<p>I don’t plan to make a habit out of creating new threads here, but I figured it was better to get this information out to students sooner rather than later. Please review the information below and let me know if you have questions regarding the “test optional” admissions experience at AU!</p>
<p>[Test-Optional</a>, Undergraduate Admissions, American University](<a href=“http://www.american.edu/admissions/testoptional.cfm]Test-Optional”>http://www.american.edu/admissions/testoptional.cfm)</p>
<p>If AU is getting a record number of candidates each year why resort to test optional. It does bring down the reputation and quality of the school. Their rankings need a boost not something to degrade them.</p>
<p>I swear, just the other day I was saying to myself, “Ya know, in a strange way I kind of miss Cadmiumred.” What was I thinking?</p>
<p>@cadmiumred - The decision to enact a “test optional” policy stems from our institution’s confidence in its ability to evaluate admissions candidates successfully without testing results and a desire to increase visibility and access for admissions to prospective undergraduates. According to fairtest.org, which is the “national center for fair and open testing,” there are over 830 four-year colleges and universities that do not use SAT I or ACT tests “to admit substantial numbers of bachelor degree applicants.” Included in this list are institutions like Antioch, Bard, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Holy Cross, Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Goucher, LSU, Middlebury, the New School, NYU, Sarah Lawrence, Sewanee, Smith, KU, the UT system, and Wake Forest, amongst other. So we think we’re in some good company regarding our test optional policy!</p>
<p>Also, I’m unclear as to how “test optional” policies figure into national rankings. To the best of my knowledge, no national ranking system utilizes an institution’s “test optional” status in said rankings.</p>
<p>CR</p>
<p>Note above - Middlebury @ #4 and Bowdoin @ #6 in USNWR college rankings</p>
<p>obviously being “test optional” does not hurt their ranking</p>
<p>In fact, it likely helps. They still report their test scores - but only for those students who submit them (and one would expect the score average for that group to be higher than for the group who do not submit their scores). Thus, the average scores reported are likely higher than the average scores would be if everyone had to submit their scores and to the extent that test scores figure into the rankings, this would result in a positive bump in rating and possibly ranking.</p>
<p>there is no negative ratings impact for having a test optional policy</p>
<p>MommaJ: lol…</p>
<p>KBJ: do not engage…I repeat, do not engage…</p>
<p>KBJ - I’d be very interested in AU’s “Merit” FA aid policy with respect to your Testing Optional Policy. My son actually picked GW over AU last year(much to our agnst) mainly due to GW offering him MUCH better FA and a Presidential Scholarship. AU offered him a paultry 10K/yr. He was RD and I suspect you were “running low” on available aid.</p>
<p>Since I know AU used a combination of GPA AND SAT/ACT scores to determine Merit Aid - how do you guys figure out who gets what if the student submits NO SAT’s??? His GPA was very high with “good” SAT’s but not stellar. I bet if he didn’t submit SAT’s he would be at AU now!</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>CJ</p>
<p>I have 1 more student going to college and hopefully will look at AU.</p>
<p>@CJ - Thanks for your question! However, you’re introducing and using some terminology that may be confusing as it relates to our merit scholarship and financial aid awarding strategies at AU. I will preface my next statement by noting that we have not finalized all the minutiae as it relates to either admissions or merit scholarship awarding under the test-optional admissions round, but what I’m about to say is based on my best working knowledge of our conversations and is, quite possibly, subject to change between now and our admissions deadlines!</p>
<p>When it comes to our test-optional admissions round, the criteria for merit scholarship awarding will rest primarily on one’s high school academic results, including a very thorough look at curriculum/institutional rigor, academic courses completed, trends in grading, etc. This review parallels what we did for our test-optional admissions round under last year’s Early Decision option. For candidates that apply with testing results, their review will be somewhat similar although we won’t go into the same depth with high school academic results. Merit scholarship awarding is based primarily and predominantly upon one’s academic results, so in the case of the test-optional candidate we will refer back to the points listed above, whereas everyone else will be reviewed with testing. </p>
<p>Now, as to our financial aid awarding strategies, the goal of financial aid at American University is to make our education possible for as many students as possible. To that end we award enough financial aid, in most cases, to make the education possible (note that I say “possible,” not “perfect” or “easy” as many students and parents don’t want to take out loans!). It is true that the percentage of “gift aid” (i.e. grants) in a financial aid package can be impacted by the strength of an applicant’s academic results.</p>
