@CupCakeMuffins you keep quoting 10 minutes or less but I can yell you while that maybe the average time (and you can quickly eliminate a lot of applicants in five); when it comes down to deciding the last few hundreds admittance offers a lot more then 10 minutes is spent on those apps. That’s from the AOs I talked with, not some statistical average BS.
@cu123 The ones that can be eliminated in 5 – are those still fully read? Many schools make a big deal about claiming to read every word of every application. Is that simply naive?
For an unhooked kid with 3.8GPA and ACT25, I imagine UC AO’s would put the application in reject pile in 5 sec without spending anytime reading 1200 word essays.
Now with this new policy the kid is not going to submit the ACT score and UC AOs may have to spend the full 15min reading the essays.
You can’t read an app in five minutes? I can, less than 30 seconds to read the scores/grades/academics/activities off the common app; about 3-4 minutes to read 3-4 essays of under 500 words each. Not a problem and if nothing catches my eye they go in the reject pile.
The real time, like I said previously, is when the other AOs get together and try and convince the admissions board that their applicant is slightly better then the other AOs applicants. My guess is that 80% of the applicants don’t make it to the board.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Let’s move off the topic of test prep companies and how many minutes an AO spends on an application, please; both topics have been covered on other threads,
Off track again. But you know, … you know what I’ll say. * It isn’t all about stats. * Wasn’t ten years ago and isn’t now.
And now that a top school says not mandatory, it’s a surprise?
(Oops deleting my own off track.)
Right, it is about virtue signaling and money. Which one is more important depends on the school.
“Of course a student interested in studying math is going to have to show evidence of math ability. That doesn’t have to be from the math section of the ACT. If they have nothing to prove their aptitude, I assume they aren’t going to be admitted.” @gallentjill at #231.
True - but let’s think practically about this issue. Just to back track, the comment above was a response to one I made earlier:
“But someone should ask Nondorf whether testing tells them who’s going to be the best mathematician, physicist, biologist, economist, or stats guru. Because last time I checked the number of kids in those majors kinda dominated stuff like Art History.”
It is the case that, for instance, the Math GRE is extremely useful in predicting how students will do in graduate level programs that rely on Math (economics is one that I am familiar with). For that reason, the admissions people I know in one of these fields will only admit kids in the 167-168 range or higher (98th percentile) because anything lower risks struggling with the math and dropping out. Booth - also a math’y PhD program, has an avg. quant score of 167. Obviously undergraduate study won’t have the same degree of specialization as a grad program; however, many of those undergrad math courses are subjects that overlap with the grad work. So from this example we may conclude that standardized testing is recognized to reveal Math ability. Why wouldn’t that be so on the undergraduate level with the ACT/SAT? Obviously, there are going to be lots of kids who score just fine on Math testing but don’t major in Math. The question is whether those who don’t or can’t score well WOULD major in Math. I highly doubt it. Most likely, those who will be majoring in Math or a STEM program that relies heavily on Math (all of them?) would overwhelmingly tend to submit test scores - ACT/SAT and probably math II as well - since it’s the easiest way to show proficiency in the subject. Therefore, we can probably conclude that lack of test score will tend to reveal lack of proficiency in Math or STEM.
FWIW.
The first study that came up in a Google search was https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1193&context=cehsdiss . It found that among engineering graduate students, undergraduate GPA alone could explain a 40% of variation in cumulative graduate GPA. Considering both undergraduate GPA and math GRE increased the predictive ability from explaining 40% of variation to 44%. Had they considered additional criteria besides just GPA and GRE, such as course rigor, LORs, research, …, I expect the incremental benefit of GRE would be notably smaller… not much beyond the other sections of the application. Research on SAT I am familiar with came to similar conclusions… relatively small benefits beyond GPA + a good measure of course rigor, but more than zero.
Many graduate programs accept students who score less than 167 out of 170 on the GRE. The study linked above includes students with a very wide score distribution. I’m familiar with Stanford engineering, which also admits students from a much wider score distribution than you suggest.
I’d expect a good correlation between math score and majoring in math. However, the same is not necessarily true for CR score. Students often major in a field that they are relatively good at, compared to other fields. If a student is much better at objective math/logic than subjective writing/papers, they are likely to favor math heavy fields, including many cases when combined SAT score is not impressive. You also can have various special/unique cases such as persons who speak English as a 2nd language, have anxiety when taking a life-determining 3-hour test, etc…
@Data10 - No doubt that grad schools admit a wide variety of math GRE scores. Not all grad schools are of equal quality and there are differences between Master’s and PhD programs. Should have mentioned earlier that the 167-68 quant GRE score was for a top 20 academic PhD program (non-professional school) so while not exactly comparable to UChicago - close enough (UChicago’s grad department doesn’t publish this info but it’s not likely to be different). I hadn’t considered a professional master’s program so this data is actually quite interesting but not surprising.
