Any test optional success stories for a non-hooked applicant?

My daughter has a 3.89 unweighted GPA with solid rigor. She has consistently taken the most difficult classes available to her. Unfortunately, she’s not a strong standardized test taker and can’t seem to bring her scores up enough for some of the schools she is looking at. She also has solid extracurriculars (leadership, varsity athletics, volunteer, work experience) and is generally a well-rounded kid, but no hooks. All of the schools she is applying to are test optional and they all said don’t submit if you’re not proud of your scores. It’s very difficult to tell how many admitted applicants were test optional so I’m not sure if not submitting scores will hurt her in the end. It would help to know, even anecdotally, of non-hooked students getting in to selective schools without test scores. Anyone?

I am not sure how selective the schools your daughter is looking at, but my D was accepted TO to Clemson, Delaware, and Pitt among others with a 3.98 UW. She was deferred from Villanova, and then rejected, but she was applying for Nursing which we knew was a stretch for sure.

Lots of questions- how selective? What will her teachers and guidance counselors say about her level of intellectual engagement (not just her grades- but her overall academic intensity)? And what exactly are her scores?

There are lots of non-hooked students getting in to selective schools without scores. But if you’re thinking that a kid scoring in the low 500’s on both SAT sections is getting in to a mega selective by not reporting the scores- even with a perfect GPA-- that is really unlikely. The teacher’s description of what kind of student she is will be really meaningful here…

What is solid rigor-- college prep? Any AP or comparable to show that she’s excelling at college level work???

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We only did TO to one - rejected but there are schools out there that are test blind (CA publics) or test blind in merit like Arizona.

What’s on your list ?

Few schools publish stats but those that do seem to be higher acceptance test submitted but not insanely higher.

Where it might impact is merit aid as some require a test and others that publish a table will show lesser amounts for TO.

But depending on the school’s she is looking at she will have lots of options.

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Looking at top 50 schools, excluding the ivies. Overall intensity of coursework is high and most classes junior and senior year are college level. I’m not worried about recommendations. Taking SATs one more time and expect scores to be between 1350 and 1400. So not terrible but not high enough for any schools in the top 20 or 30.
When you say “if you’re thinking a kid scoring in the low 500’s on both SAT sections is getting in to a mega selective by not reporting the scores- even with a perfect GPA-- that is really unlikely”, how will a school know if the scores are low 500’s or 700’s if not reported? Sorry, don’t understand this comment.

When you say most courses junior year are college level, does that mean AP, and if so, does she have AP scores at least? Do you know her approximate class rank, or where other students with her profile were admitted from your school per naviance data?
Also, critically important is whether she can apply ED and/or need aid. For example, a full pay ED applicant at Wake Forest with this profile should get in, I think

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This is a very good question and the answer isn’t clear.
In the 1350-1400 SAT range, most would recommend against submitting to T20 schools. (I’ve been told not to submit mid 1400’s to many T50 schools).

I really don’t know how schools look at Test optional, but I have a suspicion that they are largely using it to unleash themselves from the numbers and give them breathing room to “sculpt” their incoming class with lesser attention to academics.
What I mean – If you have top GPA and top scores, you submit, and you’re evaluating as a high achieving academic candidate.
For those that don’t submit… They can look at that mass of people and “sculpt”… increase their diversity, fill less-demanded majors, fill their sports teams, etc.

So I do feel like schools are using test optional in order to fill more space in their classes with students who they wouldn’t have really considered pre-test optional. It would be hard for a T20 school to admit a 3.7 GPA URM/athlete/legacy/etc with a 1100 SAT pre-test optional. Now, they can just have that student leave off their standardized score… suddenly, on academics, there isn’t such a huge difference between that 3.7/1100 student and the 3.9/1380 student… Since neither is submitting their score, there is now only a small 0.2 GPA difference.

Now, I don’t know for a fact this is happening. But listening carefully, it’s my suspicion – That TO mostly benefits candidates with some hook.

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Yes, I suspect this is happening as well. That’s why I asked about successful TO stories of non-hooked applicants.

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I’m in the exact same boat. One of my son’s top choices is BU… He has a competitive 3.9 GPA, moderate rigor. SATs of 1430… right at their 2021 median, though I think 2022 may have been higher. He is getting conflicting advice about whether to submit.
Personally, I just don’t see how failing to submit a 95th percentile score could be a helpful thing. So we are still seeking advice.

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FWIW, I know an unhooked applicant this admission cycle who was admitted to BU with almost the same GPA and SAT as your son.

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And my son isn’t totally unhooked… He is a legacy (through my law school attendance), not that it means very much.
So the million dollar question – did the person you know submit their score?
An AO at the school told a panel to submit at 1430+. A professional advisor told us not to submit, because it’s not above last year’s new median.

Ummmm WHAT?! No AO or GC would ever make the argument that there is only a small difference between 3.7 and 3.9. Almost all students who are college bound have GPAs of the range 2.5-4.0. At the selective colleges we are now talking about, the range falls between 3.25-4.0. So 0.2 is 27% of that. That is hardly a “small difference”, unless you think that the difference between a 73% and 100% is “small”.

As for the claim that TO helps hooked students more than non-hooked students, well, what actual evidence there is contradicts this. Looking at the CDS of CMU from 2019 and 2021, one can see two trends. One is that the SAT scores go up, unsurprisingly. However, the other trend is that the GPAs went up. In 2019, the average GPA of enrolled students at CMU was 3.84. In 2021, after they went TO, that GPA went up to 3.89. In 2018, 25% of all enrolled students had GPAs under 3.75. In 2021, that went down to 15%.

