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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?[/quote]

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.

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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.[/quote]

You’re replying to me here. Note that I was a National Merit Scholar and have horrible typos in every post. So, my posts are a great illustration of why high test scores aren’t everything.

But it seems as if the people here obsessing about top schools mostly want their kids to be premeds or CS majors at top schools, without having any idea of what passing a real math class at a top school involves. It’s like saying to your kid, “Hey, go stand in front of a firebreathing dragon and see if you’re a Targaryen. I’ve heard there’s good money in that!” If the kids themselves are hungry for a challenge, that’s great. But I’m afraid that a lot of parents are trying to push their kids into the fire simply to get some of that (rapidly evaporating) FAANG money.

My guess is that good test scores would be a lot more relevant for the Targaryen flammability classes than for an ordinary humanities or social sciences class.

I scrounged around and found that faculty members at the University of Arkansas looked into this question. They reported that students who passed college precalculus, but who had math SATs under 680, had a 56% college Calculus I pass rate, and that Calculus I students with math SATs over 680 had a 78% pass rate:

https://peer.asee.org/determination-of-success-in-the-calculus-sequence-based-on-method-of-placement.pdf

It’s possible that Calculus I is the same at the University of Arkansas as at MIT, and that having a math SAT score under isn’t necessarily the end of the world at MIT. But my guess is that, even at Tufts or Rochester, Calculus I would be harder than at Arkansas, and that the gap in pass rates between students with scores over 680 and students with lower scores would be wider.

If there are any college professors here who have comparable data from other schools handy, it would be interesting to see their numbers.

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