Not all my kids tested with the highest scores but I still think it’s a disaster. If grade inflation weren’t so pervasive then maybe we wouldn’t need test scores. But when nearly every college-bound kid has a 4.0 at our schools something is needed to differentiate their academic readiness and potential. I absolutely do not think its fair when a kid gets into a top tier school and comments “LOL, my SAT was 1250 but I didn’t report it.”
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My child didn’t even take the SAT because of test optional policies at all the schools he wanted to go to. He is a musician and as he said to me “I can spend 75 hours preparing for a test or 75 hours practicing my instrument” and I couldn’t argue with him. It wasn’t a detriment in any college he applied to. I think if your child does well at these tests and WANTS to spend their time focusing on testing, they can - that’s why we it is Test Optional! It just goes into the whole package of the student!
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But when nearly every college-bound kid has a 4.0 at our schools something is needed to differentiate their academic readiness and potential.
SAT scores don’t change that, most kids with a high GPA have a high test score.
And the incidence rate of kids with a super low test score getting in via TO is pretty low and most of those kids clearly had a lot in their application going for them.
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As a benefactor of retesting, I do feel that it denigrates the utility of the test. I wasn’t suddenly smarter or a better test-taker, I just was maybe marginally better at taking one type of test and had a better night’s sleep.
If your school doesn’t host AP tests (which is the case for me), yeah it’s quite unfair to access the test because there are so many hoops and loops you have to go through just to take one. Even worse if you are abroad (which happened to be the case for me last year) because AP registration isn’t the same as the SAT where you sign up through CB. You go through the testing center and they will charge you extortionate testing fees (upwards of $270 a test, the center I signed up at was only $190 a test but I had to travel overnight to take them).
The actual fee CB charges centers for taking a AP test in the region I was abroad at: $94.
I think this is correct. My daughter was test optional but had all of the “rigor” BU constantly touts to have. Took BC calc even when she applied to communications. (A very popular major there.) A friend of hers who applied ED and was deferred got offered CGS. I don’t think my daughter would have taken that (depending on what FA was offered) although she might have considered it. It just stung being in some way “more qualified” with other things as well than her friend who apparently isn’t sure that they’ll take the CGS offer. Same with NE which my daughter didn’t check the “other campus” option on the apps. Good luck to your child!
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How would you know this if kids dont submit their test scores?
BU accepted fewer number of students to avoid overenrolment due to their “high yield.” They artificially create the “high yield” by rejecting overqualified kids who don’t fit in the target bubble. So their numbers go up since it looks like it’s more selective. My daughter applied because she thought she would receive merit money. She was accepted at her #1 choice in scea, so the waitlist was more funny than hurtful. Howerver, what if she had not been accepted to her #1 choice… she could have been a casualty of the admissions scam/system. So… my take away is that if BU is playing games, then it should NOT be on a college list for high end kids. It’s a waste of an appllication fee, application time, and a slot for a school that would be more transparent and equitable in its decisions. I put this out
here for future parents learning about these schools as they begin the process…
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I agree that the process just gets more brutal every year while the applicants just seem to get more and more qualified. I suspect that just the natural increase in population combined with schools not requiring a test score have increased the number of applications exponentially. (Let’s face it. The families that have the resources to pay for test prep are at a significant advantage, which is why UCs aren’t even accepting them.)
Very fascinating website provides tons of stats on UCs down to the individual high school level, universityofCalifornia.edu shows just in five years how many more applications they have received. With the increasing number of exceptional applicants and the FIXED number of spots in the top 25 schools (that has not changed over 30-40 years) inevitable spillage occurs into the 26-40 schools. Now those are filling up. So next it will be 41-60, as well as the state schools since not everyone has the money to drop $30-$40k (that’s with some assistance I realize) just on tuition. My daughter has so many friends that got 4.0s unweighted that did not get into any UC. Yes, demoralizing. For better or worse, successive parent groups will just need to readjust their perspective about the “top 40” which is the “top 25” of 15 years ago. I don’t see schools increasing their size and acceptance rate in proportion to the increase in the applicant pool.
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The process is brutal and I’m not sure fairness has anything to do with it, nor has it ever had anything to do with it. With SATs, without SATs - fairness is an unlikely outcome either way. My son was accepted to BU (with very little demonstrated interest - a virtual admission seminar), however he would literally trade this and many other admission offers he received for one of the UCs that he was rejected by. But, such is life and frankly, I do believe that our kids ultimately land where they are suppose to land. And if some have to work harder than others, that might be unfair, but that is life and it is very much part of the education experience our kids need.
I will add - he loves BU and it’s in his top two. And btw, I am beyond ready for this process to be OVER. 
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I do have to state that there are many different factors and family situations at play here. There are low income families, single-parent, homes, families who could not make an in-person tour because they work full time and could be single parents. Costs are high to stay in Boston. That’s why virtual tours are available. We don’t know what our kid’s references actually were, or what each individual school was looking for in the essay and supplementals. These applications seem to be, more and more, like applying for a job. It is competitive and there is not just one factor at play here. It’s not perfect for sure.
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this is simply not true.
