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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]we're a cycle away from 60% of people not submitting.  and probably three cycles away from most people not bothering to even take it unless PSAT shows you're already about there.  just not worth the squeeze. [/quote]

You're likely more right than wrong here.

People aren't coming to terms with the prospect of test optional becoming more entrenched ( including most of the selective colleges) in the admissions process going forward.[/quote]

What do they need to “come to terms” with? It makes it difficult for schools, but it’s [b]easier for families and students.[/b] My kid is a good test-taker and prepping for the SATs, but…if the schools she was interested suddenly went test blind, she wouldn’t care. Most kids who test high (1500) also have rigor schedules, high GPAs, interesting outside activities, good recommendations, and so on. [/quote]

No it's not.  Now you have a far less idea of which schools are going to accept you and whether you should send in your scores. You have to do a lot more applications and/or do early decision.  It used to be much more predictable.[/quote]

When was it predictable? 1950 for rich white guys?[/quote]

I never said it was predictable, but it used to be much more predictable even 5 years ago.  You could look at your GPA, your SAT score, and the % admitted at a school and assess whether it was a target reach, target, likely etc.  SATs were an important anchoring information--most people submitted them and they are standardized.   Course rigor and GPA are both variable things because they are contextualized with what your schools offer, GPA of others in the school, how schools reformulate GPA, rather than a set number like SAT. ECs and essays were always a wild card.  But you could look at the score distribution of SATs and get a good sense of your chances. [/quote]

[b]Having a good sense of your chances is just another way of saying predictable - which is a lot like saying much more predictable[/b]

Selective schools have been rejecting high scoring applicants for fifty years. Not much has changed. [/quote]

You really don't think there's been a decline in predictability of the admittance of high scoring applicants since test optional became more prevalent? I don't even know how you would support that view.  It's not like predictability is an on-off switch--outcomes like college acceptances become more predictable with more information. [/quote]

I don’t. Smart kids have been getting rejected from colleges for years predating test optional. You all just want to think you have it worse than everyone else. It’s not. [/quote]

You seem to be equating not perfectly predictable with less predictable.  There's some basic probability math here to dispute you.  When everyone had to submit scores and 75% of the admitted applicants had scores over the 90%ile, there's only 10% of the applicant population with those test scores.  That impacts the odds of admission for high scorers.   But there's no limit on how many 4.0+ GPAs there are--or awards or ECs etc.  
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