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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For colleges that are test optional,  no - test scores are not  "more important than ever."

Logic.[/quote]

It’s amazing how many people today accept surface level explanations and don’t consider unintended consequences or ulterior motives. [/quote]

Parents think they are smarter than the colleges and AOs. Especially when their DC gets deferred or rejected.

If colleges don't want to be test optional they won't state that they are. The highly selective schools have their pick of the students they want to shape the class they want in any given admissions cycle - test optional or not. [/quote]

A few schools have recently made statements indicating they are test preferred.  They are saying it.[/quote]

Which schools? And where are they saying this? [/quote]

And obscure podcasts don't count. Where is it on the college's website? [/quote]

It’s not.

So at our private, I personally know TO applicants who got into:

Vanderbilt
Cornell 
Northwestern 
Colgate
UofChicago (no surprise)

I’m sure there are others. I have a senior who’s friends with these folks. Don’t know any others.[/quote]

So many insist that TO is for poor minorities. See above for more proof that even the well-to do apply TO successfully.[/quote]

That is definitely California. None of the UCs or CalStates even look at test scores. So no one takes them anymore. It's been like for a few years now. But California is such a huge state with lots of very qualified students that it distorts the picture nationally.

People have been observing that Vanderbilt for instance takes nearly 40 percent of their class TO. [b]You can assume at least half of those are from California.[/b] A more accurate understanding would be that outside of students applying from California, more than 80 percent of applicants submitted scores. And that strikes me as more intuitively correct. But California is so big that it creates misperceptions at the national level private universities.

Having shepherded two kids through the college application process recently, I have come to believe that the world is only test optional for recruited athletes, UMCs, the offspring of VIPs and major donors, and students from California. If you are applying to any school in the top 80 or so, and don't fall into one of those categories, going TO is a major strike against the applicant. [/quote]

Your assumption is incorrect. In fall of 2023, 9% of the students were from California. Source: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/dsa/students-data/

No private school would take 20% of the enrolled class from one state (excluding the home state, e.g., Tennessee).

[/quote]

Assume two thirds of Californians don’t submit test scores, which would be 6 percent of the class.  It’s really easy to assume much of the rest of test optional is institutional priorities — 6 percent of class is athletic recruits, 24 percent urm,  23 percent pell eligible, and 16 percent first gen (there’s overlap between groups and of course some submit scores).  Vanderbilt doesn’t release numbers for legacies, but they are very big on sibling legacies, and of course, no data on large donor, assume another 10 percent of class from these two groups.[/quote]

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