<p>As to GWU giving out more financial aid than AU in your son’s case, that is quite possible but please bear in mind that no institution can legally award beyond a student’s demonstrated financial need. If they do so then the monies awarded are not truly financial aid monies; they are scholarships (if not in name then at least in practice). As noted, we work hard to meet all students’ demonstrated financial need and generally speaking we are able to match our competitor institutions in this regard.</p>
<p>Given what you’ve noted about your son’s academic results, his “good” SAT results may very well have kept him out of consideration for merit scholarship awarding. We’ve heard from many students over the years who have received better scholarship awards from competitor institutions and these decisions often leave us scratching our heads as to how those institutions determine their awarding strategies. Suffice it to say, it’s a clear indication of how nuanced and unique each institution’s policies are!</p>
<p>Also, quick note, if students and families make all of their financial aid documentation available by our stated deadlines then there is little to no chance that we will run out of financial aid monies. It is true that we have a finite supply of dollars to hand out but this normally only becomes an issue when someone is a late applicant for financial aid.</p>
<p>Finally, we do hope your next child considers AU for higher education!</p>
<p>Thanks KBJ - As I thought - as parents we made a strategic mistake of submitting his SAT’s to AU given your test-optional policy. His HS curriculum was very strong from a private school with 7 AP’s and a non-weighted GPA of 3.87 out of 4.00 (Top 10%).</p>
<p>It would have been nice to have known what his “merit aid” would have been without the SAT’s (Total 2050). I suspect merit-based FA would have been much higher.
The “rumour” amongst these forums about AU is that you give much less merit aid than other similar schools - I don’t know if this is endowment issues or the the fact that GW is a land-grant institution as has more FA money available to award???</p>
<p>As a note - my “S” was accepted to AU, GT, GW - all RD. He went to GW (Elliott School - Acceptance rate 14%) due to many factors of which was “closeness” to state dept/Capitol hill and good merit aid; no Merit Aid at GT (no surprise), paultry merit aid at AU. Also, AU only uses the Math/CR score on the SAT to assign merit aid - lots of other schools now use the writing score too - e.g. GW(My"S" writing score was 760).</p>
<p>Parents - if your children are serious about AU and have a very strong HS curriculum and very good GPA - consider NOT sending SAT’s unless very good. I personally believe my “S” would be at AU with more merit aid otherwise.</p>
<p>CJ</p>
<p>@CJ - to be fair, we only offered the Test-Optional round in Early Decision last year, so your son would not have had access to this opportunity during our last admissions cycle!</p>
<p>Also, be careful when using terms here; AU does not offer “merit aid,” per se. As I noted, the percentage of gift aid (grants) in a financial aid package can be impacted by the strength of an applicant, but we do not award any merit scholarships due to financial need. All scholarships we award are merit based; all financial aid we award is working only to meet a student’s demonstrated financial need (as revealed by the FAFSA form and the CSS profile). So, aside from my caveat of percentage of gift aid awarded, merit scholarship awarding and financial aid awarding are two entirely separate things at American University.</p>
<p>As to the question of merit scholarship availability at AU, I can say that we do go out with a relatively large number of scholarships to admitted freshman. As to how this stacks up to our competitor group, I am uncertain, but as I noted previously as well, many of the scholarship decisions in our competitor group are head-scratchers to us. All of this speaks to the uniqueness of each institution’s policies and the specific goals they are trying to achieve by way of scholarship and financial aid awarding. Each institution sets their own goals for these elements and they are oftentimes not as easily understood as “ABC College is trying to entice the best and brightest applicants via merit scholarships.” AU is in no way hurting for money for either merit scholarships or need-based financial aid; our total outlay last year in these categories was near $90 million.</p>
<p>As to your advice, I do appreciate your opinion but it is important to remember that no admissions or merit scholarship awarding decision is based solely on standardized testing (or any other factor, for that matter). For more information about our policies I would encourage any interested parents or students to contact our Office directly!</p>
<p>KBJ - nuff said! Thanks for listening!</p>
<p>VJ</p>