Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in college admissions, I don’t worry so much about the students with high GPA’s who go test optional. They tend to be hardworking students who will continue to work hard in college. The ones I do worry about are the kids with B averages who score below 1100/23 on the SAT/ACT and apply TO—and absolutely struggle at mid-tier schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in college admissions, I don’t worry so much about the students with high GPA’s who go test optional. They tend to be hardworking students who will continue to work hard in college. The ones I do worry about are the kids with B averages who score below 1100/23 on the SAT/ACT and apply TO—and absolutely struggle at mid-tier schools.

B averages from where? From a school with a rigorous curriculum and high expectations, a B means something different than from a school with retakes and nothing below a 55.

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in college admissions, I don’t worry so much about the students with high GPA’s who go test optional. They tend to be hardworking students who will continue to work hard in college. The ones I do worry about are the kids with B averages who score below 1100/23 on the SAT/ACT and apply TO—and absolutely struggle at mid-tier schools.

Anonymous wrote:As someone who works in college admissions, I don’t worry so much about the students with high GPA’s who go test optional. They tend to be hardworking students who will continue to work hard in college. The ones I do worry about are the kids with B averages who score below 1100/23 on the SAT/ACT and apply TO—and absolutely struggle at mid-tier schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, the thing is, YOU have no idea how TO students do compared to the ones who submitted. It’s time to stop pretending the SAT/ACT is a proxy for innate ability or talent. They aren’t.

The Selingo article discussed the fact that schools that track have found that TO students are not performing as well. Of course, there is still very limited data, at least with respect to schools that went TO due to Covid.

I suspect that schools will react by making the standards for TO admission higher or letting fewer students in TO so they can more easily focus remedial efforts on them.

I don't think that's what the Selingo article said. From the article itself:


"For now, MIT remains in the minority in its claims about the predictive power of the SAT. In 2021, Wake Forest, which went test optional in 2008, released a longitudinal analysis that found that applicants who don’t submit scores — who are twice as likely to be low income, students of color, or the first in their family to go to college — have a lower GPA their first year at Wake Forest, but it narrows each subsequent year to a .03 difference by graduation with minimal difference in graduation rates. (Interestingly, students who withheld their scores even graduated at a slightly higher rate, at 90 percent, than those who sent scores, at 87 percent.) Studies of other colleges that went test optional before the pandemic have arrived at similar conclusions: After some time as an undergraduate, there isn’t much difference in the academic performance between students who submitted and those who didn’t."

What about those who transfer out?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, the thing is, YOU have no idea how TO students do compared to the ones who submitted. It’s time to stop pretending the SAT/ACT is a proxy for innate ability or talent. They aren’t.

The Selingo article discussed the fact that schools that track have found that TO students are not performing as well. Of course, there is still very limited data, at least with respect to schools that went TO due to Covid.

I suspect that schools will react by making the standards for TO admission higher or letting fewer students in TO so they can more easily focus remedial efforts on them.

I don't think that's what the Selingo article said. From the article itself:


"For now, MIT remains in the minority in its claims about the predictive power of the SAT. In 2021, Wake Forest, which went test optional in 2008, released a longitudinal analysis that found that applicants who don’t submit scores — who are twice as likely to be low income, students of color, or the first in their family to go to college — have a lower GPA their first year at Wake Forest, but it narrows each subsequent year to a .03 difference by graduation with minimal difference in graduation rates. (Interestingly, students who withheld their scores even graduated at a slightly higher rate, at 90 percent, than those who sent scores, at 87 percent.) Studies of other colleges that went test optional before the pandemic have arrived at similar conclusions: After some time as an undergraduate, there isn’t much difference in the academic performance between students who submitted and those who didn’t."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another post on this? How is this different from yesterday's post?

The person whose kid scored high needs reassurance that their kid is bright and worthy even though TO kids are getting accepted into schools. It’s kind of a daily thing we do here now.

And TO parents need reassurance that their less qualified kid will get into Yale.

Kids are getting into Yale and other selective colleges by applying TO.

Parents of test takers who submit scores and get rejected are pissed, jealous or both.