Professional schools are a tad different from graduate academic departments - they are a bit more “applied” and less theoretical, particularly at the master’s level. Furthermore, the master’s program tends to be geared toward a professional practice, whereas the PhD programs include those who will go on to research and even academic posts so the two grad programs differ from one another. Unless I missed the section, the U Nebraska data combines all grad students from both programs for the impact of UGPA on graduate outcomes? Nevertheless, something can be gleaned from looking just at doctoral students: we can see that Math GRE scores explain more variance in grad GPA than it does for Master’s students. That’s not surprising, as we see the same phenomenon at, say, Booth MBA vs. PhD programs: MBA admits using much broader criterion than does PhD, so GMAT isn’t as important a factor. As mentioned above, the average quant GRE for Booth PhD is 167, though not sure of the variance. Those I know admitted to this program are typically in the 99th percentile of math GRE (though that’s just anecdotal data), due to the heavy quantitative and theoretical demands of the program.
Why use PhD programs as an analogy for UChicago undergraduate Math or STEM? Simple - the heavy emphasis on theory in both. Not that it’s at the same level, of course, but those who are used to working in higher math tend to be more comfortable in the theoretical realm as well. There’s definitely a relation there.
“If a student is much better at objective math/logic than subjective writing/papers, they are likely to favor math heavy fields, including many cases when combined SAT score is not impressive. You also can have various special/unique cases such as persons who speak English as a 2nd language, have anxiety when taking a life-determining 3-hour test, etc…”
- Actually, someone with a high math might well submit the scores even if V is poor. If UChicago is test-optional, they are likely to be "test-flexible" and consider individual section scores, especially if someone is planning to major in Math. Don't they already do that to create the superscore? And there's always Math II subject test.
The study found that verbal and total GRE score explained more variance among MS students than PhD students, while math GRE score explained more variance among PhD students than MS students. All combinations of GRE sections/total and MS/PhD only amounted to a small fraction of the variance explained by undergraduate GPA, consistent with the previously listed numbers.
A significant portion of students with a low combined score for UoC will both submit and not-submit, regardless of how UoC considers individual sub sections in admissions decisions. The point was that there are reasons why a student who is majoring in a math-heavy field might not submit their SAT score.
GRE, grad school, math.
Not the move UChi has made.
There’s a lot in life that can benefit from an attempt to predict. There’s a lot that might benefit from looking back, for correlation.
Clearly, UChi believes, in line with other TO colleges, that scores are not the be-all for predicting a successful education at their college.
What I think is missed, is that a U of their stature, wealth, and philosophy re education, is going to make a higher level of academic support available than some smaller, let me call it, “class C” college. And, up front, will try to screen for kids who have shown the ability to self advocate (pursue help, follow through.)
Of course, that’s possible. There’s a lot more to an app than the box for scores. And, as top colleges are screening for more than metrics, they know how to look for it.
But what parts of this thread reveal is a large unwillingness to accept that metrics are not the only predictor. Maybe that explains the large measure of shock, when high stats aren’t enough, the certainty you got robbed and those dastardly colleges hid the reality of what could *possibly * matter more than those holy scores.
Ironically, that’s not the sort if thinking it takes. Do think about it. And if you have a kid in the process, be curious enough to consider what else. Double that, if you’re set on a college that values intellectual curiosity. Or even plain old curiosity. Have the guns to consider more than your scores, your gpa, your rank.
Chuckle…you’re both right. For majors, I think you’re right. However, for classes outside the major, picking the unintrusive gut for an A is an important GPA-padding skill.
“But what parts of this thread reveal is a large unwillingness to accept that metrics are not the only predictor. Maybe that explains the large measure of shock, when high stats aren’t enough, the certainty you got robbed and those dastardly colleges hid the reality of what could possibly matter more than those holy scores.”
Motives for critiquing a policy aren’t hard to figure out when they are acknowledged. More difficult when they aren’t so critiques are best answered as they arise w/o attributing motives. 
There are multiple issues concerning this new policy but by-and-large it’s hard to believe that UChicago Admissions won’t do a fine job sorting through these alternative applications and choosing students who will succeed. After all, we have seen convincing statistics over the past couple years showing that other colleges have been able to do so.
Not sure that a skilled Admissions Department’s ability to select good fits will actually CONFIRM that scores aren’t determinative of college success. The big problem with many of these studies - including the U Nebraska paper posted above and implied analysis that Nondorf apparently undertook - is something called “selection bias”. When you look at a group of students already admitted to and enrolled in a particular institution and try to trick out what factors can predict their success at that very institution, it should be small wonder that test scores - whether looked at by themselves or as an additional explanatory variable on top of GPA - add little, if anything to the picture. Test scores might help you get admitted, but the rest is up to the ambition, discipline and habits you bring with you - characteristics that strongly influenced your high school GPA. However, if it were possible to run an experiment where kids of all different abilities, GPA’s, test scores, etc. were randomly assigned to apply to and attend a wide variety of different schools, you might well have very different conclusions as to what variables predict success.
