^ You really think UChicago would benefit from being thought of as a LAC?
That’s not what I wrote. I’ll phrase it a different way. A prospective engineering student looking for a highly selective, private, test optional college doesn’t have any options… maybe WPI, if you consider a 49% acceptance rate “highly selective”. In contrast, a non-engineering student who is interested in a highly selective college education that emphasizes liberal arts has several execllent test optional colleges to choose from, including the #3 USNWR ranked college on both their LAC list and their national university list.
Its ironic that standardized test like SAT was first introduced (by Harvard) to increase access to elite colleges for unconnected kids and now they are being abandoned in the name of “increasing access”.
Colleges offer an ED II option primarily as means to improve their yield rates — an important indicator of desirability and one that can have significant influence on a college’s ranking. Since true elite universities/colleges are highly desirable so they don’t need to do ED II and they are announcing how many students they accept at ED round. Here is a list of selective colleges and universities offering an ED II option:
American University
Bard College
Bates College
Boston University
Bennington College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Bryant University
Bryn Mawr College
Bucknell University
Carleton College
Case Western Reserve University
Claremont McKenna Colleges
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Atlantic
College of Wooster
Colorado College
Connecticut College
Davidson College
Denison College
Dickinson College
Emory University
Franklin & Marshall College
George Washington University
Gettysburg College
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Hampshire College
Harvey Mudd College
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Juniata College
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Macalester College
Middlebury College
Mount Holyoke College
New York University
Northeastern University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pomona College
Reed College
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rhodes College
Saint Olaf College
Sarah Lawrence College
Scripps College
Sewanee: The University of the South
Skidmore College
Smith College
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
Trinity University
Tufts University
Union College
**University of Chicago**
University of Miami
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Whitman College
Wait! Why is University of Chicago on the liist? Look like University of Chicago not only needs to use ED II to manipulate its ranking but now needs to join Northeastern university which dropped SAT for international students to attract more applicants from China. How many students got into University of Chicago through EDs? Anyone knows University of Chicago’s admission statistics? Does an elite school needs to go to this extreme if it is indeed elite?
“I think we need to get back to, does the SAT/ACT predict college readiness or college success?”
Well - one way for UChicago to find out specifically would be if it filled the class of 2023 with Straight A students who scored 26 - 30 on the ACT. That’s pretty much what our state flagship is doing and its admit rate is about 45%. And it’s a lot cheaper than UChicago - even for OOS’ers.
“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.”
This current policy drops the REQUIREMENT; it doesn’t eliminate test scores altogether. UChicago admits a LOT of perfect 800’s and will continue to do so. To take from this policy change the notion that test scores have no predictive value is to ignore the fact that UChicago tends to accept a pool of applicants with high test scores to begin with. Admittedly, the INCREMENTAL predictive value is probably negligible - once you’ve admitted the class. But that’s not the same as saying you can admit a class with ACT/SAT’s all over the place and expect the same success rate and outcomes.
@Data10 - Bowdoin is ranked #3 on the LAC list but what is its admit rate? Like Carlton, many of its applicants are also considering top uni’s with liberal arts colleges for the undergrad program (like UChicago). As @Hebegebe has pointed out, the decision to go test optional wasn’t made independently of what other schools were doing. If/When the other elite research uni’s go test optional, then we’ll have more meaninful comparison data for the Bowdoin’s of the college circuit.
Bowdoin’s admit rate was 10% this year., which is lower than the 2 colleges ranked above it on the USNWR top LAC list.
What would bowdoins accept rate be if it required sat act and 3 subject tests. Eliminate 25 percent of applicants and recalculate that number.
