Regarding the proposal, that submitting AP scores now be permitted at Columbia and elsewhere in lieu of optional SAT/ACT…
At many high schools the AP exams are “test optional”.
The low distribution of below 3’s could therefore not be a matter of coarsely-grained grading, but to some degree a result of kids who were already struggling with/failing the class probably being the least motivated to also sit through (and pay for) a punishing AP exam?
I suppose that’s where the “holistic” aspect comes in: If you’re trying to decide between two similarly strong applications, and only one has a very favorable SAT/ACT - than you look for other very favorable items that are unique to the other application.
I’m staying away from the popular “if there were two identical applications, one with one without SAT/ACT…” because in reality there are not ever going to be two truly identical applications, with identical ECs, etc. So there’s going to be a subjective valuation of other factors in the application, weighing them against the “measurable” results of numeric scores.
Good question - I’m guessing at some point, a 25th or lower percentile score might result in a lower academic ranking, while a 50th percentile score might give the admission officer at least one indication that a candidate might be a good fit academically - while looking for similar indications in candidates who don’t submit scores?
I wonder what’s causing all these schools to suddenly realize that the ACT/SAT helps wealthier people.
They had it for years and it’s common knowledge that richer people do better than poorer people.
The question I have is, why now? What’s suddenly caused Columbia to come to this conclusion?
They had years they could have come to that conclusion. Activists had been asking about it for years. So why now?
Why now when they didn’t listen to those activists years before?
It really makes you wonder.
There are three factors – herding behavior, pull factors and push factors.
You are too scared to step out of line yourself relative to your peers like the other ivys – pre covid. Covid was a push factor – no choice there. And the activists are a pull factor. And now, if this is where the herd is, it is comfortable to be in the middle of the crowd, and be on the good side of the activists. No one politically important is asking them to start testing again.
To be honest, I’ve seen very few articles praising them for this decision. Most have been incredibly critical of them for it.
Then these schools wonder why there’s so much cynicism in the admissions process when they’re removing the only real quantitative standardized evidence there is.
obviously the looming scotus decision is a factor.
There were ~1000 test optional colleges prior to COVID, but what changed was obviously COVID. COVID forced nearly all colleges to stop requiring SAT/ACT because it wasn’t safe for some students to take the tests. Most colleges have chosen to continue to not require tests now that it is safe to take the tests.
The specific reasons why they colleges are continuing to not require SAT/ACT vary by college and likely include a variety of different contributing factors, but one factor is likely seeing that not requiring scores is possible and is having certain positive effects.
A similar pattern has occurred in numerous other industries. For example, the company I work for has never had remote employees prior to COVID. However, COVID forced us to be nearly 100% remote. Forcing us to be remote was challenging at first, with getting used to remote Zoom/Skype meetings and such, but eventually we made it work and saw remote employment can be successful and has certain positive effects. So the company continued to allow remote employees years later, after it is medically safe to come in to the office.
I don’t agree with this assumption that SAT only helps the wealthy. Scores are looked at in a vacuum and can be judged relative to other people in the same socioeconomic bracket or the same school system.
And there have always been kids from disadvantaged communities who have been able to score well enough to be noticed.
Removing any use of scores just allows the rich to use their money getting essay help and fancy internships. It just shifts the focus. It’s a lateral move, not a progressive one.
Oh I agree with you.
My position if it wasn’t clear is that removing the ACT/SAT is not a good thing.
I was just framing it in a way that I know those opposed to testing would see it.
Just curious. What are the positive effects besides potentially increasing overall applications and increasing applications from disadvantaged groups? How much is the increase?
Those are the positive effects he’s talking about lol.
People are speculating that the numbers among certain groups will shrink in the next admissions cycle.
Dropping test scores helps mitigate that decline.
I am actually curious if there are explicit negative effects of this policy – are employers more discerning of new grad employees and rely less on the school they graduate from? Is there more employer testing at the stage of hiring new grad employees? are there long term stereotypes that become stronger in the process?
Essay ratings are more correlated with family income than SAT scores, but no one seems to be suggesting that colleges drop the essays:
Wealthy parents get sent to jail if they fake their kids SAT scores. No such penalty exists for faking their essays…
That makes sense- “Essay Optional.”
So there you have it:
Test Optional
Essay Optional
Letters of Recommendation Optional
Extracurricular Activities- already optional
? Report card optional
At some point, the admissions process gets pretty absurd.
At some point?
Having grown up in Europe, this country’s entire higher education system seems absurd in many facets, admissions just being one of them. Fortunately, we were able to make the absurdity work for us quite well, but our family is keenly aware of our privilege of being able to afford to do so!
It means that for the candidate who submitted, the AOs know that kid performed very well on a standardized test. 
