Let's discuss "Test Optional"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Once again. For top schools, not every school. Below T20, it’s a different equation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Full pay applicants benefit under TO. Colleges need to pay the bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

That's a good way to put it. "Optional" doesn't mean all apps are considered equal. It just means your app will not be rejected because of missing test scores. Everyone knows kids with good/high test scores will definitely include them so, if it's missing, well, it creates more doubts in adcom's mind. Human nature.

Maybe, but TO applicants ARE getting accepted. It's zero sum.

Of course some are accepted w/o test scores. That really doesn’t prove anything though

Proves that one can get accepted into selective colleges without test scores under test optional. Not submitting a SAT/ ACT is not a deal breaker. Unimaginable even 5 years ago. Yeah COVID accelerated the trend but TO is now pretty much a mainstay.

I’d give it a few more years before making such a definitive statement.

All 8 Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, TO through 2024. Harvard through 2026. U of California test blind.

Ok - a few more years.

Catch the trend.

2024 is next year. Wait and see.

NP: many schools are waiting on the Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action to decide if they will continue TO. NY Times published an article today that sheds some light on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/us/affirmative-action-admissions-scotus.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Full pay applicants benefit under TO. Colleges need to pay the bills.

Wait, I thought full pay applicants get high scores easily because they can afford test prep?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

That's a good way to put it. "Optional" doesn't mean all apps are considered equal. It just means your app will not be rejected because of missing test scores. Everyone knows kids with good/high test scores will definitely include them so, if it's missing, well, it creates more doubts in adcom's mind. Human nature.

Maybe, but TO applicants ARE getting accepted. It's zero sum.

Of course some are accepted w/o test scores. That really doesn’t prove anything though

Proves that one can get accepted into selective colleges without test scores under test optional. Not submitting a SAT/ ACT is not a deal breaker. Unimaginable even 5 years ago. Yeah COVID accelerated the trend but TO is now pretty much a mainstay.

I’d give it a few more years before making such a definitive statement.

All 8 Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, TO through 2024. Harvard through 2026. U of California test blind.

Ok - a few more years.

Catch the trend.

2024 is next year. Wait and see.

NP: many schools are waiting on the Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action to decide if they will continue TO. NY Times published an article today that sheds some light on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/us/affirmative-action-admissions-scotus.html

Paywall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Full pay applicants benefit under TO. Colleges need to pay the bills.

Wait, I thought full pay applicants get high scores easily because they can afford test prep?

Anyone can afford Khan - it’s free!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

I think the top concern is making sure that kids who get in without using test scores are really prepared for the classes they’ll be taking.

I wonder what percentage of kids with SAT math scores under 700, or the ACT equivalent, actually pass first-year STEM classes for majors at T50 universities. The math SAT is a lot easier than any college math test or physics test I ever took, and my school wasn’t super highly ranked for math or physics.

Affluent, neurotypical DMV kids who have relatively low test scores and get in to tough scores need to try to get remediation before they go to college, arrange for tutoring in advance and be careful about how they pick their classes, not buy the hogwash about how test scores are meaningless. If test scores are used to shut poor kids who can’t afford test prep out of good schools, that’s bad. But, if affluent, neurotypical kids who get the test prep classes have truly weak scores, not just scores a little below average, that simply is not great.They might be wonderful kids, but they’re going to work really hard to survive STEM weedout classes.

Standardized testing is just one data point and might ( only) predict college success during freshman year. If the kid has rigor over 4 years of HS and have good time management skills, that will trump a one test snapshot.

And...not everyone wants to do STEM in college.

Agree. Maybe we should worry about the STEM majors’ writing skills.

Most universities (even top ones) do focus on that. My STEM kid has to take a freshman writing course, and then a soph/junior year writing course that is tailored to their specific stem major. I think it's a great idea---much better than just requiring a basic freshman English course or 2 "English" courses---actual writing preparation focused on what you need. As a plus my freshman lucked out and got one of the top freshman writing courses (them is Taylor Swift)---much more exciting than writing about classic literature (unless that's your thing)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Full pay applicants benefit under TO. Colleges need to pay the bills.

Wait, I thought full pay applicants get high scores easily because they can afford test prep?

Anyone can afford Khan - it’s free!

But Kahn is not the same as 1:1 tutoring, which is what many rich kids do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

That's a good way to put it. "Optional" doesn't mean all apps are considered equal. It just means your app will not be rejected because of missing test scores. Everyone knows kids with good/high test scores will definitely include them so, if it's missing, well, it creates more doubts in adcom's mind. Human nature.

Maybe, but TO applicants ARE getting accepted. It's zero sum.

Of course some are accepted w/o test scores. That really doesn’t prove anything though

Proves that one can get accepted into selective colleges without test scores under test optional. Not submitting a SAT/ ACT is not a deal breaker. Unimaginable even 5 years ago. Yeah COVID accelerated the trend but TO is now pretty much a mainstay.

I’d give it a few more years before making such a definitive statement.

All 8 Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, TO through 2024. Harvard through 2026. U of California test blind.

Ok - a few more years.

Catch the trend.

2024 is next year. Wait and see.

NP: many schools are waiting on the Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action to decide if they will continue TO. NY Times published an article today that sheds some light on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/us/affirmative-action-admissions-scotus.html

From the article:


"Now “test optional” policies, which grew exponentially during the pandemic, are becoming the new normal. More than 1,800 four-year colleges say they do not require SAT or ACT scores. And the number of students taking the SAT dropped to 1.7 million in the high school class of 2022 from nearly 2.2 million in the class of 2020."