University of Chicago is a place associated with terms such as “Chicago, Where Fun Comes to Die” so common sense will tell you that the only reason it is dropping SAT/ACT is because it is trying to create a delusion that it welcomes low stats applicants (plus more from China – no SAT cheating needed !!) so the denominator of admission rate increases. With its core curriculum, those low stats people are really go to DIE even if they somehow got in (I don’t think they will get in anyway), not just fun comes to die. Now University of Chicago is the only so called “elite” school with both ED II and no SAT/ACT requirement. True elite school has no need to do either one. First, come clean with its admission statistics. This whole thread is a gimmick.
Interesting thing about Bowdoin. According to the latest CDS only about 52 - 53% of the enrolled class entering fall 2017 submitted scores. Someone posted 70% earlier but that’s the class of 2018, not the class of 2021 (perhaps that was clarified).
Also, Bowdoin’s admit rate might be comparable to the first two, but its standardized scores are a tad lower - and those are from the students who actually submitted. From College Navigator (fall 2017) and the Bowdoin CDS:
Williams: EBRW: 710 - 780; Math 690 - 790. ACT C 31 - 35 (Eng. 32 - 35; Math 29 - 34) 15%
Amherst: EBRW 700 - 770; Math 700 - 790. ACT C 32 - 34 (Eng. 33 - 35; Math 29 - 34) 13%
Bowdoin: EBRW 650 - 750; Math 640 - 760. ACT C 30 - 34 (Eng 30 - 35; Math 28 - 33) 14%
For comparison, a few more (excluding Wellesley simply because it’s a specialized school given its single-sex status):
Swarthmore #4: EBRW 690 - 760; Math 690 - 780. ACT C 31 - 34 (Eng. 31 - 35; Math 29 - 34) 11%
Middlebury #6: EBRW 660 - 750; Math 660 - 760. ACT C 31 - 34 (no breakdown provided) Admit rate 17%
Pomona #6: EBRW 690 - 760; Math 680 - 770. ACT C 30 - 34 (Eng. 32 - 35; Math 28 - 34) Admit rate 8%
Carleton #8: EBRW 680 - 760; Math 680 - 770. ACT C 31 - 34 (no breakdown provided) Admit rate 21%
Keeping in mind that, conditioned on the college you are admitted to, your scores won’t necessarily predict your level of success, and that schools like Bowdoin with test optional policies seem to have had relatively good success with their students who opted out compared to those who didn’t; therefore, this comparison to other schools might not mean much to many. But it probably should mean something, because in large part how schools are assessed by parents, counselors, students, and the schools themselves, will include a score comparison as some metric indicating “quality”. And, after all, it’s the one metric that’s actually “standard” across all the schools!
And so using this metric, we see that while Bowdoin holds it’s own, it is, honestly, a tad lower than most of the others. Then, when you factor in that almost 50% of the matriculants may, in fact, have lower scores than what’s reported above - well, then the conclusion might well be that while Bowdoin’s a great school, perhaps some of what’s making it great isn’t necessarily correlated with the “smartest” kids (in the conventional sense). Whether THAT particular piece of information is important is a personal decision.
Something else too that kinda bugs me. If you look on College Navigator you notice that neither Bowdoin nor Bates reports their test scores. They are test optional so perhaps that information is not required. Bowdoin at least publishes a CDS. In contrast, UChicago does not. If UChicago goes test optional, will it cease to report test scores to College Navigator? I actually find that website very useful - far more so that UChicago’s Class of 20XX profile page.
Some here are saying not submitting means lower. Some here are saying the test value is in what it predicts.
The Bates long term reviews showed no significant difference between the gpas of kids who submitted vs not.
And if you’re suggesting kid would be less interested in Bowdoin because their reported scores are a smidge lower than another college, that sounds like a mighty limited methodology, to me. As if Bowdoin kids are dumber?
@lookingfoward - not sure if Bowdoin kids are “dumber” - what metrics do we have to make that comparison? GPA’s across schools can vary quite a bit, as those who are aware of UChicago’s famous “grade deflation” will note. Perhaps graduate outcomes - jobs and grad school placement?
