These statistics are enormously helpful. Many thanks to all those posting up-to-date figures. The one thing I haven’t seen (in one place) is the breakdown at test optional schools. Specifically, how do students who elect not to submit scores fare compared to applicants who do? The only information I can find on individual websites is something like “76 percent of all applicants chose to submit test scores.” They never say how the other 24 percent were viewed by admissions, statistically. There is of course in all this the assumption that a failure to submit scores implies weak scores, which, if true at admissions offices, defeats the whole purpose of being test optional.
@penandink In a video on the Bowdoin YouTube channel the Dean of Admission Whitney Soule says that for the Class of 2021, about 1/3 of applicants chose not to submit scores, and about 1/3 of the people they admitted applied test optional.
Well, that’s reassuring @sciencenerd123. Since Bowdoin is the school that started the test-optional “movement,” it’s good to see that they’re putting their money where their mouth is. Nevertheless, the prevailing advice from h.s. college counselors seems to be that it’s always best to submit scores, for the reason I pointed out above (absence of scores = mediocre or low scores). The other reason it’s hard to get good data here is that the common data sets specify what percentage submitted the SAT, and what percentage submitted the ACT, even though many students submit both. So – unless I missed it – they are not required to list what percentage skipped test scores altogether, let alone how many of those were admitted.
At least the Bowdoin video offers some anecdotal clarity. Thanks.
That intimates quite a rollercoaster in applications:
Class of 2022 2,350 32,500 7.23%
Class of 2021 2,419 27,694 8.73%
Class of 2020 2,499 31,484 7.94%
Thank God, Chicago is so prompt in releasing their Common Data Set! 
I think that says something good about Caltech. That said, I heard they received more than 8,000 applicants this year.
Georgetown stats (did someone post these already?) - note the comments in the article about rising SAT scores:
http://www.thehoya.com/georgetown-sees-record-low-acceptance-rate-class-2022/
@xiggi last year was their first ED1/ED2. They over enrolled a bit.
@penandink In the same video that I attached to my previous comment, the Dean of admission at Bowdoin addresses that very concern–that students believe that they should always send in their scores even if they are bad, so the admissions counselors don’t assume that they are worse than they really are. She says that this assumption is false because then at point they would be guessing and trying to fill in the blanks but if they really wanted the scores then they would’ve just asked for them in the first place because they know that we have them. At test-optional schools, admissions knows how to select students without the standardized tests. If they didn’t, then they wouldn’t be test-optional. If a student’s scores are not very good (or below the school’s average) then they would definitely be better off not submitting scores because that wouldn’t hurt them, but sending their scores might.
Personally, I didn’t apply test optional to Bowdoin, and I got in with a 1420, which is probably below their average. But of course, admissions is holistic.
@sciencenerd123 If a school really wanted to send the message that they don’t need test scores they should just say they don’t want them, period. Making them optional will always lead to the assumption that you should send them if they are great and, that those who didn’t send them didn’t had great scores. Even if the idea of “optional” is some students might want to send them so you’re not limiting their options if they think the scores are an important part of their story, yada yada, that still roughly translates to “I’ll send my scores if I think they are great.” I’d love to see highly selective schools that say, “Don’t send them, we don’t want them.” The whole testing industry is such a racket. It’s crazy for example that my kids still need to do SAT Subject Tests for some schools when they will have a dozen-plus AP results including the same subjects the SAT II’s cover. Pure money grab.
@sciencenerd123 I know someone will soon suggest we move this discussion to a Bowdoin board, and I don’t mean to hijack this thread or to confine it to Bowdoin at all. I was initially asking for directions to compiled stats on test-optional admissions at selective schools generally. But certainly the Bowdoin example is instructive, as is the video you reference. The fact that the admissions director referred several times to the skepticism surrounding schools that claim to be honestly test optional only underscores the widespread mistrust of that claim (not just at Bowdoin). I was hoping there were statistics to back up the boast by schools that are [supposedly] test optional. Wesleyan, Smith, Pitzer, Skidmore… when overworked admissions committees are looking for a quick way to thin the herd, it just seems psychologically impossible to avoid the “missing number.” It’s like when a test allows you to answer two out of three essay questions. The teacher assumes that the student will skip the one he/she knows least about. It doesn’t count against you because every student skips one-- unlike test optional college admissions. Way too much about this, I know. Just hoping to get educated on the issue.
Speaking of “mystery” admissions stats, I would love to know male vs. female acceptance rates by school. Going through the process this year with my D, we kept hearing about how much tougher it is it for girls because many more apply - particularly to LACs. M vs. F enrollment rates are of course easy to find, but do any schools publish acceptance rates by gender?
@GMC2918 Acceptance rates by gender are in the Common Data Sets.
@penandink and @sciencenerd123 - having been to Bowdoin 5 times with 2 kids for admissions activities (without ever applying), I can’t quite recall the person or time-period…but…
Someone in admissions stated that students admitted without test scores are almost always within the middle 50% of those that submitted (they gather data for admitted students after the decision I guess). I would imagine that if you review enough applications, you get pretty good at being able to estimate scores.
^ Or it could be middle 50% range of GPAs after students start at Bowdoin.
My cynical take is that being test-optional allows a school to shape a class the way they want without an impact on rankings.
Going Test optional definitely helps schools in any rankings that consider test scores (which as we know is damn near all of them). And i think it likely helps yield a little bit as those students that are very talented, but always choke on test day, are more inclined to apply to test optional schools and have fewer options from test mandatory schools.
It’s hard NOT to be cynical about motives and the actual uses of test optional applications, given the alarming statistics in the rest of this thread about shrinking acceptance rates. Colleges already dictate the academic and extra-curricular choices of most ambitious high school students, and with ED as a growing trend, apparently for the chief purpose of yield control (and thus rankings), the strangle hold tightens. Maybe going test optional was just a way for some schools to give the College Board the one-finger salute and hold on to all the power.
Responding to a different post about male/ female acceptance rates, yes, they are in the common data set and they are fascinating. Depending on your gender, the numbers can be hopeful or crushing. Vassar 2017-18: 35% of male applicants were admitted, but only 19% of female applicants.
Yeah you think colleges are test optional because they care about student choice? Lol no it’s so only the people with the highest scores submit, which raises rankings.
Didn’t have time to read all the posts. I see that this year’s acceptance rates are significantly lower than previous years’. Main reason? I believe this much difference must be due to increased multiple applications of same applicants. Am I right?
Actually, while that may once have been true, going test optional is now more likely to hurt colleges in the USNWR rankings, which penalize schools for not including the test scores of over a certain percentage of students. I can’t remember what the exact percentage is but I think it might be 70%. The penalty is greater than the boost from the larger admissions pool so numerically it make sense for the school to include in their stats the scores of kids who didn’t submit them. Bowdoin’s common data set, from which the USNWR numbers are gleaned states,
Assuming a 5% overlap of kids who submitted both, that means that the school collected and reported scores from virtually every applicant whether they used them in the admissions process or not.
The general assumption is that non-submitters have lower scores. If this is true the school would be doing itself a disservice if it were trying to game the rankings by not requiring standardized test scores.
Nope, because students can only say yes to one acceptance. If it were simply the same admissions pool applying to a large number of schools within the same pool of schools the number of applications would go up but the yield would go down, leaving acceptance rates the same.