@JBStillFlying - my point is that the steps that have been taken over the years to increase apps and selectivity - e.g., watering down the Core or, now, creating a quasi-business degree - have had the effect of making UChicago less distinctive and more like its peer schools. This latest envelope-pushing shortcut will further enable UChicago to make its student body more like that of other top-tier schools - more diversity admits, rich kids, etc. - without paying a penalty in reported scores.
@DeepBlue86 - increasing apps and selectivity is what ALL colleges and uni’s want to do. What makes UChicago a tad different is the method employed. But I think we are saying the same thing there.
The test optional thing is simply an extension of the College’s aggressive marketing strategy. It’s a shame that they have eliminated as a requirement the one thing that is standard across all income groups and ethnicities, but it’s an unsurprising move given the ridiculous practice of superscoring the ACT and current SAT. At least now UChicago is being honest in admitting that they use standardized testing in a subjective manner. Some will still need to send it in. Others won’t.
If the College is more like peer schools, they’ve still managed to bring in a good number who truly want to be there and not elsewhere. The kids I’ve met distinguish UChicago from these other places - as do their parents. The bitter Ivy-reject remains a stereotype, and hopefully won’t go away anytime soon as it provides continual material for their house activities, Scav, etc. But my kid really doesn’t know any real ones. Perhaps it varies by dorm - all the HYPS-types got stuck over in I-House LOL.
If UChicago is trying to attract talented URM/low income kids this move may well turn out to be counter-productive. Think about it this way: you are an URM/low income whose score is already in 25-75 range, you probably have no shortage of suitors among Ivies and UChicago peer schools. Now UChicago tells you (in this public announcement) that it no longer appreciates the good SAT/ACT scores you have got; it will treat another URM/low income kid’s application with a much lower score (not submitted) just the same as yours. And URM/low income kids with high scores are usually savvy enough to figure out they are in great demand. Do you really believe they are now more likely to be bothered with a UChicago application vs others?
I am afraid UChicago may end up swapping high scoring URM/LI kids with low scoring (not submitting) URM/LI kids in its application and admit pool. Perhaps as some here have suggested, the high scoring URM/LI kids are test robots and not the kind that UChicago would want anyway.
“Now UChicago tells you (in this public announcement) that it no longer appreciates the good SAT/ACT scores you have got; it will treat another URM/low income kid’s application with a much lower score (not submitted) just the same as yours”
Holistic. Applies to all. Even the 800/800. What’s unclear?
No one announced they don’t appreciate good scores. You know that.
But this shows how people freak that it’s more than hierarchical. Nothing says high scores makes a kid a good candidate, at all.
^If you think that URM/LI with 800/800 are unaware that they are in great demand then you are not in touch with the reality.
Conversely, why does it seem so many folks are now all of sudden quick to dismiss great scores as less valuable than any other component.
Let’s compare it to one that is not suddenly optional - for instance an essay. Everyone can be coached or have their essay basically written for them if they choose. It could be manufactured passions or an excellent writer prlitting together a compelling but less than actual view of who they are. Perhaps a poor writer but science wiz might get lost in that comparison.
If u Chicago said essay optional what would be the response. I think it would be a be a bit diffferent.
Tests plus grades plus ecs plus personal statements have been a time tested formula. Producing wonderful graduates and many deserving students.
But he equation has changed and it just has people wondering why. Is it purely social engineering if so. That’s ok. Just don’t say it’s to build a better academically or more talented class. Maybe it’s better in other ways. But it strains credibility.
We can all still love a school but no need to defend it no matter what.
Because everyone intuitively understands that scores are highly correlated with innate intelligence. It’s the only “unearned privilege” that money can’t buy, and the one thing people have the least power to shape.
“Because everyone intuitively understands that scores are highly correlated with innate intelligence. It’s the only “unearned privilege” that money can’t buy, and the one thing people have the least power to shape.” This is the fly in the ointment…
“If u Chicago said essay optional what would be the response”
I’d say, it means more emphasis on what else is there. Lol.
Some of us have been pointing out, from the beginning, that high scores are not more valuable than other components. And though they aren’t indicators of more than ability to test well, the top holistics are NOT trying to put together a class of high scorers alone. Or that testing intelligence alone.
Can you not imagine scores don’t show actions, choices, thinking skills, openness, flexibility, curiosity, and more?
Anyway, here I am, saying think a lil deeper and still batting off these assumptions. Yep.
Interestingly, it seems that several of the people ready to dismiss great scores are not tied to UChicago. I knew at least of couple of us are tied to UChicago, and as I said before, I am not a fan of this change.
Up until now, all the truly elite colleges required test scores. This makes sense because test scores, in conjunction with GPA, help better predict performance in college than grades alone. The HYPSMs of the world (and their LAC equivalents) are not dumb–they have been doing this for a reason.
Wait, some say, what about the hundreds of colleges that were already test-optional? Were they wrong to not require tests? No they were right too, but they were right precisely because the more elite colleges required test scores in the first place.
This is game theory. While test scores in conjunction with GPA can be used to create an overall better class, there are plenty of specific individuals who have poor test scores that will nevertheless be successful in college and beyond. Colleges such as Bates and Bowdoin couldn’t be happier about this situation. They can apply their holistic admission to look deeply at an applicant and find those jewels that wouldn’t either apply to HYPSM in the first place, or were rejected from them.