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How does BU determine which kids to waitlist vs offering the guaranteed sophomore transfer (and vs those offered spring admit with summer in London)? Is one group more qualified than the other or is it arbitrary? In our case, D was ecstatic to receive guaranteed transfer after being waitlisted at 5 target schools. She is accepted to a target school that offered her quite a significant amount in scholarships so she will go there for a year then transfer to BU. However, she saw that the spring admits had confettis in their acceptance and her guaranteed transfer did not, so she felt a little sad about it. But at least it all worked out for her (and she is still waiting on 7 more reach schools so you never know what will happen…).
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What you describe was my nightmare scenario going into this process and I think it does, unfortunately, happen to some exceptionally qualified kids every year. I’m glad to hear it didn’t happen to your daughter.
I would also agree that schools that do practice yield protection should be called out so people can spend their application fees accordingly. Looking at prior years’ data for our school in Naviance, I don’t see BU doing that (and our school has about 60 or so applicants each year and about half are accepted). But anecdotally as we hear RD results from other students in our school and other schools, it does seem like this year some yield protection may have been going on in the RD round. Prior to this year, no student from our school with an unweighted 4.0 (or weighted 4.5+) and SAT >= 1500 had been waitlisted or rejected (that’s data covering hundreds of applicants over 5 years). This year, several were, all with clear demonstrated interest (though who knows exactly how much DI might be required). Still I only know a handful of the likely 70+ applicants this year. Once data is in Naviance I’ll try to remember to post back here if it looks like there was a change in how BU is admitting applicants from our high school.
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Great! For my D, this was the only reach school she was accepted to-that she never thought would happen and the best reach of all of three. The others were extreme reaches and we knew why they didn’t accept her. She met her targets. We have some big decisions.
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Some opinions on topics discussed:
- MIT gave a logical argument to why they reinstated scores. In their argument, which I think is very valid, plenty of online material (Khan academy eg) is available to prep for tests for students from low income families. On the other hand, privileged kids pay $$ to get essays reviewed (or worse written) or they go to private schools where counseling is much better. Nevertheless, scores are just one factor and not a determining factor. Harvard lawsuit showed eg. that anyone with 33 or above in ACT gets the same treatment.
- Like someone said, AP tests are no different. Why do students/parents who despise SAT/ACT then tout AP stats?
- There is no question that a student that does NOT score well on tests can/will be a very smart student and may actually do better in real life than someone who solely focuses on grades/scores. That is why scores/GPA should not be determining factors but rather an input.
In my opinion, the root of the evil is ranking system(s). They put undue pressure on kids/parents and, importantly, incent colleges to do things to game the ranking. BU and NEU efforts in this regard, e.g., are well publicized. In my own post above, I referred to “T20” - which on reflection is not only wrong but continues to push the view that the rankings are correct. My bad.
I think if the colleges abandon their participation in the ranking system, a lot of this madness will reduce. Admissions or colleges will never be perfect of course but the less crazy this is for kids/parents, the focus will come back to the right things in both admissions process and student’s selection process.
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You make a really good point here, the rankings system really is the root of the issue here.
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I knew exactly which school you were referring to because they did the same to my son in 2020. He was waitlisted at a few top schools and NONE of them played games like that. It was so bad I wrote a personal letter to the dean expressing my disgust at the total lack of respect for the applicants!
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Good for you for writing to the dean. I was disgusted as well but I just had to step away from it after seeing her put an incredible amount of demonstrated interest into the school … so much that I started to wonder if the school would perceive it to be creepy. She visited twice, went to our local area presentation, did a few online webinars, opened all the emails and clicked on links and followed social media, and then wrote a passionate LOCI after she was deferred from EA about why she and the school were a perfect match. She even sent them an update when she was accepted into a audition-only national choir that was being conducted by a CWRU alum. Her test scores and GPA were above their 75th percentile and by all accounts it was a target school for her. She also worked with seniors at an assisted living community which sparked her love for neuroscience and gerontology, which is a major they have that most colleges don’t, and she wrote about that. They are need aware so we didn’t file for FA, but thought she would be a great candidate for merit.
I guess we were wrong on all accounts. The WL shenanigans left me with a very sour taste in my mouth for the school. I also made sure that D23 didn’t get so attached to any one option, because you can do everything right and still not get accepted.
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I suspect both rankings and SAT/ACT have similar issues.
If you have the time to review the methodology of a particular ranking to know if it’s relevant to what you are trying to learn about a college and you treat every ranking as having an accuracy of +/- 20, then rankings can be useful in making college selection decisions. Can a ranking that is (theoretically) measuring something you are interested in help you if one school you are considering is ranked 5 and the other 75? Yes, it’s of some value. Can that same ranking help you if the schools are ranked 10 and 30? No, it’s of little value.
If you understand and take into account the differences in SAT/ACT scores that are due to inherent biases and limitations of that type of testing and take into account the specific circumstances of the test taker (or valid reasons for why they should not be required to submit a test score), then standardized testing can, most likely, be useful as one of many components in making admissions decisions.
I think Stu Schmill’s article on why MIT reinstated testing requirements (though, as he points out, they still allow exceptions) provides the best analysis on why limited use of SAT/ACT can still make sense for some universities.
I can’t think of an equivalent article supporting rankings, so maybe that says something about the usefulness of most rankings 
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