A friend and I were talking about standardized testing and test optional schools trying to decide if these practices are genuine.
This year I’ve known people who’ve decided to apply test optional. College applications are becoming less and less dense because their starting to drop things like essays and test scores. These schools preach the application process being “easier” or saying that you’re more than a score. Except I’m really curious if these are genuine intentions.
People say low income people have lower SAT/ACT because of them not hiring a SAT tutor or being able to take the test as many times as they want for free. This is making me come to a conclusion that these students have more average scores and they end up resorting to public state schools vs. small private schools. I can see this happening because these students either don’t have the confidence to try to apply to these schools that would otherwise be a reach.
I can see this really taking a toll on the racial and socioeconomic diversity small private school would have. This means as a marketing plan they want to “lower the bar” or attempt to add diversity in a way that holds a secret agenda.
Thinking about this, if a student does EXTREMELY well on their SAT/ACT they are more likely to submit their scores and take chance. Students who have lower scores end up lowering their standards of the school they attend and they don’t end up applying at all. I can imagine this thing a toll on the diversity. The benefit of this is that the students that have good scores will report them and this makes the incoming class average higher because the applicant pool of 2015-16 has hand picked scores that will be represented.
So, if a school promotes “test optional” they’re able to reach a wider and more diverse pool of applicants. The students who felt the SAT would count against them now have a chance to be evaluated a different way and the lower income students are more likely to consider these schools…
The issue is that these practices aren’t even increasing diversity. If they get a HUGE applicant pool, they can reject more. If you have a amazing GPA like a 3.5-3.9 but you have lower test scores and you decided to not report, you end up getting admitted with your GPA. Now because they have a bigger applicant pool they can be as strict and choosey as they want and hand pick the best GPA’s. This makes the acceptance rate lower and a higher SAT/ACT and GPA average.
This is a conclusion I have. Please leave your thoughts I’m 100% open to discussion. Is this ethical? Is this fair? I can’t prove this but looking at statistics on college board and niche, I’m building a conclusion of the new marking practices.
NOTE: I am in no way bitter or bashing these schools. I have no personal experience with applying test option, I am actually taking a gap year starting next fall and I plan to attend a state school for financial reasons. However, I did have peers who decided to go this route and I’ve always felt like it was almost to good to be true so wondered if there was a double agenda.
Personally. I would really love to see the statistics and demographics of the student body before a institution goes test optional and the compare it afterwards after a few years, just to see if this practice has an impact of the diversity at a school at all.
Getting a high GPA is amazing and a school fully has the choice to be as picky as they’d like but it is unacceptable to say these practices “help” diversity.
I still don’t see how this is “really taking a toll on the racial and socioeconomic diversity.” Larger applicant pool = less diversity? That does not follow.
Hard work should definitely be rewarded but we should be mindful and ask “why?” as well as not be blind and ask if these practices are helping or hurting.
This isn’t about privilege or demanding that someone had something handed to them but as students, parents etc. it is important to question these practices and compare them to see if they’re effective and I’ve not, hopefully come up with a effective way to approach the bigger issue.
higher standards and higher scores= better resources that were provided to the student to succeed.
better resources that go above and beyond what “free or reduced” can do= better socioeconomic background
In my opinion, just because a student gets rejected doesn’t mean they’re dumb and just because a student gets admitted doesn’t mean their smarter than the reject. This doesn’t mean the accepted student didn’t deserve it or work hard for it.
It is ignorant to think that there isn’t a systematic advantage that some students have that others don’t.
Giving a student the same test with different amount of resources is a representation of “separate but equal”
Yes they both have the same test. Yes they’re testing on the same day.
Except student 1 has had a REAL SAT/ACT tutor since sophomore year and can afford to take the test as many times as possible as well as have 101 time with this paid tutor and student 2 is getting tutored junior year only with a tutor only available to juniors, normally a college volunteer and student 2 is in a study group with 3-8 other students.
So you’re saying test optional makes schools more selective, and that’s an issue? Of course there are systematic advantages, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong for a college to become more selective. Besides that, I very much doubt that the main factor in increased selectivity is becoming test optional. UChicago’s acceptance rate has plummeted, and it hasn’t become test optional. Do you believe it was wrong for UChicago to encourage more applications? Do you think that hurt its SES and racial diversity? Or does that logic only apply to test optional schools?
It is the same way when someone who isn’t a person of color gets a really crappy aid package.
One student has the admission advantage and one student has the financial aid advantage.