And while we don’t actually KNOW if high-scoring Bowdoin applicants withheld their scores or requested that Bowdoin not consider them, that’s probably not the typical situation. If you have something that helps your application, you probably will include it.
Edit to clarify: for sure within a school there probably are no differences between the GPA’s of kids who submitted vs. those who didn’t. The comparison I made was ACROSS schools, not within a school.
@JBStillFlying The 2017 CDS indicates 53% submitted SAT and 52% submitted ACT. This does not mean 47% the kids submitted neither. Many only submitted only one or or the other. For example Amherst’s CDS indicates only 37% submitted SAT. This doesn’t mean 73% of the class did not submit any test scores. Instead the rest submitted ACT.
Those are all matriculating students, not just those who “actually submitted” on their application. In 2016, Bowdoin switched to reporting scores from all matriculating students. A comparison of scores between those who submitted scores on the application and all matriculating students for the class of 2021 is below.
Submitted Test Scores: EBRW: 710/770, Math 700/770, ACT 31/34
Full Class: 650/750, Math 640/760, ACT 30/34
Note that the SAT section scores had a greater relative drop when including non-submitters (on application) than did ACT composite. This suggests that a good portion of the non-submitters have skewed section scores, with one SAT section relatively low and not the other.
Bowdoin’s ACT composite for the full class, including non-submitters on the application, was 30/34. The 25th percentile is 1 less than the median of the other top LACs you listed… slightly lower, but not to the degree you imply. The 75th percentile is identical to all the others except Williams. I don’t equate highest score = “smartest”, but if you do, there are a similar portion of high score kids at Bowdoin as the others.
“The 2017 CDS indicates 53% submitted SAT and 52% submitted ACT. This does not mean 47% the kids submitted neither. Many only submitted only one or or the other. For example Amherst’s CDS indicates only 37% submitted SAT. This doesn’t mean 73% of the class did not submit any test scores. Instead the rest submitted ACT”
264 submitted an SAT. 501 enrolled. You do the math.
“Those are all matriculating students, not just those who “actually submitted” on their application. In 2016, Bowdoin switched to reporting scores from all matriculating students. A comparison of scores who submitted an the full application pool for the class of 2021 is below.”
Correct, but that’s the case for all the others as well. All stats reported in my post above are for matriculating students. Bowdoin may indeed have lots of applicants who submitted higher scores - it may, for instance, be a backup school for many seeking to get into an elite national uni or Williams or Amherst.
Also, keep in mind that the numbers reported on the Bowdoin website don’t disclose any adjustment for old vs. new scores (something that IS included on the CDS etc.). While there are problems with the old CB concordance, those problems are going to be included in ALL the schools I reported, not just Bowdoin. Tried to keep it apples-to-apples as much as possible, rather than going off school websites (which, admittedly, may report differently one from another and don’t always disclose that).
As to the ACT comments - sure. Understood. But Bowdoin is in the least favorable range, even if only slightly. And again, this is perhaps “overstated” when you look at scores of all students who matriculated, not just those who reported. It’s not a huge difference for ACT, but taken with SAT, it’s a tad lower overall, as I mentioned earlier.
(Edit to clarify that the ACT range I noted earlier, like the SAT range, was from the CDS so includes matriculated submitters, just as it does for the other schools in my post. Apples to apples).
At Amherst, 155 submitted SAT and 471 enrolled. (33%)
At Swarthmore, 226 submitted SAT and 392 enrolled. (58%)
At Middlebury, 308 submitted SAT and 634 enrolled (49%)
Do you really not accept that students can submit the ACT instead of the SAT? Can you name any selective private college where the number submitting SAT is not much lower than the number enrolled?
Any LAC will be used as a backup by some students, but Bowdoin has a notably higher yield than both Willaims and Amherst, on par with most other ~10% admit rate schools… Bowdoin is the only one of the 3 where the majority of accepted students attend the college. In Parchment’s cross admit selection rankings, Bowdoin was ranked among the top 10 most preferred colleges among cross admits. It’s not just a backup college for kids who get rejected elsewhere.
