<p>I posted this article to help students wondering if they have a chance at UD. It will help give you a great deal of insight into how the Delaware admissions staff evaluates the applications they receive. </p>
<p>College potential is more than an SAT number</p>
<p>The kind of high school courses, grades, essay and life experience all figure in admissions equation</p>
<p>BY LOUIS L. HIRSH OCTOBER 5, 2008</p>
<p>Every year, the University of Delaware admissions staff gives thousands of presentations to audiences throughout Delaware and across the country. One question is asked more frequently than any other: "What are you looking for in the SAT?"</p>
<p>Lying just beneath the surface of that question is the fear that SAT (or ACT) scores will have a veto power over everything else that a student has accomplished, and at some colleges they probably do. The encouraging news is that at a growing number of colleges, scores play a less controlling and more complex role in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>I use the word "complex" deliberately. Human beings are complex -- especially adolescents. Because test scores are numbers, they give the illusion of being precise measures of what a student is academically prepared to handle in college. In truth, they are far from precise. To put it more bluntly, all tests are flawed and cannot come close to capturing the complexity of human accomplishments and intelligence.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that most medical tests are also imprecise and do not necessarily give valid results for all patients. They can point a doctor toward a diagnosis, but invariably a doctor will insist on additional tests and procedures to confirm that diagnosis. Not all patients are alike.</p>
<p>The analogy holds in college admissions: Not all students are alike. For some students, the SAT and ACT are valid measures of their readiness for college, especially when combined with a review of their course selection and grades. For others, however, test scores can be misleading or give an incomplete picture of the student.</p>
<p>Our challenge is to responsibly use a tool that is flawed but sometimes helpful. It is not unlike the challenges when we look at other aspects of a student's academic record.</p>
<p>For example, some people who oppose testing argue that we should focus only on high school grades.</p>
<p>Significant differences</p>
<p>In a typical year the University of Delaware draws applications from more than 2,800 public and private high schools worldwide. There are huge differences in course content and grading standards among them. An A student from a weak high school might be less prepared than an A student from a competitive high school.</p>
<p>Some test-optional schools require that students submit a graded essay in lieu of the SAT. But why would an essay written on a narrow subject be a more reliable gauge of what a student has learned in four years of high school than a standardized test score?</p>
<p>We do know this: If there is one piece of information that is consistently more valuable than any other, it is the rigor of a student's high school course selection. Succeeding in tough academic classes is a good sign that the student is likely to succeed in college.</p>
<p>That's why we admit students to UD with modest SAT scores when they have taken tough classes and earned outstanding grades in them. Similarly, we deny admission to applicants with very high SAT's when their grades are not commensurate with their test scores.</p>
<p>Twice in my career I have signed letters of denial to students who had perfect 800 scores on their SAT's -- because their high school grades were dreadful.</p>
<p>What role, then, should the tests play? Let's begin by acknowledging that in the majority of cases, they neither help nor hurt UD applicants. Their course selections are so rigorous, their grades are so strong, their letters of recommendation are so supportive, and their admissions essays are so convincing that it is hard to see them as anything other than terrific additions to the freshman class. Many of them are Delawareans who fully meet the guidelines set forth in the UD Commitment to Delawareans. (Go online to Commitment</a> to Delawareans).</p>
<p>However, there are many applicants for whom the evidence in the file is ambiguous and contradictory, and that is why the majority of colleges still require standardized tests. Let me give an example.</p>
<p>Several years ago we enrolled a student from an inner-city high school. His grades were a frustrating mix of A's in some courses combined with B's, C's and even an occasional D in others. His junior- and senior-year grades were somewhat better than his freshman and sophomore grades. From his counselor we learned that he was raised in a single-parent household with a family income below the poverty level.</p>
<p>When we reviewed his application what startled us was that he had a combined verbal and math SAT of 1,230. That is more than 200 points above the national average for college-bound students. It is probable that no more than 1 percent of the students nationwide coming from his income level and school environment are able to score that well on a standardized test.</p>
<p>His SAT's combined with his improving grades encouraged us to take a chance on this first- generation college student -- which we would not otherwise have taken. After a shaky start at UD, he is now an upperclassman earning mostly B's and even a few A's.</p>
<p>In each applicant pool there are late bloomers -- kids who only recently started getting good grades. They are disproportionately male, and standardized tests help us understand whether they have mastered a sufficient amount of high school course material so that we can confidently admit them to UD.</p>
<p>There's another concern. Some high schools have grade inflation and a penchant for designating nearly every course as "honors." When we see a dozen applicants from the same high school, all with A averages taking "honors" courses, but all scoring well below our averages on the SAT or ACT, we have to conclude their school is not as rigorous as it would like us to believe.</p>
<p>No single measure works for all students or all high schools. At the University of Delaware, we would no more be test optional than we would be essay optional or transcript optional or letter-of-recommendation optional. These are all pieces of information that shed light on applicants. Individually, each piece is flawed and incomplete in what it tells us. Collectively, they tell us a great deal and help us understand what is distinctive about each applicant.</p>
<p>Louis L. Hirsh is director of admissions at the University of Delaware.</p>