A shake-up in elite admissions: U-Chicago drops SAT/ACT testing requirement

Applying to College
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We’re circling back when new posts state, "…standardized tests coupled with grades. Rigor and fit should be a great body of work. " It’s just not how it goes with top holistics. That’s the way of rack and stacks.

And if you could see a great body of apps, you’d see prety quickly that, though measurements measure, there’s a lot more a kid can present, in terms of thinking and processing abilities, vision, energies and, even by 18, some impact (not just hs titles, some fundraising, etc.)

What are they loking to fix? Not necessarily anything except attracting a wider pool to choose among, as some have said. Why? Well, why not? It doesn’t have to be about some media ranking or appearing more liberal, etc. There are lots of great students out there, kids with drives and promise, dedication and brainpower-- and not all high stats kids necessarily show more than, sorry, high stats.

“Test scores are a predictor of future academic achievement.” In real terms, who cares? You don’t find the cure for cancer or invent the next technology or solve world hunger or bring peace, etc, etc, or even inspire the next generations, just because, in high school, you had high test scores and/or gpa. C’mon. Nor is it all about college gpa. (It’s true you need alevel of college performance to get into top grad schools. But that’s not the only path.)

Life is a lot more than the work we do and the titles we reach. People tend to think hierarchically re: who’s better. But even Yale, in comments about leaders, cites the little leage coach or the teacher, the minister, etc.

I like to think that, with each generation we educate in knowledge, to think well, and to strive, the benefts trickle down to the next. Why does a discussion like this one always revert to…stats, measurements, predictors, and miss the rest?

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@lookingforward

Exactly! It would be completely reasonable for a school to admit the highest scorers they can find. Aparantly, that’s CalTech’s model. But not every school wants to be CalTech. Nor should they be. There are hundreds of excellent schools in this country and they have different goals and missions. They have different characters. Harvard is not solely focused on sending kids to elite PHD programs, medical schools or silicon valley. There are other worthy endeavors that they can promote. This is excellent for all of our kids. There are kids who would thrive at CalTech and hate Kenyon and vice versa.

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Seems like Penn won’t follow suit:

http://www.thedp.com/article/2018/06/uchicago-chicago-college-admissions-sat-act-penn-upenn-dean-furda

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[QUOTE=""]
This is a situation where the dumbing down of the SAT over the last 20 years has hurt CalTech’s ability to >>discriminate based on different levels of math skill. Currently, the compression at the top of the SAT I/II only really >>allows CalTech to differentiate between woefully unqualified and potentially qualified.

[/QUOTE]

I don’t have a dog in this fight since neither S would consider school in Chicago or California, so just an observation.

This describes my S20 and S22! Both kids got 800 on SAT Math1&2. Since they never did anything like MathOly or AIME, and their local awards are somewhat similar, admissions would have no idea which one could handle a CalTech type program. BTW, my gut says S22 is an order of magnitude “smarter” than S20 in Math & Science although S20 aced Analysis and Number Theory so what do I know! S20 is a much better teacher/tutor for less motivated kids, that I can guarantee.

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Schools used to have their own unique admissions exams. If Caltech was truly having a problem separating out great candidates, why not craft an exam truly designed to get at the information they need? It would also be a very good sign of demonstrated interest.

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That’s what the AMC12, AIME, USAMO, ChemOlympiads, USACO, USAPhO, etc., etc. are for :slight_smile:

Sometimes people fail to realize that the relentless lowering of standards for the SAT and relentless grade inflation at every level have led to a desperate, frenetic attempt by the top of the smarts distribution to distinguish themselves. After all, no more than 1% of kids can truly be in the top 1%, and they will find a way to show it, no matter how easy the mass market tests and grading standards become. But we do lose something here. Is it really the best use of the best kids’ time running around trying to check off boxes on a Common Application?

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No. Its not the best use of their time. I imagine that some of those kids are doing it out of true love for the subject and enjoyment of the competition. I hope that is true. I wonder how many schools make students aware of those opportunities. It might be simpler if the college had its own test. Then they could make use of all those mass mailings and let people know that if they want to apply, they must take the extra exam. I know its a pipe dream, but it would change things up. Imagine if each elite school had its own special test. Perhaps the tests could differ based on field of interest. So for Harvard, the humanities kids would take the humanities test, etc. I believe you and have talked about this before, but I’m losing track of all the posts!

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We certainly do lose something here. I suspect that the participants in these contests skew towards high SES and colleged educated parents.

