Anonymous
08/12/2025 13:59
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Bc they all apply for stem or engineering. They haven’t learned what the other Asians have already.
This.
Indians don’t know how to play the game.
Generally agree, but I saw my South Asian friends' kid get rejected from Brown despite being at a selective private school in Boston and declaring an intention (supported by ECs) to study Gender Studies in college.
Brown is tricky. They are definitely looking for fit. If you don’t nail the fit in the essays and especially the video it’s a problem. It is not like all of the others. Where did that kid end up?
Anonymous
08/12/2025 13:52
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Bc they all apply for stem or engineering. They haven’t learned what the other Asians have already.
This.
Indians don’t know how to play the game.
Generally agree, but I saw my South Asian friends' kid get rejected from Brown despite being at a selective private school in Boston and declaring an intention (supported by ECs) to study Gender Studies in college.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 22:32
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Bc they all apply for stem or engineering. They haven’t learned what the other Asians have already.
This.
Indians don’t know how to play the game.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 21:13
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Let's do some calculation.
Penn is reinstating test required this coming year.
Class of 2029, median score is 1540. 51% submitting SAT.
Their true median score is probably 1490.
That's 50 point gap to make up when they switch to test required.
To maintain their median, Penn can potentially reduce the number of low score admits (previously non-submitters).
However, these are institutional priorities, i.e., hooked. It's unlikely Penn will reduce too many of them.
The other way to maintain the median score is to increase the test scores of unhooked admits.
What’s their likely median for test requires? 30 points lower would be 1510.
It would be good to revisit this thread a year later to look at it in retrospect.
One thing that is certain is that the number of applicants will decrease quite a bit, observed in Brown and Dartmouth cases. Applicant pool will be rather different.
Dartmouth is able to hold on to a median of 1520. Penn should be able to do the same or maybe higher. 1520-1530 median would be my guess.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 20:50
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Let's do some calculation.
Penn is reinstating test required this coming year.
Class of 2029, median score is 1540. 51% submitting SAT.
Their true median score is probably 1490.
That's 50 point gap to make up when they switch to test required.
To maintain their median, Penn can potentially reduce the number of low score admits (previously non-submitters).
However, these are institutional priorities, i.e., hooked. It's unlikely Penn will reduce too many of them.
The other way to maintain the median score is to increase the test scores of unhooked admits.
What’s their likely median for test requires? 30 points lower would be 1510.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 19:40
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Hi Priya, yes we knew. Was wondering why Indian moms were so quiet.
Because Indians still think liberals are on their side.
Nobody is on your side.
Conservatives will call you a dothead or jeet but will not stand in the way as your children outperform their children
Liberals will get mad at the Conservatives for being racist but deny your children the opportunities they have earned because there are already too many indians in those "exclusive spaces"
Anonymous
08/11/2025 19:14
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Hi Priya, yes we knew. Was wondering why Indian moms were so quiet.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 18:58
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Let's do some calculation.
Penn is reinstating test required this coming year.
Class of 2029, median score is 1540. 51% submitting SAT.
Their true median score is probably 1490.
That's 50 point gap to make up when they switch to test required.
To maintain their median, Penn can potentially reduce the number of low score admits (previously non-submitters).
However, these are institutional priorities, i.e., hooked. It's unlikely Penn will reduce too many of them.
The other way to maintain the median score is to increase the test scores of unhooked admits.
So, if this is true - and it may be - then the advice to submit lower test scores to schools that are returning to test required is completely wrong. What exactly are private college counselors saying? Ours suggested DC could submit lower scores than in previous cycles.
The median will not drop 50 points. 30 points is the maximum, it will stay above 1500.
Correct me if I am wrong as I am just using gpt to gather data.
Dartmouth 50% sat:
2020, 2021, 2022: 1500
2023: 1550
2024: 1540
2024 is the first year Dartmouth reinstated test required.
Dartmouth hasn't shared test score data for the test optional-years. The 2020-2021 CDS is the last one with data. Middle 50% is 1430-1550.
https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/data-reporting/cds/index.html
DP
https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/institution-profile/182670#admission-and-test-scores
Anonymous
08/11/2025 18:56
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Let's do some calculation.