In other words, there is a strategy that makes sense for the truly elite, and often a different strategy for those that are a bit less elite. In a similar vein, the truly elite offer EA/REA, whereas those less elite use ED and possibly ED2. Offering EA/REA is a signal of strength. Using ED, and particularly ED2, is a signal that you want to lock up students before they can consider all their options.
Over the past few years, the moves UChicago has been making are those that befit a less elite school rather than one of the most elite. As I said, this smacks increasingly of desperation, and there is no need for this.
Makes sense. Good conversation worth having. Interesting times.
New article on the subject
Hebegebe, I don’t doubt some are consumed with predicting. But adcoms are not sitting there trying to predict GPA. They want more in the class, the ways kids integrate beyond just coursework, how they influence and are influenced, and more.
No, I have no dog in UChi. But I do understand how holistic does work and how many kids misread what it takes to get into a tippy top, the kinds of avoidable mistakes they make.
It’s really not good enough to blame the system, if you want in, and aren’t willing to look into what matters more than your hs status. Same for circling back to insisting there are few unhooked seats and it’s stacked against you. If you feel you belong there, pick up the ball and figure the right ways to show it. Be that sort.
I think I understand the present system pretty well. I have one child already at UChicago. While I can’t predict which colleges my second child will be admitted to, I am confident he will do fine, as his profile is already much stronger than my first child’s.
We don’t have to have sour grapes to want to improve the current system.
“But adcoms are not sitting there trying to predict GPA. They want more in the class, the ways kids integrate beyond just coursework, how they influence and are influenced, and more.”
Adcoms do want the kids they admit to do well academically, in part because the faculty teaching these kids have the ear of the provost (who has the ear of the president). It might work a tad differently at UChicago but Dean Boyer cares about GPA for the same reason - and so, incidentally, does Nondorf. In fact, Nondorf is in charge of Student Advancement so he’s ultimately answerable if these kids can’t get good career or grad school placement.
As a Chicago advocate I am stung by @DeepBlue86 's taunts and reject their application to myself.
This most recent innovation is consistent with my own sense of the correct mission of Admissions - to recruit kids who have a Chicago-style receptiveness to learning. The test scores will still have their role to play, but they’re not the whole ball game. That’s the significant if limited effect of the admissions policy change. Perhaps, as some have suggested, it is more a matter of sending a certain message that will permit Chicago, lacking the name recognition and snob appeal of the ivies, to recruit URM and other less affluent kids of high abilities without the resources to do well on these tests.
I am not aware of any Chicago advocates here suggesting that achievement of a stellar 25-75 breakdown is the goal of admissions. No, it has always been about recruiting kids who will take to the Chicago ethos, which is more than a statistical measure of the high intelligence of the student body. If you don’t accept the existence of that ethos or don’t believe that maintaining it has any value, then all Chicago’s innovations will look like flim-flam or evasiveness or Nondorf up to his old tricks gaming the stats for rankings purposes - attempts to make a jumped-up Chicago look like it’s in the beauty contest with the big boys. That’s not the way we Chicago true-believers look at these things.
It’s not the first time I have noticed the failure of very smart people to quite get that thing about Chicago. I suppose to a Harvard worshipper every school looks like a Harvard wannabe.
I think we need to get back to, does the SAT/ACT predict college readiness or college success?
Its not about rank for U of Chicago Admissions , I believe they sincerely believe the test is not indicative of success at U of Chicago and other things like writing skills on their essays, grades, recommendations and portfolios are more important.
Rollins College dropped test scores years ago. My husband went to that test optional LAC and believed that test scores are totally stupid as any smart kid can get an 800 and they all do, with a tiny bit of study. The SAT is largely way way too easy!
I think U of Chicago’s policy will not change ANYTHING about the applicant pool
as students will mostly just take the SAT in spite of U of Chicago not counting it if they are not applying EA.
I am not cynical about U of Chicago’s motives here. I did not attend, my relatives did attend. Great School!
By the way almost all the totally unelite state schools require the SAT/ACT. And about 25-50% of those student bodies DROP OUT of college. I do not think a good SAT score predicts success or even intelligence. . Lots of papers written about why the SAT/ACT does NOT predict college success.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/26/new-research-suggests-sat-under-or-overpredicts-first-year-grades-hundreds-thousands
I think Chicago did the research and decided that studying for the SAT and scoring 800, indicates a “grind factor” that is not what they are looking for in a Chicago student.
How do we measure creativity?
Grades and test scores tend to be highly correlated, so it’s not plausible grades predict success but test scores don’t. If colleges didn’t use grades or test scores in admissions, it’s not clear how they would evaluate students.
Bates and Bowdoin went test optional many decades ago. When Bowdoin went test optional in the 1960s, I very much doubt that their motivation was a game strategy to get elite Ivy rejects. Today Bowdoin is ranked #3 on USNWR and has a similar or lower admit rate to the 2 LACs ranked above. They don’t seem to have a problem staying “elite” among LACs.
If you look at current test optional colleges, they have a wide range of selectivities – not just composed of those " a bit less elite." Among top 25 LACs, roughly 1 out of 4 is test optional. A good portion of LACs outside of top 25 are also test optional, as are a good portion of colleges that most on CC would consider unselective and are likely have extremely little overlap with “truly elite” colleges.
If you limit “truly elite” to HYPSM type non-LACs private colleges, then yes none are test-optional, unless you count Chicago, which differs from other HYPSM… type non-LACs because it does not offer traditional engineering. There appears to be a greater correlation with test optional and being a LAC (or traditional LAC type majors) than there does with being “a bit less elite.”