Let the "wait and see" group keep waiting...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Once again. For top schools, not every school. Below T20, it’s a different equation.

What do you think the equation is for schools outside of the top 20?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Once again. For top schools, not every school. Below T20, it’s a different equation.

What do you think the equation is for schools outside of the top 20?

I guess it’s not based on evidence, but the non-top schools (which my kid is applying to) do not seem to care if you look at how many people submit test scores as reported on the CDS. My kid did not submit and has had fantastic results so far.

For the top schools, I only know what experiences people on here and CC are reporting. It sounds like it may matter more there. I have not looked at the CDS for those schools since my kid was not applying.

I could be wrong, but that’s why I have seen. My kid applied to large state Unis and a few LAC And has gotten in at both, although deferred at Clemson (probably would have been denied if submitted score)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Once again. For top schools, not every school. Below T20, it’s a different equation.

What do you think the equation is for schools outside of the top 20?

I guess it’s not based on evidence, but the non-top schools (which my kid is applying to) do not seem to care if you look at how many people submit test scores as reported on the CDS. My kid did not submit and has had fantastic results so far.

For the top schools, I only know what experiences people on here and CC are reporting. It sounds like it may matter more there. I have not looked at the CDS for those schools since my kid was not applying.

I could be wrong, but that’s why I have seen. My kid applied to large state Unis and a few LAC And has gotten in at both, although deferred at Clemson (probably would have been denied if submitted score)

Thanks for the reply. Very interesting and congrats to your young ‘un.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Once again. For top schools, not every school. Below T20, it’s a different equation.

What do you think the equation is for schools outside of the top 20?

I guess it’s not based on evidence, but the non-top schools (which my kid is applying to) do not seem to care if you look at how many people submit test scores as reported on the CDS. My kid did not submit and has had fantastic results so far.

For the top schools, I only know what experiences people on here and CC are reporting. It sounds like it may matter more there. I have not looked at the CDS for those schools since my kid was not applying.

I could be wrong, but that’s why I have seen. My kid applied to large state Unis and a few LAC And has gotten in at both, although deferred at Clemson (probably would have been denied if submitted score)

My child applied to big state schools like Ohio State, UMass, Virginia Tech and went test optional. So far in at 2 and waiting for the others. Had excellent GPA (3.9 uw; 4.5 weighted) and decent (but not the strongest) rigor. Essay good, not excellent. ECs good, not excellent. At our tours Virginia Tech said not to send scores unless you are really, really, really proud of them (didn't apply for a competitive major). JMU said scores truly do not matter and it doesn't hurt if you don't send (ending up not applying there). SAT score was good but not great and was going to take again in August but came down with Covid day before test. So just decided to forgo it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it mean "Your test scores could help you but omitting them from your application won't hurt" or "admissions stuff presume that your scores were not good if you don't submit them and they will choose someone with decent/mediocre scores over someone who doesn't, all other things being equal"?

I may be skeptical, but I am starting to doubt the line given out by our school's counselors that the scores only matter if they help you. There's a negative deduction to be made there.

Any views?

That's a good way to put it. "Optional" doesn't mean all apps are considered equal. It just means your app will not be rejected because of missing test scores. Everyone knows kids with good/high test scores will definitely include them so, if it's missing, well, it creates more doubts in adcom's mind. Human nature.

Maybe, but TO applicants ARE getting accepted. It's zero sum.

Of course some are accepted w/o test scores. That really doesn’t prove anything though

Proves that one can get accepted into selective colleges without test scores under test optional. Not submitting a SAT/ ACT is not a deal breaker. Unimaginable even 5 years ago. Yeah COVID accelerated the trend but TO is now pretty much a mainstay.

I’d give it a few more years before making such a definitive statement.

All 8 Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, TO through 2024. Harvard through 2026. U of California test blind.

Ok - a few more years.

Catch the trend.

2024 is next year. Wait and see.

NP: many schools are waiting on the Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action to decide if they will continue TO. NY Times published an article today that sheds some light on the issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/us/affirmative-action-admissions-scotus.html

From the article:


"Now “test optional” policies, which grew exponentially during the pandemic, are becoming the new normal. More than 1,800 four-year colleges say they do not require SAT or ACT scores. And the number of students taking the SAT dropped to 1.7 million in the high school class of 2022 from nearly 2.2 million in the class of 2020."

Let the "wait and see" group keep waiting...

,+1

Example: Tufts


https://now.tufts.edu/2023/01/17/applications-undergraduate-class-2027-top-34000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way I interpret this is: if you are underprivileged/first gen college applicant, and if you have an otherwise good application, we don’t care if you omit your scores.
If you went to a top private school and are full pay, you better believe that we expect you to submit your scores and for them to be exceptional.

I have no problem with that btw, and my DC are in the latter category.

Full pay applicants benefit under TO. Colleges need to pay the bills.

Wait, I thought full pay applicants get high scores easily because they can afford test prep?

Anyone can afford Khan - it’s free!

If you don't have reliable high speed internet at home, it's not too useful.

If you have to work 20+ hours a week to help the family pay rent/put food on table, etc. you may not have the time to devote to SAT test prep.
If you have the responsibility of being in charge of your younger siblings before/after school and/or on weekends while your parent(s) work, you might not have the time/ability to do even "free test prep".