Anonymous wrote:DC has taken the SAT three times. Final score is 1460 (710v, 750m). This score is between the 25th and 50th percentiles for their “reach” schools, most of which appear to have about 30-40% apply test optional.

DC has great grades (3.95+ us) from an area public with high rigor; decent but not outstanding extracurricular activities. No hooks. LOCs will be fine but public school is big and doesn’t have a particularly close relationship with any teacher so we don’t expect those to be anything special.

Submit scores?

I would definitely submit. Those scores are too high for TO. TO means lots of waitlists. The people here are totally overvaluing tests and lowballing you. Just apply to many schools. I think TO hurt my DD at Michigan. Going to UCLA. 32 ACT TO. Lots of waitlists and ten acceptances. ED is your friend. Go for it!

I’d submit 1460 from a public high school but not a private one.

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Anonymous wrote:Submit a 1460 buts you at about 95th percentile. It validates that GPA is not inflated.

OP, based on the responses here, it seems like there are three main theories:

1) Submit the score: it is in the ballpark for the school so even if doesn't make a difference in the acceptance decision, there is no harm done.
2) Submit the score: it helps by validating his grades and there will be a slight bump in admissions chances relative to not submitting (the college will assume a much lower score if they don't submit).
3) Do not submit the score: it will hurt because the school cares more about the score pulling down their published range than it does about whether your kid can do the work.

FWIW, if it were my unhooked kid, I would submit a 1460 from a public school in this environment. Not because I have any insight into the actual game theory of admissions but because it's a great score, I'd want my kid to be proud of it, and screw any college that would decide to use the test optional policy to manipulate their selectivity optics.

Yep. Me, too

Anonymous wrote:Submit a 1460 buts you at about 95th percentile. It validates that GPA is not inflated.

OP, based on the responses here, it seems like there are three main theories:

1) Submit the score: it is in the ballpark for the school so even if doesn't make a difference in the acceptance decision, there is no harm done.
2) Submit the score: it helps by validating his grades and there will be a slight bump in admissions chances relative to not submitting (the college will assume a much lower score if they don't submit).
3) Do not submit the score: it will hurt because the school cares more about the score pulling down their published range than it does about whether your kid can do the work.

FWIW, if it were my unhooked kid, I would submit a 1460 from a public school in this environment. Not because I have any insight into the actual game theory of admissions but because it's a great score, I'd want my kid to be proud of it, and screw any college that would decide to use the test optional policy to manipulate their selectivity optics.

Submit a 1460 buts you at about 95th percentile. It validates that GPA is not inflated.

OP here. Thanks for the helpful feedback. It seems like there is still a lot of uncertainty but I appreciate the insight. It's interesting that some people advise not submitting when the scores are closer to the lower end of the range for the schools that have higher percentages of TO, even though these are the schools with the more skewed ranges.

FWIW, we know that DC needs 2-3 safeties and 2-3 target schools and we are 100 percent focused on finding ones that he loves this summer. He knows that the odds of getting into the reaches are long and is just trying to figure out whether the test scores help or not (the 1460 is quite high for his public, in case that matters).

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Anonymous wrote:I would submit. 1460 is a really good score and schools will infer a lower one if you go TO.

Agree with this. Also, as more students submit SATs, the medians will come down a bit.

DS had no luck with a slightly higher test score (1490) at many of these same schools, this last cycle. When applying test optional got in everywhere, including Ivy.

I’d critically examine your schools naviance data and make a decision individually by school.

Note - we are at a private HS.

This is not useful other than to direct to naviance. Generally local public school grades don’t translate to local private school grades. Further, this next cycle is going to be hostile to test optional than prior years. My guess is that Ivy is either Columbia or Cornell ( which is test aware this cycle).

The colleges the OP mentioned - Michigan, Emory, and BC are not hostile to TO for 2025.

Stop with the misinformation.

You couldn’t possibly know this. Clearly the tide is turning against test optional, and this cycle will be different than last.

Based on the data and what we see at our school this year, yes I do know this.

Ask the AO rep. They will tell your kid whether or not to submit a score below the 50th%. Do not ask in writing, only in person or by phone.

Willing to bet that you are the pro test optional poster who is not local. Kids who submitted test scores have done far better at our local private than those choosing test optional.

I’m not pro-TO. I’ve just seen that submitting below the 50th percentile does not help an anpplicant and our school does not recommend submitting below the 50th percentile.

All the folks here talking about the 25th percentile as the new benchmark did not seem to be accurate for the students that I know.

The OP here seems to be talking about a score that is below the 50th percentile, and in some cases at or even below the 25th percentile. I think it’s a bad decision to submit that score.
Submit AP scores instead.

You are looking at the wrong range. The correct test score ranges would be from 2019.

+100

Anonymous wrote:Generally this depends on the school. The 50th percentile advice is outdated by a year. Submit if at or above the 25th.

This. Submit!!

I’d have your kid work on the material they’ll be submitting to their recommenders to try and get those letters of recommendations to be as personal as possible. A generic letter of rec will not help at those 3 colleges.

Anonymous wrote:DC has taken the SAT three times. Final score is 1460 (710v, 750m). This score is between the 25th and 50th percentiles for their “reach” schools, most of which appear to have about 30-40% apply test optional.

DC has great grades (3.95+ us) from an area public with high rigor; decent but not outstanding extracurricular activities. No hooks. LOCs will be fine but public school is big and doesn’t have a particularly close relationship with any teacher so we don’t expect those to be anything special.