Penn is reinstating test required this coming year.
Class of 2029, median score is 1540. 51% submitting SAT.
Their true median score is probably 1490.
That's 50 point gap to make up when they switch to test required.
To maintain their median, Penn can potentially reduce the number of low score admits (previously non-submitters).
However, these are institutional priorities, i.e., hooked. It's unlikely Penn will reduce too many of them.
The other way to maintain the median score is to increase the test scores of unhooked admits.
So, if this is true - and it may be - then the advice to submit lower test scores to schools that are returning to test required is completely wrong. What exactly are private college counselors saying? Ours suggested DC could submit lower scores than in previous cycles.
The median will not drop 50 points. 30 points is the maximum, it will stay above 1500.
Correct me if I am wrong as I am just using gpt to gather data.
Dartmouth 50% sat:
2020, 2021, 2022: 1500
2023: 1550
2024: 1540
2024 is the first year Dartmouth reinstated test required.
Dartmouth hasn't shared test score data for the test optional-years. The 2020-2021 CDS is the last one with data. Middle 50% is 1430-1550.
https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/data-reporting/cds/index.html
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/apply/class-profile-testing
Here they reported this year's range, test required. Median 1520, Mid 50% 1440-1560.
Anonymous
08/11/2025 18:46
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Let's do some calculation.
Penn is reinstating test required this coming year.
Class of 2029, median score is 1540. 51% submitting SAT.
Their true median score is probably 1490.
That's 50 point gap to make up when they switch to test required.
To maintain their median, Penn can potentially reduce the number of low score admits (previously non-submitters).
However, these are institutional priorities, i.e., hooked. It's unlikely Penn will reduce too many of them.
The other way to maintain the median score is to increase the test scores of unhooked admits.
So, if this is true - and it may be - then the advice to submit lower test scores to schools that are returning to test required is completely wrong. What exactly are private college counselors saying? Ours suggested DC could submit lower scores than in previous cycles.
The median will not drop 50 points. 30 points is the maximum, it will stay above 1500.
Correct me if I am wrong as I am just using gpt to gather data.
Dartmouth 50% sat:
2020, 2021, 2022: 1500
2023: 1550
2024: 1540
2024 is the first year Dartmouth reinstated test required.
Dartmouth hasn't shared test score data for the test optional-years. The 2020-2021 CDS is the last one with data. Middle 50% is 1430-1550.
https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/data-reporting/cds/index.html
Anonymous
08/11/2025 18:35
Subject: Is it just me or test score will be more important than ever this year?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't think so for the schools that have historically been test optional for large swaths (athletes, donors, legacy) or others. Schools like the below:
Duke
Northwestern
UChicago
Columbia
UCLA
Cal
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
Michigan
WashU
USC
Look at all the SLACs...there is no scrutiny there AND they are almost all uber TO (Amherst, Pomona, Bowdoin, Midd, Davidson, Barnard etc)
Vandy and WashU always love high score applicants albeit still TO.
Columbia just settled with Trump. Unless they want to lose their funding again.
Agree the chilling effect would be most pronounced on test required schools.
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
So what?
It's hard to get accepted to those schools anyways. Tests won't significantly change that dynamic.
If a high score raises your odds of admission from 2% to 4%, it doubles your odds of admission.
Based on a 2024 analysis of over 600,000 applications to ivy+ shows a 10-15% chance of admission to one of the schools with a 1500 SAT; 15-25% chance of admissions with a 1540 SAT; and 25-35% with a 1590 SAT score. If your SAT score was 1430, your chance of admission was about 5% This did not take into consideration any other factor about the student.
Source?
Nature magazine article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0
Did you guys look at this?
We estimate that Asian American applicants had 28% lower odds of ultimately attending an Ivy-11 school than white applicants with similar academic and extracurricular qualifications. The gap was particularly pronounced for students of South Asian descent (49% lower odds).
WTH! 49% lower?
Why does this surprise you?
The Jews and East Asians could have told you this would be the case for at least a generation or two