Tutors and prep classes add up to be really expensive and it is also expensive when you get a crappy aid package. One student can get accepted easy and one student can pay easy.
@usualhopeful Selectivity isn’t an issue it’s how they go about the selectivity that is an issue.
If a student has a good score and a good GPA, that’s golden and their admissions decision can be decided on both. Now, if someone who has a bad GPA with bad scores decides to go test optional it’s suicide.
Now think: who has the STRONGEST application between the two?
MY POINT IS: if these schools promote test optional it will mess up the balance and fairness of a admissions review. My issue isn’t selectivity it is them promoting that an applicant leave parts of their application out and label them as optional.
If the school was really against testing, they would get rid of the test being part of an admissions decision. I’ve seen schools do all sorts of things with scores like determine scholarship money or class placement.
promoting this is tricking a impressionable 17-18 year old that admissions can make a effective decision on basically no data at all. Your GPA doesn’t determine your potential in college, it determines your work ethic.
In my eyes GPA and standardized test scores don’t weigh the same. One compares you to your graduation class and one compares you to other 17 year olds in the nation.
Anyone who’s been in high school understands that it depends on the strictness of the instructor. They study the same curriculum for the AP test but it doesn’t mean the class is as easy as someone else’s AP LA class the next state over…
I’ve seen schools do things like give small essay short answer prompts in placement for the SAT. But basically, they shouldn’t get rid of the SAT unless they plan on giving an equivalent that weighs almost the same as a SAT.
Everyone should have 2 aspects that make a admissions decision. GPA and something that is equivalent to the weight of the SAT. Short answer prompts or nothing at all doesn’t build a strong enough application to have a fair decision or balanced application
They’re suggesting that students come with just the clothes on their back promising that they’ll be able to make a fair decision when the other guy in the race showed up with a suitcase and carry on.
You seem to think standardized tests measure intelligence. They don’t. They’re used to measure college readiness. After a certain threshhold, they don’t matter. Colleges who don’t require standardized tests aren’t lowering their standards, they’re using different ones. You’re assuming they default to using GPAs, but GPAs vary so widely by high school (due to grade inflation) that they’re not reliable either. The question then becomes, how can colleges tell if students are college ready if they don’t use scores from a multiple choice test?
They can use class rigor. Do the transcripts show 4 years of English, science, history, math, and foreign language? What classes were used to fill those slots?
They can use essays to see how well the students can communicate. You can tell a lot about people by the way they write, especially if you give them something substantial to write about.
They can use recommendations and interviews. What people who know the student well have to say about a student and what the student has to say help form a better picture than numbers on a page. The whole point of test optional is to not rule kids out without taking a look at the whole picture. When colleges require test scores and the range of scores of accepted students is pretty high, they’re not going to see the applications of the other kids – the students whose scores may be lower but who add something the colleges want.
You seem to think that colleges are saying that “something” is racial and socioeconomic diversity but that’s not the real purpose behind the policy. I think what you’re missing is those aren’t the only reasons. By going test optional, kids with documented learning disabilities (like you) also have a shot at getting in.
I don’t understand why you’d have a problem with colleges trying to increase diversity. You’re arguing that elite schools won’t take the URMs and low income students anyway and if they do, they won’t make it affordable. It sounds like you’re upset that the “dream” private college you got accepted to isn’t affordable for your family. I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but making colleges admit only by the numbers won’t change that and it won’t prevent other kids from being disappointed with their results. All it would do is prevent all students with atypical profiles from getting a shot. Why would you want that?
Check out Wake Forest’s blogs on rethinking admissions and their journey to test-optional status. They have done comparisons of graduating classes before and after going test-optional and also compared performance of students who submitted test scores against those who didn’t. They found no difference in graduation rates. http://admissions.wfu.edu/apply/test-optional/
In addition, as far as standardized test scores go, performance on SAT II subject tests has been shown to have a higher correlation to college success than the SAT I.
Most schools that have gone test-optional, test-flexible, or no-test require additional essays and/or recommendations. They spend more time scrutinizing the data they have. It’s not like they just say “oh, hey, it’s OK you don’t have an SAT score, we’ll admit you anyway.”
If I understand your argument correctly it’s that by not requiring standardized testing schools are increasing their applicant pool, thus making it harder for the students their policies were ostensibly meant to benefit to gain admission. Is that right?
First, I would say that these schools are looking for the best candidates. They’re looking for top students but their definition of top is different in that it doesn’t necessarily include standardized test scores. They’re not lowering the bar, they’re using a different bar altogether, choosing to rely on past performance coupled with the other elements of the application to determine a student’s ability to perform at a high academic level. Lower SES students should be able to meet those standards just like high SES students.