This is the net of it.

TO isn't going away, so I guess there will be more angst and scapegoating out there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, the thing is, YOU have no idea how TO students do compared to the ones who submitted. It’s time to stop pretending the SAT/ACT is a proxy for innate ability or talent. They aren’t.

It may not be a proxy for talent or success in life but it strongly correlates with ability, intelligence and for those who study intensely to do well - determination.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another post on this? How is this different from yesterday's post?

The person whose kid scored high needs reassurance that their kid is bright and worthy even though TO kids are getting accepted into schools. It’s kind of a daily thing we do here now.

And TO parents need reassurance that their less qualified kid will get into Yale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another post on this? How is this different from yesterday's post?

The person whose kid scored high needs reassurance that their kid is bright and worthy even though TO kids are getting accepted into schools. It’s kind of a daily thing we do here now.

And TO parents need reassurance that their less qualified kid will get into Yale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another post on this? How is this different from yesterday's post?

The person whose kid scored high needs reassurance that their kid is bright and worthy even though TO kids are getting accepted into schools. It’s kind of a daily thing we do here now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, the thing is, YOU have no idea how TO students do compared to the ones who submitted. It’s time to stop pretending the SAT/ACT is a proxy for innate ability or talent. They aren’t.

The Selingo article discussed the fact that schools that track have found that TO students are not performing as well. Of course, there is still very limited data, at least with respect to schools that went TO due to Covid.

I suspect that schools will react by making the standards for TO admission higher or letting fewer students in TO so they can more easily focus remedial efforts on them.

I don't think that's what the Selingo article said. From the article itself:


"For now, MIT remains in the minority in its claims about the predictive power of the SAT. In 2021, Wake Forest, which went test optional in 2008, released a longitudinal analysis that found that applicants who don’t submit scores — who are twice as likely to be low income, students of color, or the first in their family to go to college — have a lower GPA their first year at Wake Forest, but it narrows each subsequent year to a .03 difference by graduation with minimal difference in graduation rates. (Interestingly, students who withheld their scores even graduated at a slightly higher rate, at 90 percent, than those who sent scores, at 87 percent.) Studies of other colleges that went test optional before the pandemic have arrived at similar conclusions: After some time as an undergraduate, there isn’t much difference in the academic performance between students who submitted and those who didn’t."

Also directly from the article:

Meanwhile, other anecdotal results from the test-optional experiment are starting to trickle in. At one top-ranked liberal arts college, where 60 percent of the students who enrolled last year submitted scores, the admissions dean told me that the average first-year GPA for members of the freshman class that submitted scores was 3.57; for non-submitters it was 3.47. “Institutional research tells me the difference is statistically significant,” he said. Another admissions dean, from the selective private university weighing the “million-dollar question,” told me faculty members have informed him about students who have “a little less confidence” in the classroom. Since professors don’t know whether their students submitted scores, the admissions dean asks for names. He then looks them up. Most of the time, he said, the students didn’t submit scores. “The question is, if I’m coming in with a 1600 or a 1550 on the SAT, does that do something to my level of confidence in the classroom versus someone who just came in with grades?” this admissions dean wonders.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See, the thing is, YOU have no idea how TO students do compared to the ones who submitted. It’s time to stop pretending the SAT/ACT is a proxy for innate ability or talent. They aren’t.

OP here. There are lots of reports that TO kids struggle, but then the difference suddenly disappears. Maybe the kids miraculously makeup for 12 years of shortfall in a semester or two, but it’s more likely others things are at work. For example, do these kids eventually choose easier majors and/or ones that they otherwise would not have preferred just to get through school? Do the schools follow the GPAs of such kids and proactively reach out to them with aid? Are professors aware of kids with challenges and provide more mentoring?

Look, if Harvard truly feels that a kid with a 1200 SAT can do the work as well as a kid with a 1550, why did they start the tests in the first place? My guess is, they don’t.

they probably do whatever they do for athletes, since before TO, those were the group with the lowest test scores.

Great point! I’m sure they’re leveraging those insights.