Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

So really you don’t know.

It’s a terrible measure. GPA is a good measure

How can GPA be a good measure when it is to subjective and different across schools and even across teachers in the same school?

Moreover, many schools don’t have much range among kids in terms of gpa, i.e. there are a lot of kids clustered together. If colleges aren’t using test scores or class rank, the admissions process does become even more a lottery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

So really you don’t know.

It’s a terrible measure. GPA is a good measure

How can GPA be a good measure when it is to subjective and different across schools and even across teachers in the same school?

Anonymous wrote:All children are not the same. Not all schools are the same. Grades inflation/deflation, courses offered, socioeconomic status etc - different around the entire US. Schools will need to figure out how to evaluate when there is a "standardized" dataset to compare.

This year many schools that did not require SAT scores used their big data sets by zipcode, school district, family income and gpa to determine what the student would have gotten on the SAT/ACT. They have enough data to come up that evaluation. This significantly helped students who have higher GPAs at highly regarded zip codes/schools but do poorly on standardized tests.

Changes will be made once these college see their actual yield versus their planned yield. If they gave acceptances to kids who choose not to come, they know their metrics for evaluation need to be reassessed. The HS class of 2023 will see the impact of these changes.

Do you have real evidence that schools are doing this? It would be directly contrary to the stated admissions policy of every school that I know of to embrace economic bias in this way, and if it got out that schools are giving an admissions boost for being from a rich zip code, then it would be an enormous scandal. The reason that many schools say they are doing away with standardized test scores is precisely the correlation between being from a wealthy zip code and high test scores. Using zip code as a proxy for test scores would directly undermine this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

There are a whole lot of assumptions in your post -- not every kid is your kid. My child prepped with Khan Academy for first SAT and their score decreased from PSAT. For next two SATs, they took a costly prep course (yes, took the course twice) and their scrore increased both times. Score increased about 350 points over PSAT by third SAT. If we couldn't have spent $2400 on test prep, kid's college prospects might have been very different.

Sports and clubs plus grades are a decent indicator of time management skills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

So really you don’t know.

It’s a terrible measure. GPA is a good measure

Anonymous wrote:From today's WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/04/05/college-admissions-2021-test-optional/


For the deniers who keep parroting that this year is no different from previous years. It's not. It's worse. And it will be worse next year too. The system will need about 3 years to adjust to the new normal.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out long term. This year, students of all backgrounds simply could not take the test, or take it more than once to get score up. But it seems not submitting scores helps those from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not have had great test scores but have good gpas. Are colleges going to expect to see test scores from students from advantaged backgrounds though?

From today's WaPo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/04/05/college-admissions-2021-test-optional/


For the deniers who keep parroting that this year is no different from previous years. It's not. It's worse. And it will be worse next year too. The system will need about 3 years to adjust to the new normal.

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

+1

You should have seen the acceptance lists from 2020! Many kids were accepted to colleges to which they would have never been accepted, in a million years - due solely to deferrals.

Anonymous wrote:The college admissions industrial-complex is a lottery. When a university has a 5% admissions rate, don't tell me there aren't a lot of rejected students who could have thrived there. It is also a huge money maker involving rankings, tutors, consultants, etc. Nothing in America gets this big unless it attracts the almighty dollar.

+1

The sooner parents know this, the better for them and their family.

All children are not the same. Not all schools are the same. Grades inflation/deflation, courses offered, socioeconomic status etc - different around the entire US. Schools will need to figure out how to evaluate when there is a "standardized" dataset to compare.

This year many schools that did not require SAT scores used their big data sets by zipcode, school district, family income and gpa to determine what the student would have gotten on the SAT/ACT. They have enough data to come up that evaluation. This significantly helped students who have higher GPAs at highly regarded zip codes/schools but do poorly on standardized tests.

Changes will be made once these college see their actual yield versus their planned yield. If they gave acceptances to kids who choose not to come, they know their metrics for evaluation need to be reassessed. The HS class of 2023 will see the impact of these changes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

But they will just keep spinning that lie, as it suits their narrative. They’ll ignore the fact that test optional makes the other criteria MORE important, and they will also ignore the fact that they have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA if those accepted students submitted scores or not.

Of course if they are right in 4 years we will see the graduation rate plummet, because elite college admissions officers are idiots who can’t do their job properly if only 50% of applicants submit scores.

Lies lies lies.

Elite college admissions officers are not idiots. Just a little public service announcement for you.

+1

"test optional" = excuse to get out of something that the student would not have done well at, anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

It’s definitely not perfect but I feel that since khan academy is free it is a more useful indicator (since costly prep isn’t necessary.) It is an additional piece of info. My child worked their tail off preparing with khan academy and got upper 1500s. To me that seems more relevant to her likelihood of success in college than her sports and clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.

When evaluating them for what? And don't just say "qualified for admission", please be specific about personal qualities of a prospective student that standardized testing illustrates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know three students who got into major reaches this year for what one would expect for them--test optional really helped some kids and I guess hurt the high performing students.

How on earth would test optional hurt high performing students?

It made the test optional for lesser performing students, who now skate by on some vague criteria.

I disagree. Performing well on a test doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter or a better student.

There is nothing that proves that you are smarter or a better student. But standardized testing is a useful tool when evaluating students.