small print very carefully.

They may test optional for admissions but they are required for acceptance. And scholarship considerations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the small print very carefully.

They may test optional for admissions but they are required for acceptance. And scholarship considerations.

Yes, they ask that you submit your test scores after the admissions decisions, for their stats and to calculate merit aid. But that still means that they aren't considering them in admissions decisions, which can be good for some kids who either don't test well, or aren't going to take their tests until after ED applications are due because of COVID.

[Anonymous]

My kids are still in elementary school so I'm oblivious to all this but I want to thank you (OP) for shining the light in this area for me. I'm still far away from college applications but thank you for this tidbit. I hope that you benefit from one of my posts on here.

[Anonymous]

It's going to be hard to require test scores if the tests continue to be cancelled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's going to be hard to require test scores if the tests continue to be cancelled.

This is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the small print very carefully.

They may test optional for admissions but they are required for acceptance. And scholarship considerations.

Yes, they ask that you submit your test scores after the admissions decisions, for their stats and to calculate merit aid. But that still means that they aren't considering them in admissions decisions, which can be good for some kids who either don't test well, or aren't going to take their tests until after ED applications are due because of COVID.

Many schools were test optional (pre-covid) so that they wouldn’t have to include poor test scores in their stats. Do you mean internal stats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are still in elementary school so I'm oblivious to all this but I want to thank you (OP) for shining the light in this area for me. I'm still far away from college applications but thank you for this tidbit. I hope that you benefit from one of my posts on here.

If you were oblivious to all this you wouldn’t be posting about it, no?

[Anonymous]

There are dozens and dozens of announcements at this point.

Please link to the specific announcements or people will assume you're talking about them all. The ones for the schools on our list do not mention this at all.

[Anonymous]

So glad DD got a 34 on the ACT in December. Little did we know it would be the only standardized admissions test she’d take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So glad DD got a 34 on the ACT in December. Little did we know it would be the only standardized admissions test she’d take.

Congrats to your DD!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are still in elementary school so I'm oblivious to all this but I want to thank you (OP) for shining the light in this area for me. I'm still far away from college applications but thank you for this tidbit. I hope that you benefit from one of my posts on here.

shining the light?

you realize that once the offer has gone out all back-end info is moot right? they're not going to rescind the offer.

So its completely irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

I seriously doubt if you don't submit scores for admission you have to send a score in.

Sending a score is required if you submit scores for admission because they have to get confirmation of your score.

For scholarships, sure....that makes sense.

[Anonymous]

The reason for requiring scores from non-submitters has to do with the college's reporting requirements, both for rankings (US News requires something like 75% of enrolled students to have submitted scores for US News to use the scores in the ranking calculation) and for credit ratings.