Here’s an analogy:
As a basketball coach, would you rather have on your team the 7’4" player who’s never done much on the court or the 5’10 point guard who scores 25 points per game? Ideally you’d look for height in a new recruit, but if the NBA had a height cutoff players like Spud Webb, Mugsy Bogues or Isaiah Thomas would never have played professional ball. What matters most is past performance.
Many larger schools don’t have the luxury of weeding through applications with the thoroughness of the smaller schools, which is why test optional schools tend to be private (better funded admissions offices) and small (fewer applicants). This is not to say that schools that use testing won’t attract great students. They’re still going to identify the Michael Jordans, they just might miss a few Isaiah Thomases. Of course the converse is a danger, that the test optional schools may end up with a few short kind who really can’t keep up with the big boys. Either way, it seems to me it’s a difference in philosophy. I’m sure there are a few schools that cynically figure they can boost their numbers by going test optional, but in my experience most schools do it out of a conviction that it’s the best way to attract the best and brightest. The nice thing is that there are great schools for all kinds of students: schools that auto-admit by standardized test scores, schools that won’t accept scores, and everything in between.
Leaving the issue of paid tutors aside, one issue that I don’t often see addressed in discussions of test-optional schools is the prevalence of superscoring in college admissions these days. The parent generation here will tell you that when we applied to schools it was uncommon for kids to take the SAT more than once, but if you did take multiple tests all scores had to be reported to your schools and there was no mixing and matching of scores. It was thought that a poor score could hurt you so there was little incentive to keep taking the SAT once you got an acceptable score. Now schools use superscoring as a way to inflate their statistics so a student who can afford to take the test 3 or 4 times has a real advantage. We also didn’t have the option to take either the ACT or SAT. Most schools took only one or the other; commonly schools on the coasts required the SAT and midwestern schools wanted the ACT. I know kids who have taken half a dozen standardized test, something that would have been unheard of in my day. A kid who has the time, money and support to take all these test can cherry-pick their best score.
US news heavily penalized schools that don’t report scores for a certain percentage of the the class. I may be wrong but I believe the threshold is 75%. What this forces test-optional schools to do is either take a hit on their USNWR rating or to report the scores of some kids who chose not to submit scores in the admissions process. As you can imagine, kids who choose not to report tend to have lower than average scores so a good argument can be made that going test optional can in some ways hurt a school’s stats in that these schools are attracting smart, capable students who for whatever reason perform poorly on standardized tests.
I agree with both statements. My stance is that we’re in a weird era for college admissions because a student doesn’t really know the right thing to do when it comes to test optional. A lot of my friends who decided to go test optional were extremely hesitant.
I decided to look through a list of schools that were test optional and a lot of them seem to want to “see the bigger picture” or state that you’re more than a score and what not.
My question is: if these schools are REALLY against standardized testing, why don’t they get rid of the option all together? It might seem sort of childish to think this but if a school believes scores have absolutely no indication of the type of student you are then why don’t they remove the option completely. I’ve seen schools remove letters of rec, essays and other important information because of “time” in the admissions office.
I understand big state schools and small private schools have different practices but if a school is really against something like testing why would they still include it as an option in their admissions decision. I’ve seen schools FULLY remove essays and letters of rec by saying “if they need it, they’ll ask for it” so why isn’t the SAT have the same practice. I’m not promoting not taking the SAT at all but I am curious why they’re only going half way on their alleged “beliefs”
Do your test scores only indicate who you are when they’re higher?
As someone who’s recently completed applications in the last six months, I can say that they’re absolutely dumbing the app process down. What I mean by this is that they’re trying to make it less time consuming by taking important parts of the application process out. Yes, this might be easier to the student but is it beneficial? Yes, it’s easier to admissions but should admissions officers take the easy route when making admission decisions.
Taking away the test and making it “optional” instead of fully removing it, is making the admissions process less and less personal. In my mind I like to believe that after I send a app in, their closely reviewing my application. I had my parents pay for 50-70 dollar applications X how ever many schools I applied to (10). This was pretty expensive once it all added up and I when I had my family pay my app fees, I had hope that I would get a review that was worth 50-70 bucks, no matter how glazed over the admissions officers eyes were.
My parents paid for a whole application and I want all the components reviewed. Yes, adding scores cost money and they add to the cost but personally, my parents seemed a lot more at easy when I applied to schools that had all the basic admission components (transcript, essay, rec, activities and test scores)