Submit scores?

Our DS is similar. Taken the test twice, has cleared 1450 (>700 on each section) but not 1500, and is done. Great grades at a well regarded private school. Solid ECs. No hooks. He's planning to submit everywhere. Unlikely to hurt him most places, might help him in some, and, regardless, he has a bunch of schools he'd be excited to attend and he'd rather be dinged from some of them than feel like he snuck into wherever he ends up.

submit

Mine had similar scores, similar percentiles at the high end, and did submit. Got in everywhere but the extreme reach (which was a school with a sub-10% admit rate, and scores weren’t in the ballpark).

This says to me that the 25th+ advice is probably about right.

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Anonymous wrote:I would submit. 1460 is a really good score and schools will infer a lower one if you go TO.

Agree with this. Also, as more students submit SATs, the medians will come down a bit.

DS had no luck with a slightly higher test score (1490) at many of these same schools, this last cycle. When applying test optional got in everywhere, including Ivy.

I’d critically examine your schools naviance data and make a decision individually by school.

Note - we are at a private HS.

This is not useful other than to direct to naviance. Generally local public school grades don’t translate to local private school grades. Further, this next cycle is going to be hostile to test optional than prior years. My guess is that Ivy is either Columbia or Cornell ( which is test aware this cycle).

The colleges the OP mentioned - Michigan, Emory, and BC are not hostile to TO for 2025.

Stop with the misinformation.

You couldn’t possibly know this. Clearly the tide is turning against test optional, and this cycle will be different than last.

Based on the data and what we see at our school this year, yes I do know this.

Ask the AO rep. They will tell your kid whether or not to submit a score below the 50th%. Do not ask in writing, only in person or by phone.

Willing to bet that you are the pro test optional poster who is not local. Kids who submitted test scores have done far better at our local private than those choosing test optional.

I’m not pro-TO. I’ve just seen that submitting below the 50th percentile does not help an anpplicant and our school does not recommend submitting below the 50th percentile.

All the folks here talking about the 25th percentile as the new benchmark did not seem to be accurate for the students that I know.

The OP here seems to be talking about a score that is below the 50th percentile, and in some cases at or even below the 25th percentile. I think it’s a bad decision to submit that score.
Submit AP scores instead.

You are looking at the wrong range. The correct test score ranges would be from 2019.

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Anonymous wrote:I would submit. 1460 is a really good score and schools will infer a lower one if you go TO.

Agree with this. Also, as more students submit SATs, the medians will come down a bit.

DS had no luck with a slightly higher test score (1490) at many of these same schools, this last cycle. When applying test optional got in everywhere, including Ivy.

I’d critically examine your schools naviance data and make a decision individually by school.

Note - we are at a private HS.

This is not useful other than to direct to naviance. Generally local public school grades don’t translate to local private school grades. Further, this next cycle is going to be hostile to test optional than prior years. My guess is that Ivy is either Columbia or Cornell ( which is test aware this cycle).

The colleges the OP mentioned - Michigan, Emory, and BC are not hostile to TO for 2025.

Stop with the misinformation.

You couldn’t possibly know this. Clearly the tide is turning against test optional, and this cycle will be different than last.

Based on the data and what we see at our school this year, yes I do know this.

Ask the AO rep. They will tell your kid whether or not to submit a score below the 50th%. Do not ask in writing, only in person or by phone.

Willing to bet that you are the pro test optional poster who is not local. Kids who submitted test scores have done far better at our local private than those choosing test optional.

I’m not pro-TO. I’ve just seen that submitting below the 50th percentile does not help an anpplicant and our school does not recommend submitting below the 50th percentile.

All the folks here talking about the 25th percentile as the new benchmark did not seem to be accurate for the students that I know.

The OP here seems to be talking about a score that is below the 50th percentile, and in some cases at or even below the 25th percentile. I think it’s a bad decision to submit that score.
Submit AP scores instead.

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Anonymous wrote:It no longer matters what we think a ‘good score’ is. I. The world of TO, the colleges are competing with each other’s published scores, which are skewed because of TO.
If the score helps the published median, submit.
If it does not, do not submit.

This is bad advice. Was only true for certain types of students anyway, but to assume this upcoming cycle like past cycle or two a mistake. Schools already have been showing signs of being test aware last cycle.

You are wrong. Try to understand nuance.
You’re the same poster who comes on here railing about test scores every week.

I agree that in a few years test optional will be totally gone. But for the next cycle, some schools will still heavily favor test optional to shape their class. Especially those in the bottom half of T25.

I’m not actually, and I would bet that there are many posters who favor use of test scores here. College consultants are the ones saying that things are not static and test scores matter more this cycle than last, and mattered more last cycle than the one before.

I think it truly depends on the school.

Yes ofc it matters more this past cycle at certain schools than it did before and I guarantee it will matter more at certain other schools next cycle… We know what those are. Dartmouth, Yale, Brown. And more ivies/T10.

But a lot of schools have intentionally not come out and said they are even test aware. Why? These schools are typically T15-T25 or lower and they have really benefited from test optional. That’s what our private College Counselor has told us.
The decision to submit scores is based on thorough data analysis. Not an automatic reflex.

Schools don’t need to come out and say they are test aware although Cornell has. The others you mention are test required, not test aware for next year. Add Cal Tech, which was previously test blind, and UT.

Once both Harvard and Yale went test required, it was over for test optional.


Both our high school and private consultants say to submit scores, especially for kids coming from families with means.