Following up on @Carino’s comment above, UChicago has been superscoring the SAT and ACT for a few years now so it’s not clear just how fundamental those tests have been to the admission decision. Superscoring made sense when the old SAT had very disparate sections from one administration to the next. It makes no sense for the new SAT and never made any sense for the ACT. So why superscore unless it’s to give second and third chances for some applicants to hit some (real or imagined) threshold? That’s not exactly using the test to identify who might be the right fit for UChicago.
This new policy suggests that they’d much rather the applicants spend their time doing something more meaningful than re-taking the tests multiple times. If you like your score after one or two testing sessions - great. Submit them. If not - go focus on something you think you can do better. By the way, it probably also allows UChicago to view your scores distinctly from those of other applicants. After all - and despite all the commentary about just one 3-hour test on one day and so on - there really is a difference between a 34 that is superscored and one that isn’t. The former is more likely to be a ‘true’ 32 or 33 (or lower). That likelihood can’t be lost on the adcoms.
There may be a lot of sense in what JBStillFling says about the mania for retakes.
U of Chicago is still looking for qualified kids. They will find them without scores, by looking for the traits, stretch, and accomplishment they know works for UChi. This is not a social experiment. They can do it, just as scores of colleges before them have.
@StudyingIsBad if you have preexisting capitol and tons of cash I’m ptrstty sure your already financially set so yes getting more is that much easier. I’m talking about people pulling themselves up not trust fund babies and that is where relationships matter.
Yes I am financially successful and it has been all about relationships. I had no capital when I started.
The nice thing about biology is that someone who is intelligent and rich will probably have kids who are more average in terms of IQ. It’s a phenomenon called regression to the mean.
The elites know this, and this is why they favor holistic admissions and no standardized testing. They know their precious 105 IQ kid will get crushed by the 150 IQ deli owner’s son.
Slowly but surely, the elites are making social mobility an impossibility. Eliminating g-loaded standardized testing was just their next step, and I can see the elites pouring the champagne and laughing at how the poor are doomed now.
(BTW, this works in reverse as well. Parents whose intelligence is below their group mean will tend to have smarter children - their intelligence regresses upwards.)
Also, in case anyone tries to contradict this phenomenon using anecdotal evidence, please understand that we’re talking about expected values and variances.
It’s entirely possible for 2 high IQ parents to have high IQ biological children, but the chances of that are slim (But still higher than if 2 average IQ parents had kids).
Stephen Hsu said that if a man and woman, both with 160 IQs, mated, their children will have an expected IQ of only 130 (Think of a Guassian Normal around 130 instead of 100. The probability that the children have an IQ 160 and above is ~2% - 2 SD higher than the mean. That means there is a 98% chance each child will be ‘dumber’ than the parents.)
If you want to calculate the probability that there’ll be even one child smarter than the parent, you can use a binomial distribution with p = .02 and choose an arbitrary n (Usually smarter people have fewer kids, so 2 is a safe bet). It’s not a very high probability…
Now of course, 160 IQ is extremely high, far higher than what most elites have, but we can expect a similar drop for anyone in the 120-140 IQ range.
Given Zimmer’s comments, it’s reasonable to conclude that, under the new policy, to come from a certain background (and that’s NOT hard to figure out, given your zip code and school) you are expected to produce decent SAT/ACT scores in a reasonable number of tries. Not to do so will be a strike against you. Rich and Stupid won’t necessarily get you in, even with a lot of EC’s and a sparkling admissions video. They will expect no less. The admission standards will be higher for the typical applicant.
If you are poor, hardworking and smart - like the 150 IQ deli-owner’s son who helps at the shop in his spare time - and you produce a great SAT, decent grades, and make best use of resources available to you at school (even if said school is crappy), then you probably have a marvelous chance of getting admitted. While the new policy allows those who are disadvantaged to use alternative means of showing their best self, that doesn’t mean that they are writing off the SAT/ACT nor that they consider it a minor aspect of an application - especially if it’s the main aspect due to circumstances. If all you can show them is your smarts, that’s showing them a lot.
It could be that circumstances are going to be an even larger aspect of your application going forward. Not because they need more full-pay kids (they obviously are getting enough of those with the ED apps) but because they will judge the quality of your application relative to what resources were available to you. That’s what they mean by “holistic”. They will be looking at the whole picture.
I’ve seen the zip code comment several times and have always wondered how granular the admissions offices get with that type of information. We live in coastal Florida and within our zip code are multimillion dollar homes (directly on the water) and within 1/2 mile inland but still in the same zip code are trailer parks. Zip codes might be a reasonable indicator for densely populated areas with homogeneous concentrations of housing types, but for places with lower density, an applicant from a single zip code could be very wealthy or at poverty level.
I guess if the AOs have the student’s address, a quick search would give better info but still not be an indicator of whether the student’s family owned or was a guest at the address.
In any case, if UChicago or any college that claims to be need blind for admissions is going to have different standards for applicants based on their financial circumstances, they’re going to need to know the financial circumstances first.
What? The elite colleges, including UoC are not eliminating standardized testing. The vast majority of elite colleges require standardized testing, while still having holistic admissions. Even UoC still values standardized testing and still considers the test scores in admissions decisions when submitted. And the vast majority of both applicants and matriculated students at UoC will almost certainly continue to submit scores. The deli kid you mentioned still can and will continue to submit scores.
