But the real issue is that we don’t know if it hurts or not in the final decision by schools. We won’t know until some AO at the schools you are applying to chimes in with what actually happens in the room as opposed to what they say at an info session. My DD did not submit her score (33, only sitting due to pandemic) to the ivies she applied to and was rejected. She ended up at her first choice school anyway and would have chosen that over the ivies even if she’d have gotten in at that point, but really, we’ll never know if she would have gotten in if she had submitted her score. If we had to do it again, we would have submitted it, despite advice from college counselor to not submit.
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I didn’t make any claim about the percentage accepted without test scores, and I certainly didn’t claim that “MIT didn’t accept in 2021 applicants who didn’t submit test scores.” On the other hand, you assumed, without any solid factual basis, that MIT “may have 15%+ non-submitters in its freshman class in 2021.” I think your assumption is faulty for the reason I explained above.
I don’t doubt MIT has conducted and is conducting an internal analysis, but it wasn’t comparing test optional with test mandatory, because MIT was never truly test optional.
My original post on this subtopic was in response to another poster who made that claim. My quick analysis was to show that MIT did likely accept a significant percentage of test non-submitters. No one, other than MIT, knows the exact percentage.
I can understand why some opponents of standardized testing want to show that MIT had little or no intention to accept any test non-submitters and its analysis that led to its decision to require test scores again is faulty because it didn’t accept those students to begin with and therefore couldn’t do the analysis properly. But that’s their belief.
That poster didn’t make the claim either. Their claim was that MIT didn’t accept many, not any. I think the point was valid, and you certainly haven’t refuted it.
It seems you are inferring intentions here to suit your position, but I don’t think it is the supposed “opponents of standardized testing” (that’s not how I would describe myself) who are manipulating what MIT has done here.
Speaking for myself only, I am just going by what MIT has indicated. MIT has been abundantly clear that its decision to require tests has nothing do do with their admissions results of the past couple years. Here is @MITChris directly addressing the issue on the MIT reinstates ACT/SAT test requirement thread:
So according to @MITChris, the decision was nothing about the admits from the past few years. If you think he has it wrong, you should contact him and correct him.
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I believed what he said. It was you and the other poster who didn’t in that thread.
LOL. I don’t know what you are talking about, but it sure isn’t related to this thread. 
MIT’s decision to stick with test required wasn’t based on the results of the past few years.
@MITChris could not have been more clear on this.
“…never…many” means “very few” here, doesn’t it? So few that they have little impact on MIT’s study.
Harvard is the most prestigious school in the world, and some people allow that to sway their decisions… even against other highly prestigious schools like Stanford and MIT.
Stanford owns the advantage of being the only HYPSM school located in California. If a kid gets into two+ of HYPSM, and they prefer CA… there is only one option.
I am aware that Harvard wins the majority of cross admit battles with other prestigious schools - I was only surprised in the one case because the student in question was so strong in CS and Harvard is not nearly as strong as MIT in that area.
@MITChris told us that the decision to continue to require testing had nothing to do with “admits from the past few years.” If you disagree, perhaps you should reach out and explain why.
I’m not the one who is trying to discredit MIT’s decision on reinstating test requirement. Shouldn’t those who do “reach out and explain why” instead?
Not trying to discredit their decision. Just trying to bust the myth that the decision was based on an analysis of the admits who didn’t submit tests during Covid. MIT has made it abundantly clear that this wasn’t the case. Not sure why you won’t accept MIT’s word on this issue.
It is a mystery why some elite schools, such as Columbia U, dislike SAT testing, considering that it is a standardized test that provides the most important and cost-effective way to demonstrate a student’s ability. If you have to choose between believing what MIT says and what Columbia said, it would be wise to choose MIT without hesitation.
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The overlap of kids for which both MIT and Columbia are a good fit is likely small.
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However, the percentage who submitted both SAT and ACT may have declined during COVID-19, because some who would have taken and possibly submitted both could have only gotten a seat for one.
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Many of the HS class of 2021 found it nearly impossible to take the SAT or ACT because of COVID restrictions and outright cancellations, so I’d wager many more than 15% were TO that admissions season. My D21 had her SAT cancelled 4 times. She ended up applying TO to Stanford and was admitted. She knew someone who flew to New Orleans (their home is in Seattle) to take the SAT that year, they were a potential high scorer applying to MIT (or Harvard? can’t recall) and wanted scores to submit. This must be an extreme case.
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I wasn’t the one who claimed that MIT accepted “few” test non-submitters and therefore they had “little impact” on MIT’s study. I only pointed out that MIT may had many more non-submitters and only MIT would know whether they had any impact on its study.
Sure. But the point is that we can’t ignore those who submit both test scores. The fact is that a very significant portion of MIT matriculants did so in prior years (including the year 2020) and we can’t assume they all practically disappeared in 2021.
Also, the claim made by Columbia University that their decision to eliminate the SAT requirement is based on the belief that students cannot be defined by any single factor seems questionable. The SAT has never been the sole factor in admissions decisions, and it is illogical to argue that a student who claims to be good at math cannot perform well on the relatively simple SAT math section.
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I have a sneaking suspicion that the bureaucracies pushing for these reforms might have an over representation of low scoring math SATs. But I could be wrong…
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