“Do you really not accept that students can submit the ACT instead of the SAT? Can you name any selective private college where the number submitting SAT is approximately the same as number enrolled?”
Of course they can. And it might be 100% (with only a percentage or two submitting both) - but highly unlikely. It still could be 70% and I could be wrong that Bowdoin has a little over 50% as submitters. It would be good to get a current number for classes other than the Class of 2018 (after all, the Class of 2022 will be matriculating in a few months).That doesn’t change that currently they are a tad low on the standardized scores when compared to the other schools I listed, and that those reported scores are on the high side compared to what the entire matriculated class would have reported (had they been compelled to).
“but Bowdoin has a notably higher yield than both Willaims and Amherst, on par with other ~10% admit rate schools… Bowdoin is the only one of the 3 where the majority of accepted students choose to attend. In Parchment’s cross admit selection rankings, Bowdoin was ranked as the 2nd highest LAC in the United States. It’s not just a backup college for kids who get rejected elsewhere.”
Sure - that could be, and it might have a high(er) yield for a number of reasons. No one said anything about “getting rejected elsewhere” - again I limited the data to matriculated students across that set of schools I provided. That will exclude - for all the schools - those who were accepted at that school particular school but matriculated elsewhere. So yield isn’t really a direct factor. We are comparing test scores, not yield (or even admission rate, though I threw that in there for fun).
To be fair, @marlowe1, I think the person who’s most aggressive in citing UChicago’s 25/75 stats to show how purportedly great it is is in fact someone who claims to be a Stanford alum.
That said, I think you and other UChicago boosters tend to defend the various Nondorf/Zimmer “innovations” (e.g., the use of ED II, and now the dropping of mandatory test reporting) on the ground that they help UChicago attract the students that really want to go there because they like UChicago’s unique combination of attributes, notably its intellectual climate. Is that a fair characterization of your views?
My point is that every one of those innovations, which I don’t think you’ll deny have the effect of puffing up UChicago’s selectivity and yield stats and therefore help it climb the USNWR rankings, reduces what’s unique about UChicago, making it more like every other top-tier peer. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not. The innovations are certainly aggressive, though, and unique among the peer group in which UChicago is and wants to be situated.
“Can you name any selective private college where the number submitting SAT is approximately the same as number enrolled?”
@Data10 - almost forgot to answer this: MIT, Harvard (?) and Stanford had pretty high SAT submission percentages I thought. There are a few others (selective public or specialized like RISD).
52% submitted ACT and 53% submitted ACT. The only way that a little bit over 50% could be score submitters is if ~all of the score submitters submitted both the SAT and ACT, and hardly anyone just submitted only one of the two tests. The vast majority of US HS students who take SAT/ACT only take one or the other – not both. Among students who take both, most submit only their best score, if given the option to submit either. It is ridiculous to assume or suggest ~all matriculants take both tests in any admissions group, especially with the very different submitter percentage listed on Bowdoin’s website.
You wrote, “a backup school for many seeking to get into an elite national uni or Williams or Amherst”. Attending a backup by definition requires getting rejected elsewhere.
“You wrote, “a backup school for many seeking to get into an elite national uni or Williams or Amherst”. Attending a backup by definition requires getting rejected elsewhere.”
@Data10 - again - one can apply - and GET IN - to Bowdoin, and do the same elsewhere - and attend that school instead. Thus you are not rejected, nor do you attend Bowdoin, because you matriculated elsewhere - NOT at Bowdoin. Again, we are only talking matriculations, not admissions.
“It is ridiculous to assume or suggest ~all matriculants take both tests in any admissions group, especially with the very different submitter percentage listed on Bowdoin’s website.”
- Not at all ridiculous. Many - of not most - kids who are applying to top schools take both tests. And if Bowdoin wants to update its submission numbers to include later classes than the class of 2018, it's free to do so.