It also means they don’t have that information for the other student, but there may be other factors which may demonstrate that the other student is (or isn’t) well-qualified academically. Likewise, there may be factors that demonstrate that the 1580 kid is not a good fit despite their high test score. In both cases there is more to the evaluation than just the test score or lack thereof, and in many cases colleges don’t feel like they need an SAT score to evaluate whether a student is qualified academically.
It isn’t that complicated once one lets go of the notion that these colleges always need a test score to determine whether each student is well qualified academically and a good fit for the school.
So what? If other factors exist which indicate the student is well-qualified academically, fills the needs of the school pursuant to the school’s mission, then why does it matter? For example, if the student is number one in their class, has taken an extremely rigorous schedule, received a bunch of 5s on any available APs, has stellar recommendations, raised their siblings, worked two real jobs, and received national honors in journalism, are they really not qualified because they have a 1480? Does an admissions office really need to see their SAT score to know whether they want to admit such a student?
Some of these schools don’t put the same importance on these scores as you do, and they want students like that to apply. They don’t believe that a student with a 1480 or 1280 should be automatically disqualified. It is a loss to the school if such students avoid applying because they have a 1480 or a 1280.
Why? Do you think the schools should be required to line students up in a numerical ranking academically, then only take top x number of students? What if, instead, they just look at the whole file, determine if the kid is well qualified academically, then move on to other factors the schools value, such as whether the applicant is from a small town in North Dakota.
I’m guessing Darkmatter’s comment relates to expectation of a future supreme court decision. That wasn’t what I was referring to. I think some people are reading far too much in to a possible future supreme court decision that has not happened in many previous attempts and many do not think is likely to happen this time. Why create a permanent policy over a far from certain future event, rather than wait until the event actually occurs in less than a year?
I was instead referring to a combination of several other factors. For example, Columbia’s application volume increased by an unprecedented more than 50% in the year they went test optional – more applicants than any of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, etc. I doubt Columbia wants to quickly give up this huge increase in application volume, especially considering that they may see a decrease in upcoming years due to USNWR related issues. Instead I’d expect they want to do everything possible to minimize the likely future decrease in applications, and related negative effects. There may be similar benefits for stat publications.
The increase in application volume is likely especially large among groups for which SAT/ACT score tends to be a relatively weaker section of application – lower income, URMs, and women. These are all groups that I expect Columbia especially wants to target. I include women in this group because Columbia has a separate school of engineering, and does not make it easy to switch in/out of engineering school post admission. Schools that have separate engineering schools like this often prefer to have a reasonable gender balance in the engineering school, which can make women and underrepresented group. For example, Cornell Engineering sometimes has 3x acceptance rate for women than men.
There also may be benefits among public perception of the college, at a time when public perception of the college is struggling, with the USNWR debacle. I expect Columbia has also reviewed possible effects on USNWR ranking with their updated data submission and calculations.
Perhaps most importantly, after COVID forced Columbia to be test optional they gained experience with test optional admissions. Their AOs learned that is possible to focus on other criteria that is available within the application among applicants who don’t list scores. The college appears to be satisfied with the class that was created under this policy, which includes admitting some students would not otherwise be admitted in previous classes, and I expect the college sees this as a benefit.
You’d be surprised how many colleges are essay optional already. S23 applied to a bunch of them, because he hates writing essays (eg Utah, ASU and Arizona). They are also recommendation optional (so he never even needed to ask for one). He did however choose to send his great SAT score (1530), and that got him merit at both ASU and Utah (both are test optional).
Now we just need to persuade Columbia to do the same…
I’m not trying to debate you. You are making inferences based on what I wrote that are not true. I believe my question has a logical basis.
If you have 2 six-sided dice and roll them, you can easily compare the results.
However if you are comparing 2 dissimilar dice, 1 six-sided die and 1 four-sided die, how do you interpret the results after you roll them, especially if the 2 numbers are within 2 points of each other with the six-sided die the same or higher number?
And I believe I answered your question. At least that was my intention.
Applicants are not dice. There are never two applicants that are the same. And the value that comes up on a roll isn’t necessarily all that important to some schools.
You are assuming that colleges are playing a game that I don’t think they are playing. Some aren’t all that interested in comparing the numerical value on the dice in the manner you suggest. The relative values on the roll aren’t the end-all-be-all for their selection process. Colleges may value one die because it is uniquely shaped, and another because it is shiny. It depends on what the college is looking for.
To move away from the metaphor to real life, it’s always an apples to oranges comparison whether tests are involved or not. Otherwise, how does a college compare the editor of the school paper to captain of the debate team to the first chair violinist to the privileged rich kid at the fancy boarding school to the dairy farmer’s kid in a tiny and poor rural school to the aspiring poet to the dungeons and dragons champion to the aspiring comedian to the math contest wizard to the environmental activist?
My answer is they don’t compare them in a ranking sense like you suggest. Rather, they determine if they are qualified then accept the ones that that best fit with the school’s mission and goals. It isn’t about who scored highest on one particular test, it is about who is qualified and best fits.