In other words, the really smart kid in a rural area, who has never heard of these contests, ends up with nothing to show relative to those in the lucky sperm/egg club who grows up in areas where competing at this level is the norm.

289

Ironically, the idea you have to go to state and national level contests to distinguish the best math kids takes us right back to the limited idea of some hierarchical better and best. And not all genius types are the least interested in “proving” it through some contest. Think about it.

The idea behind holistic is looking at more than tests. Despite testing professionals laboring over them and justifing, they can be arbitrary and obviously limited. Plus, whatcha gonna do, test all 39000 of H’s applicants? And set another version for Yale and the rest?

Plus Caltech has a 97% freshman retention rate and who says it’s having trouble?

"Let’s face it—we love all things quantitative at Caltech. And yet, here in the Undergraduate Admissions Office, our admissions decision-making process is much more of an art than a science.

Instead of simply putting your grades and test scores into a computer to calculate admissibility, we read every application—and every essay—to get a sense of who you are and whether you would be a good fit at Caltech. That’s why our advice to all our applicants is to take your time preparing your short answers and your essays. You are more than a GPA and a set of test scores!"

It goes on, is a good read. They’re holistic.

http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/content/admissions-process-first-year-applicants

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“Plus Caltech has a 97% freshman retention rate and who says it’s having trouble?”

Exactly my point. Chicago has the same profile and kids are thriving. What’s the problem. I just don’t see it. And I am not saying standardized tests mean everything. They are simply a very helpful piece of a mosaic. And yes even if it is to diffentiate simply those who can’t and those who might. The subjective be measures offer less real insight into ability. It’s a best guess. And I think the guess is audited greatly by a single test everyone takes as a baseline. Not solely determinative.

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@emptynesteryet
You just need to go to many Asian countries/regions to see how standardized tests could be “prepped”, and prepped very well. Of course not everyone who went through the test preps would see the test score improvement, but many do, and quite some see drastic improvement. The problem (major one) with standardized testing is the questions are all recycled in one way or another and thus, “gaming” the test results is very achievable.
Many smart kids do well on them, yet not all kids who do well on them are smart, and some smart kids don’t do well on them.
I am glad that UC is making test optional, but I don’t see this to be much different from colleges making subject tests optional, it is optional only for certain kids, not mine (who is not URM, first gen, …)

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And for those who scoff at the idea some top colleges have recent grads reviewing apps (or somehow think all adcoms are inexperienced at the work,) Caltech has students involved in the process, intentionally. (As well as faculty, same as other top colleges, though I think H has the largest number.)

Calling the non-stats aspects “subjective,” imo, reduces this to opinon or even whim (you may not remember the threads where CC folks insisted decisions can come down to whether the adcoms like the pizza in your area or your sports teams.) So I prefer to use “qualitative,” because that’s what they look for, qualities. Call them traits, if you wish. (Not abilities, which implies something different.) And they’re the traits that the college knows tend to work in their environment, with their particular ways, expectations, and challenges.

Anyone aiming high should know that, along with stretch, resilience matters. As well as openness to the new and the ability to evolve. You either show it or not. But no. In between complaining about opaqueness and “yield protection” and manipulating USNews, CC misses that.

Yes, stats do matter. Not because they predict. Not because they reflect native intelligence. Rather, they’re a reflection of how one strives- or not- for a good score. Same as other aspects in the app/supp. Don’t overdo it, though. So many kids have no idea what matters and assume- and end up with an app package that can’t make it to finals.

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Having read this whole thread (and the linked articles), it seems clear to me that the major reason for UChicago going test-optional is to increase the number of applications and perceived selectivity by attracting a large additional population of low-scoring applicants, the vast majority of whom are no-hopers but some of whom satisfy institutional needs (e.g., are first-gens, URMs, athletes, celebrities or filthy rich) or are in some other way truly special, and therefore can be admitted without hurting UChicago’s 25-75 numbers.

The vast majority of UChicago applicants who are credible candidates will have high test scores and will submit them, so not a lot is really changing here in terms of who will actually be admitted. Similarly, the Chicago Maroon points out that aggregate financial aid seems unlikely to change significantly, notwithstanding the associated announcement (https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/6/16/uchicago-get-much-credit-admissions-announcements/), so I’m not sure how much is really being done to increase access.