At BU, the GPA went up from 3.72 to 3.79 after they went TO. At Tulane, average GPA went from 3.56 to 3.64. At both of these colleges, not only did the average GPA go up, but, like CMU, the number of students with GPAs below the previous average dropped, meaning that the standards for GPA for all students went up.

Not many of the most competitive colleges post GPAs, but here are three colleges which do, and all three show an increase in GPAs when they went TO. What happened is exactly what anybody would be able to predict would happen. Applicants with high GPAs and moderate test scores applied, and were accepted. Because the number of students with high GPAs who applied went up, the standards for all applicants vis-à-vis GPA went up across the board.

That means that hooked applicants (except perhaps athletes) actually need higher GPAs to be competitive. Being hooked makes it possible to be accepted with relatively lower stats. As the average GPA of applicants goes up, what is considered “relatively lower” also goes up.

For the biggest hooks, such as kids of serious donors or kids who have become world famous for other reasons, their GPA never matters, so going TO does not affect their acceptance rates.

Bottom line - TO policies are NOT better for hooked individuals, nor should we expect them to be so.

I’m neither supporting nor opposing hooks here. I’m just saying a person should not base their claims on feelings, when there is data to support or debunk the claims.

For the record, my kid had absolutely no hooks.

PS. the applicants who are disadvantaged by TO are those who have GPAS and test scores which are at the lower end to middle of the previous middle 50%. Their GPAs are now a lot less competitive, and they are not being helped by their test scores, since the only comparison is to applicants who have test scores which are higher than the previous average.

Yes and no. GPAs vary greatly based on weighting, based on the schools they are coming from, etc.
And outside of T10 schools, admitting a 3.7 student would hardly raise eyebrows, even if most of their admits are closer to 3.9.

I fully admit my conclusions are not based on hard evidence, they are based on anecdote and observation.

That could mean, as you posit, that they are now giving more weight to higher GPAs.

Or, it could simply be the effect of ongoing grade inflation. I know that the average GPA out of my local high school has increased significantly over the last 3 years. We went from 20% of the class having GPAs of 3.95+ to 35% of the class having GPAs of 3.95+. Went from 35% with 3.85+ to 48% with 3.85+. I strongly suspect that my school isn’t the only one with ever increasing grade inflation.

So… if someone is being disadvantaged, it means someone else is now being advantaged. So if sub-median “scorers” are now being disadvantaged… who is now gaining an extra advantage that they didn’t have before?

It’s not the “high scorers” – Their advantage is unchanged.

So if that sub-median 3.85/1400 now has a lower chance of getting in than before, who has a higher chance of getting in than before?

Previously, that 3.85/1400 student had an advantage over the 3.85/1100 student. But now that they are test blind, the students may be identical on scores. So what’s left? The essays, the LORs, the hooks, the “sculpting” of the class.

I might lack hard evidence, since schools don’t share that fine grained of data. But it is simple logic – If scores aren’t being submitted, then then 3.85 with an unsubmitted 1400 looks exactly the same as a 3.85 with an unsubmitted 1150… So logically are turning to factors apart from GPA and test scores to differentiate those 2 students.

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Thank you. This is exactly the response I was looking for. We would be thrilled if she got into BU.

Nvm

Kids have high GPA’s for lots of reasons (working harder than anyone else despite modest ability, doing every extra credit opportunity, picking teachers known to like hard-workers over "natural students, etc.) Kids have low test scores for lots of reasons as well-- LD’s, vision problems, anxiety, etc.

The teacher recommendations help the Adcom’s understand the “splitters” (high scores, weaker grades, high grades, weaker scores) by putting the student into context- “this is the hardest working student I’ve ever taught” is meaningfully different (at certain colleges, at others, they don’t care) from “This is the most intellectually engaged student I’ve ever taught”.

So no, the college doesn’t know the scores. But the teachers will help clarify whether this is a kid with great grades who challenges herself academically, brings her “A” game to class, is interested and reads books, etc. vs. a kid with high grades, no scores… and the adcom’s have to guess as to what’s going on. So “not a great test taker” and therefore not submitting means a kid needs as much of the other data as possible!

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I hope you know that the vast majority….the very vast majority of college applicants are not “hooked”.

Essays, recommendations, course selection.

My dd had about a 3.9 unweighted GPA, no hook, good recommendations, solid extracurriculars. She submitted AP test scores, but no SAT/ACT.
She is at Vandy w/merit. She applied RD. She was also accepted to Wash U and Grinnell. Rejected from Northwestern.
My ds is rising senior and will also apply test optional and submit only AP test scores.

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We are getting off on tangent here, and I do not want to take over the thread. So a quick set of comments:

The border under which students who are not hooked are being accepted with GPAs of 3.7 is not T10, it’s closer to below “T50”. Even at colleges in the “top” 150, a 3.9 is different than a 3.7. Colleges which are targets for a 3.9 are reaches for a 3.7, and safeties for a 3.9 are targets for a 3.7. There is also the fact that the merit funding for a 3.9 is much higher than for a 3.7.

So a very large number of colleges look at applicants with a 3.9 differently than at an applicant with a 3.7.

Grade inflation has been going on, and it’s far worse at schools serving affluent communities. However, issues with testing, such as repeated testing, and 25% of the kids with accomodations for longer time to take the test, etc, means that these are also being manipulated, but mostly by the affluent.

The kids who are benefitting from TO are kids who suffer from different degrees of test anxiety, low level undiagnosed ADHD, kids who have issues at home, and, in general, students who are much better at the long haul than at sprints.

The 3.9/1300 and the 3.95/1400 are the ones who have a better chance than before.

Basically, anybody who has test scores which are relatively low, compared to GPA, benefits.

Finally, TO is not test-blind. A student with 3.85 who submits a 1400 has an advantage over a students who has a 3.85 and does not submit any test score.

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