<p>For example, is someone who submits an application without scores to Wake Forest just as likely to gain admission as someone who submits an application with scores?</p>
<p>Or is there some bias expressed by admissions committees? Do they say "welllllllll, if this person didn't choose to submit scores, there must be a reason for it!" Does the candidate have to be otherwise exceptional to get in without test scores?</p>
<p>Enlighten me.</p>
<p>Test-optional schools tend to devalue tests in the first place. Therefore, to not send scores really won't hurt you. Sure, having great scores could help at these schools, but it won't really be a huge positive either.</p>
<p>When you ask this kind of question, many optimistic people will tell you what they'd like to believe. Others will tell you what their cynical outlook tells them. Take your pick.</p>
<p>I understand that, and I tend toward cynicism myself. But I figured you guys might have some statistical, or at least anecdotal, evidence one way or the other.</p>
<p>I'm a pretty big cynic. I'll believe that a school doesn't consider test scores when they tell you not to send them even if you have them.</p>
<p>Some test-optional schools also may require test scores for some of their merit scholarships.</p>
<p>However, I do think that test optional schools do their best to be fair to those who don't submit scores. Otherwise, why would they even bother to be test optional?</p>
<p>I've been to Bates, Mount Holyoke, and Holy Cross and people from every school said no to that question. They just focus on the rest of your application instead. Overall I don't think it makes any difference.</p>
<p>Some schools (like Bowdoin) have been test-optional for a long time (30 years in Bowdoin's case) because they believe the standardized tests don't tell them anything useful. It tells them you're good at that particular standardized test, or perhaps at standardized tests in general. That's a skill that may help you get into med school, law school, or grad school later in life, but it's at best a weak predictor of how you'll do in college. At schools like that, I really think it doesn't matter whether you submit scores because they'll deemphasize test scores in evaluating applications anyway.</p>
<p>Other schools are recent converts to test-optional, and for these schools it's a bit more complicated. They'll all say they went this route for Bowdoin-like reasons. But there is another possible motive. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that if you go test-optional, it will be mainly applicants with relatively high test scores who submit them. The schools can then admit the applicants with high test scores and some fraction of those with no test scores, and they'll only have high test scores to report to US News---which could materially affect their US News ranking (and therefore their perceived desirability in the eyes of the next round of applicants). If this is their motive, they'll likely assume anyone who doesn't submit test scores is in the bottom tier of applicants, those competing, let's say, to get into the bottom quartile of their class.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your test scores would put you in the bottom quartile of their class anyway, you're not out anything by not reporting them. In fact, they're better off if you DON'T report your scores, because if they accept you it doesn't pull down their US News-reportable SAT medians. If your scores are in the middle two quartiles, you're probably better off reporting them than not. If your scores are in the top quartile, it would be downright silly not to report them because you're clearly pulling up the reported 75th percentile of their class.</p>
<p>By that logic they should admit one guy with 2400, and fill the rest of the class with people who submit no scores.</p>
<p>Lol.</p>
<p>I know that there are certain schools that are test-optional in admission, but require to submit it after acceptance.</p>
<p>^ LOL. That's the extreme, but it's heading in that direction. A number of recent converts to SAT-optional have seen a big jump in their reported scores. Problem is, most of them don't attract a lot of 2400 SAT applicants, or all that many 2200 SAT applicants for that matter; and if they do get them as applicants they don't land many of them in the entering class. So they've got to go pretty deep into the applicant pool to fill up the class. </p>
<p>Besides, moving up their SAT medians isn't the only thing they care about. They do want to admit people who are likely to succeed in college---among other reasons because educating people is their mission, but also because a low graduation rate would come back to haunt them in another part of the US News rankings. In addition, they'll have trouble recruiting and retaining faculty if the quality of their students drops off too much, and their PA score will start to decline. So there's only so much wiggle room.</p>
<p>Take Smith, for example. For their class of 2007, they had to accept 1726 of 3329 applicants (52%) to fill up the class. That class had an SAT middle 50% of 1150-1380 (CR + M). By going SAT-optional (which they just did), they can probably take a large fraction of the sub-1150 SAT scores, which currently make up a full quarter of the class, out of the equation. It will push the 75th percentile score up somewhat (possibly to the low- to mid-1400s), because the 75th percentile will now be calculated on a smaller base with 1150 now effectively operating as the bottom (or close to it) rather than the 25th percentile. It should pull up the 25th percentile score considerably, because now presumably all (or almost all) reported SAT scores will be over 1150. But they can't just take the over-1380 scores and fill up the remaining three quarters of the class with SAT non-reporters, because they have to assume all those non-reporters are sub-1150s, and that would just fatally weaken the class. Not so much wiggle room for that kind of gross manipulation. But watch: I'll bet they get a pretty good bump out of their reported SAT scores just by taking out so many of the sub-1150s.</p>
<p>Thanks for the analysis everyone, I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>So the consensus is: definitely submit scores if you're above the 75th percentile, almost certainly submit them if you're above-average, and definitely don't submit them if you're below the 25th percentile. What about from 25-50?</p>