I must say, it’s interesting to see all the UChicago boosters who habitually post on here about the reputedly uniquely strong intellectual climate at UChicago, and cite its very high 25-75 scores as evidence, now silent or claiming that test scores don’t really matter and this is a brilliant move. Obviously, going test-optional is designed to provide cover to admit more people who don’t test well. Is it more likely that this will make the UChicago student body smarter in aggregate, or the opposite? Whatever - if Nondorf does it, it must be right.

I’m in the camp that believes that UChicago was and is a top-tier university, but, as a result of conscious choices (often made to climb USNWR rankings) masterminded by Nondorf and Zimmer over many years, every day it becomes more like other top 20 universities, for good and ill. What Nondorf and Zimmer are brilliant at is pushing the envelope and devising short cuts to get there, of which this is just the latest example. UChicago’s aggressive use of mailings and ED already had made its selectivity and yield stats not truly comparable to its peers. This move will make them even less comparable, and will have the additional effect of making its 25-75 stats unable to be compared apples-to-apples.

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Well, I have I written I am against this policy. Perhaps I don’t qualify as a full-throated UChicago booster to you @DeepBlue86 ?

I agree with you this is a gimmick to boost applications. While Nondorf clearly deserves credit for improving UChicago’s public reputation (insiders always knew it was great), I feel the recent the recent moves to improve selectivity and yield have been getting more desperate. Two years ago it was adding ED I/II to the existing EA/RD. This year its getting rid of required test scores.

Sometime back @JHS wrote that Nondorf is a bad-boy rock star, doing things that other premier universities might find distasteful. I fear that Miley Cyrus might be a more apt comparison.

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Nobody would follow this just weeks after UChicago announced it, I’d be interested in what happens after 2-3 admission cycles.

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Some posters take Caltech’s marketing too literally. 100% of students submitting ACT scores had at least a 30 in math as of their last CDS. 99.5% of those submitting SAT scores had at least a 700 in math. They might admit one or two students a year who lack high stats.

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"I’m in the camp that believes that UChicago was and is a top-tier university, but, as a result of conscious choices (often made to climb USNWR rankings) masterminded by Nondorf and Zimmer over many years, every day it becomes more like other top 20 universities, for good and ill. "

@DeepBlue86 - how does going test-optional make UChicago MORE like other top 20?

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Some kids love Caltech-and others not so much.
My 3 older kids all majored in STEM-BME, Chem, CS-and not one of them was interested in CalTech.
All attended top 15 schools.
It is interesting to me that when the discussion of what a college would look (and feel) like if only objective stats were considered that people don’t seem to consider that the outcome is not the college experience most young people want.

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I heard that UChicago’s aggressive use of mailings is in line with a recommendation from a study that widespread mailings improves the outcomes for underrepresented demographics. Just pointing that one out

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@FStratford - here is the study I think you are referring to. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18586.pdf

A few of the notable points from the study:

  • "We show that the vast majority of very high-achieving students who are low-income do not apply
    to any selective college or university. This is despite the fact that selective institutions would often
    cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the resource-poor two-year and non-selective
    four-year institutions to which they actually apply. "
  • "We show that [low income students who are the focus of the study] do not come from families or neighborhoods that are more disadvantaged than those of achievement-typical students. However, in contrast to the achievement-typical students, the income-typical students come from districts too small to support selective public high schools, are not in a critical mass of fellow high achievers, and are unlikely to encounter a teacher or schoolmate from an older cohort who attended a selective college. We demonstrate that widely-used policies–college admissions staff recruiting, college campus visits, college access programs–are likely to be ineffective with income-typical students, and we suggest policies that will be effective must depend less on geographic concentration of high achievers."
  • The study concludes that the low income high achieving students served by schools like Stuyvesant has been fully tapped out by existing recruiting methods; the remaining low income high achieving students live in areas of low population density; their numbers are so small that in-person recruitng by AOs is ineffective. Compounding the problem is the fact that few of these low income high achieving student will encounter a parent, teacher or guide who has experience attending a highly selective school.
  • To reach these low income, high achieving students in areas of low population density, the study notes that these students "are intelligent and able to absorb written material. Thus, other interventions that might affect them would be purely informational, written interventions-- distributed by mail, online, or through social media. However, if they are to be effective, such interventions cannot simply replicate the content that students already receive in the form of numerous college brochures."

UChicago’s Empower Initiative aligns nicely with the study and its recommendations. By making a big media splash with the announcement (testing optional, additional scholarship), the college gets huge media recognition. They’re also able to make their mailings to these high achieving students who the study notes aren’t being reached unique.