My DD applied ED to Kenyon and sent her scores (1480). She got in and was awarded a merit scholarship of $15K. She has strong grades too but I think it was the scores that were at 75% that helped her get merit money. She's a recruited athlete or we would have encouraged her apply RD normally but she wanted to be done and loves Kenyon. Glad we let her and that she had strong scores to send.

My kid in ED at his medium reach. Submitted test scores at the top of the 25-75 range. Grades above average for his school but not tippy top.

Accepted ED with merit without submitting at school that would have been a reach in a non-test optional year. In every other respect school is a match—kid has great GPA, great extracurriculars, great recommendations, etc. When they went test optional it was like all the planets aligned. An unanticipated ray of light in an otherwise difficult year.

I hope the vaccine lives up to its promise and all of these kids—high school and college—can look forward to on campus, in person classes in fall of 2021. And that test optional is here to stay.

ED Admit @ reach. Did not submit scores as they didn’t add to profile.

Seems like colleges are trying hard to give the impression that not submitting is not a disadvantage. Are they barely being considered when submitted, is what I wonder, since most scores submitted will be sufficiently high. What about the low GPA/high score applicant? Are they the "disadvantaged" in this scenario, with the high GPA/high rigor, non-submitters (who were able to test but did not score high enough) the benefiters? (Seems obvious that low GPA/unable to test are disadvantaged regardless.)

No. We had 1190, but stellar grades....in at VT ED.

Did not. In at 1st choice match. Deferred at a top reach.

Our kid has good grades but not great test scores so decision felt easy. I think the reach might have been a straight out rejection had scores been submitted (will still likely be a reject - but hanging in there through RD).

Did not. Got in ED to reach

Adding to above - I haven't seen stats from her school for ED acceptances.

Mine did and was accepted ED. Her ACT was slightly above the 75th percentile, and her unweighted GPA was in the 50th percentile. I'm going by the 19-20 common data set, and I think the GPA listed is unweighted. We're assuming the score helped. Solid EC and volunteer work but nothing more than most kids.

Not sure what teh test core optional really means for admissions.

U Penn for example published this:

"bout 38% of total early decision applicants chose not to include standardized testing as part of their application, Vice Dean and Director of Admissions John McLaughlin told The Daily Pennsylvanian. Of those admitted, 24% did not include test scores. "

Penn is crazy competitive......not sure if the stats are similar for other schools.

Deferred from what is normally a 50% acceptance rate school with test score well over 75th percentile but GPA around 25th. (Have not seen any stats yet published on this admission season for this school.)

DD only submitted scores to two schools where her scores were well above the 50%. Our strategy was to let her strong UW GPA represent her as her GPA represented her better than her SAT.

She has gotten several acceptances with good merit so I wouldn't worry that schools are deferring those who didn't send scores.

don't feel like publishing scores, but yes my kid did submit a score from one test, which is in the low mid range of the school that they ultimately got into ED. That being said, their score is the weakest thing about them and it was still in range.

The only time we did not submit a score was to a real high reach that appealed but had much higher average scores than ours. Obviously since we got in ED to another school, we will never know if they would have gotten into that one.

Anecdotally, I am hearing a lot of folks being deferred who did not submit any scores. I hope that is not a trend.

I know colleges have been saying all year that they will be test-optional, but I've remained suspicious that kids with good test scores are going to be advantaged over those without.

Now that we're seeing the first Early admittances come out, I'm curious if test score submission is making any difference. If you're willing, please share if your child submitted scores, and what the result was. I'll start:

Submitted ACT 32 (35 and 36 in the Reading/Writing sections, much lower Math and Science, applying as humanities major)
Accepted to UVM and Tulane