Reply to Is it me or are test scores now more important than ever?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some schools only want test scores that allow them to increase their average test score profile. It's not that they wouldn't accept your 1450 or that it isn't good enough (it clearly is), they just don't want to be forced to report it if their rival schools aren't. Stupid games, all caused by silly rankings that don't mean anything.[/quote]

This is the comment right here. It used to be that the point of scores were to show that a kid could do college-level work. Now scores are a marketing strategy for the schools. If only 1500+ kids submit, a school can claim their average test score is 1500+.

Stupid games indeed. It’s like we are in some bizarro-world in which the point of the kid’s application is to help the schools game the rankings. We’ve lost the plot.  [/quote]

I keep reading comments like this from people pushing going TO, but then the common data set scores move up only slightly for each school. So the kids in the 25th percentile are still getting in with those scores. If your kid can get anything above that number it makes no sense not to submit.[/quote]

PP. I'm not necessarily pushing TO, and fwiw my own DC submitted scores everywhere, including schools where I'm fairly certain it will hurt her. My comment wasn't about what an applicant should do, it's about how the meaning and purpose of test scores have shifted for schools.

For top schools, the increases at the high end haven't been dramatic, because there's a ceiling to scores, and 75th percentile+ was always high. But on the low end, scores moved up significantly. I just ran a quick check between 2014-15 CDS (a random date, but most schools were reliably test mandatory), and last year's. Comparing reading and math (not the writing section which existed back then), Trinity College's 25th percentile composite score jumped 150 points. Northeastern's went up 110 points. Williams's went up 150 points. Even Harvard's 25th percentile went up 90 points.

To return to test mandatory, Trinity would likely have to return to having published 25th percentile scores for math/reading in the high-500s, Williams in the high-600s. I'd be surprised if most schools want to do that, because it will look like a decrease in quality of student body, which has implications for yield, etc.

Mind you, I'm not one of these DCUM posters who thinks tests are the be-all and end-all (I think the problem with elite college admissions is that we've created such a sharply tiered system, mirroring the economy in general). But it does seem we've created a system where the tail is wagging the dog. We are asking a lot of kids -- all those who would have been solidly middle 50% scorers before -- to put significant time and energy into taking/preparing for standardized tests, to the exclusion of other things, largely so the colleges can signify something about themselves. That just seems backwards to me. [/quote]

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