I assume you are implying the deli owner’s son would be lower income. Elite holistic colleges, make a special effort to get lower and middle income students and make the college affordable for such students. The UoC changes included no tuition for families making less than $125k/yr, guaranteed paid internships for lower income students, and more scholarships for first generation college students. The deli owner’s son can still submit his scores which will be considered in his admissions decisions, and now the school will likely be more affordable for his family, if he is lower/middle income. If the elite colleges secret scheme is to decrease the rate of social mobility and admit as many rich, elite type kids as possible; this seems like an odd policy change to meet that goal. Highly selective, private colleges do tend to have a low percentage of lower income students. There are many contributing factors, one of which is that most high achieving lower income students do not apply highly selective, private colleges, including ones who test well.
Colleges don’t test for IQ. They do look for some holistic admission criteria that are correlated with intelligence, including accomplishing amazing things out of the classroom. This could include more obvious correlations, like representing the US in IMO; or less direct correlations, such as leading a group to create a bio-friendly water treatment device for their rural community. They also look for criteria with much weaker correlations that more relate to making the college or world a better place. Highly selective colleges as whole are not looking to create a competitive environment where students are out to “crush” the competition. Instead many make comments implying that they desire a collaborative environment with students that will support and help out their classmates, both in and out of the classroom.
As has been noted in the thread, test scores are far from the end all in determining academic success in colleges. All studies I am aware of that controlled for both a measure of HS grades and a measure of HS course rigor found that test scores added relatively little in predicting academic success in college beyond those measures.
@Data10 you give admissions departments far too much credit. Doesn’t anyone remember the 8 minutes to read an application article…? Further, how do Ivies follow suit with Chicago? They use an academic index (important to note --used to include class rank but does no longer for reasons I wonr bother addressing). Personally I dont think they will. Chicago will end up driving up application numbers, driving down their acceptance rate while making admissions more opaque and objective.
I am fine with Colleges “required” or “not required”. But for schools not required, please remove your institution from the SAT/ACT code. it makes thing simple. If the school believes the scores do not predict the success of future, then don’t use it.
“I’ve seen the zip code comment several times and have always wondered how granular the admissions offices get with that type of information. We live in coastal Florida and within our zip code are multimillion dollar homes (directly on the water) and within 1/2 mile inland but still in the same zip code are trailer parks. Zip codes might be a reasonable indicator for densely populated areas with homogeneous concentrations of housing types, but for places with lower density, an applicant from a single zip code could be very wealthy or at poverty level.”
@milee30 agreed. But they actually ask for zip, school, education level (IIRC the institution as well) and occupation of the parents. My kids actually attend an urban college prep with a critical number of low-income/minority/first-gen/immigrant families but there’s no way that they profile the same as those kids once you consider the other information provided. Also, you can check a box to waive the application fee because you are applying for fin. aid. Admissions most likely sees that as well (it’s on the UChicago supplement to the CA). So there’s plenty of information to reveal general and specific family circumstances.
Nevertheless, it’s not the case that more tutoring means a better test score; furthermore, testing companies have been trending toward free or inexpensive prep materials of late. Certainly prep is encouraged but it needn’t be paid prep. And there are plenty of poor families (Asian immigrants are a great example) who insist on paid prep for their kids - Amy Chua mentions this in her book “Triple Package”. So implied income shouldn’t even determine accessibility or lack of it. Zimmer is either a tad behind the times or perhaps is cleverly using “lack of prep accessibility” as an explanation for why some groups will get a pass on submitting the SAT/ACT and others won’t. The way it will likely work going forward is that those from lower income/first gen. groups who test well will submit their scores accordingly (some will have also taken paid prep). Those from those groups who don’t test well - for whatever reason - will find another way to shine and be considered. Call it the Back Door.
Like I previously said, 90% of applicants will still submit scores based on other test optional schools statistics, 90% is enough to show bias if need be, but I personally don’t believe the suit against Harvard will prevail anyway.
@CU123: Regardless of the percentage of applicants whom elect not to submit standardized test scores, being test optional certainly bolsters a school’s defense against claims like those alleged in the Harvard lawsuit.
@StudyingIsBad Given the sharp rise in students receiving pell grants at all the elite universities, I can’t for the life of me figure out how anyone could think this is aimed at keeping low income students out of top universities. If anything, its the middle and upper middle class families who should be worried since more low SES admits will leave less room for their kids.
This article links recent stats for numbers of undergrand students receiving pell gran elite campuses. These stats are for the total undergraduate popluation. Not this years admits. Given that Columbia has 32% of its undergrads receiving grants and MIT only has 11%, my take is that this is a way to increase that number, not reduce it.
All institutions have already enough data points to utilize “knowledge discovery in data (KDD)” as a part of AI or ML. With it, each institution is able to determine the level of preparation (to its specific institutional level) from applicants’ individual class selections and their grades for students from regularly accepting high schools. The process is able to do the same for students from high schools accepting one in few years; actually better than most of professionals. It is even able to provide AO to expected grade level at the completion of their general requirements.
This process identifies outliers of standard test takers and abnormal GPA etc, like identifying insurance fraud cases.
I guess UC wants to see SAT or ACT scores for the students with 4.0 GPA from schools that have never sent to UC.