It would be great to see some research where they could take care of the selection issue in the data itself - Nobel Laureate and Economist J. J. Heckman did a lot of work on how to deal with selection bias and I’m curious to know whether he would have much to say about how Nondorf and Co. ran their numbers.
As pointed out, UChicago is not saying that standardized testing isn’t an important factor for admission. What they ARE saying is that 1) Once admitted it’s not an important factor for determining student success, and 2) there is a pool of talent out there that has been scared away by the high test scores, and it’s important to reach to them as well. This second statement seems to be the primary motivation behind going test optional. Given that they pored over every department, they know the profiles of the successful students and the unsuccessful. Perhaps the information value of this meta-level of analysis is as significant as a test score is for most others; UChicago might, for instance, be able to find among the “test-less” those applicants who profile similarly to some of these success stories and are therefore great candidates for admission. Most other applicants don’t need that kind of probing examination since they will be submitting all that information anyway via their test scores.
Interestingly, Penn has just announced that while it lauds what UChicago is doing, they don’t see themselves going test optional anytime soon.
@JBStillFlying (BTW, who would have thought that there would be 3 JBStillFlyings on CC)
Regarding Penn. This is an interesting Game Theory/Marketing question that would be cool to see someone much smarter then me do an analysis. Does University X follow or not with a major change? If one University of 10 (picking an arbitrary small number) change its policy encourage or discourage the other 9 Universities to follow or remain unchanged or change in some other way.
People talk about how this is gaming stats for rankings and I don’t see it so. However, could it be that UChicago is trying to win share of voice with what looks like on the covers as a major shift in how admissions to a CHYMPS university is achieved. You put this on top of mass marketing, adding ED1 and ED2, the “safe space” discussion, etc. and UChicago has really grabbed the new “IT University” title. I don’t think they really care if they climb the rankings anymore, the gain from going from 3 to 2 to 1 has diminishing returns. However, getting share of voice does get bigger donations, more grant awards, higher profile students, legitimacy on policy positions etc. I could see this tactic a play on this front.
So to the original question, assuming it is a competition (and that is a point that I’m ready to comment on), will schools in the same echelon follow the lead, or does that just give UChicago more share of voice?
Anyway, just idle ramblings before my next meeting.
JB, this thread has already brought up “unqualified” kids getting spots. It’s a common theme on CC. Hence, my comment. No one wants to believe in fairies in adissions, but plenty seem to believe in (and push the idea of) ignorant nincompoops of one sort or another.
Bottom line, when you’re asking ‘the man’ for a spot, you play by his (her) rules. Or you go another direction.
And again, UC isn’t looking for kids wo can’t handle UC. It’s now open to screening in a different way. The goals remain the same.
I do agree it rests on “the ambition, discipline and habits you bring with you.” (Not the specific career ambitions but in doing one’s best.) Right now, let me leave it there.
Tangent, I read an article from 2001 where some in Corp. America were pushing to end ACT / SAT requirements as these test do not measure ones ability to be a leader. Fair point.
@lookingforward - well, the new policy is certainly keeping everyone on their toes - just when the UChicago forum was getting rather dull!
If they really were attempting to pivot from the “qualified” to the “unqualified” they probably wouldn’t have been so public. This new policy is nothing if not a headline grabber.
Is U Chicago having a problem with the current students not succeeding? A lot of people are pointing to tests as a poor indicator. I haven’t seen a huge drop out rate of the avg solid test taker. Coupled with all the info I would think their grad rate is high and the kids doing great. If many couldn’t cut it. It would make sense. But if the current students are excellent there must be another reason for this change. Are they picking poor students with holistic review and great scores currently. I don’t think so. The only thing I can’t put my finger on is the rationale. It isn’t a perfect system. But standardized tests coupled with grades. Rigor and fit should be a great body of work. Not saying to make it test only like some countries but there must be a reason. Why would a school where the analysis of data is valued and eliminate a key, if not wholly determinative, piece of info that is fairly controlled versus subjective fit analysis.
woooah, this is a pretty significant change. i’m excited to see how this will alter the application reading process in particular.
also, what @drusba said about the changes in the financial aid packets is significant and exciting too. a first-generation college student automatically receiving a $20K scholarship, regardless of the level of income? that’s amazing.
uchicago is making it easier for kids to apply, which in turn will, of course, lower their acceptance rate… kinda smart.