And @MITChris told us that they didn’t.
The claim I was refuting was that the non-submitters had “little impact” on MIT’s study because “few” of them were admitted.
I have nothing intelligent of my own to add on this topic. But I saw this meme that Derek Thompson posted on Twitter about Columbia’s decision and thought some of y’all might appreciate it too.
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While MIT does not specify how many were admitted test optional, other colleges do, which can be used as a reference. For example, Penn specifies that 25% of the corresponding class did not include testing as part of their application, 100% - % submitted SAT - % submitted ACT for Penn is 19%. So at Penn it appears that 6% submitted both SAT and ACT, in this post-COVID year when it was challenging to do standardized testing. If we assume 6% also submitted both SAT and ACT at MIT in this year for which testing was challenging, then that suggests 2% of matriculating students at MIT did not submit scores.
An estimated near 2% of class not submitting scores meets my definition of “few”. As stated in my original post, it’s also “few” by comparison to other colleges. All peer colleges admitted substantially more test optional admits than MIT.
Furthermore MIT had little long term information on these few students at time of returning to test required, including critical information such as graduation rate and post-graduate outcomes. It’s quite a stretch to assume that MIT did not choose to switch to test optional because these few admits without scores couldn’t cut it in their first year, rather than believe MIT Chris when he states other reasons for returning to test required.
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There’re some problems with your analysis. First of all, you can’t use UPenn’s data to infer the percentage of matriculants who submitted both SAT and ACT test scores. That percentage was much higher at MIT historically:
| Upenn | SAT | ACT | SAT+ACT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 60.00% | 40.00% | 100.00% |
| 2019 | 62.00% | 38.00% | 100.00% |
| 2020 | 65.00% | 35.00% | 100.00% |
| 2021 | 49.00% | 30.00% | 79.00% |
| MIT | SAT | ACT | SAT+ACT |
| 2018 | 76.50% | 44.60% | 121.10% |
| 2019 | 75.00% | 48.00% | 123.00% |
| 2020 | 77.00% | 42.00% | 119.00% |
| 2021 | 70.00% | 34.00% | 104.00% |
In other words, there weren’t many who submitted both scores at UPenn while at MIT, they were significant. It shouldn’t be too surprising because a significant portion of MIT students (who were admitted and enrolled) would view these tests as trivial excises, so they tended to be more likely to take both tests to see how they do without needing much preparation. They would then submit both scores if they did well on both.
Second, if no or few matriculant at UPenn submitted both test scores in prior years (based on the numbers above), it’s highly unlikely that a greater number of them did in 2021. The more accurate number of matriculants who didn’t submit any score was likely to be close to 21% (100%-79%) in 2021. The 25% number you quoted about UPenn could be the result of their preliminary estimate or rounding up that number.
Therefore, your assumption below that 6% of MIT matriculants submitted both scores
is almost certainly far off. The same with your estimate that “near 2% of class not submitting scores” at MIT.
It had nothing to do with the performance of students from those two years and everything to do with 20 years of natural experiments.
I do agree above when you say — as our blog post did — that every school needs to make decisions that make sense to them.
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You are assuming that there was a not a decrease in number of students submitting both tests in a year where it was very challenging to do standardized testing. There are stories on this forum about students who had cancelled testing many times in a row and drove hundreds of miles to neighboring states in order to take a single test one time. This relates why MIT was not test required – some students truly were not able to safely take a single test. Many students who were fortunate enough to get a single test done and achieve a high score were not enthusiastic about going through this challenging process again to take the other test. To assume there is no decrease in portion submitting both tests is clearly incorrect.
How much of a decrease is unknown. I could do a similar comparison with a different college, but I suspect you’d find problems with it. As a hypothetical example, suppose the number of students who submitted both tests was cut in half in this year where taking testing was challenging . That would put the estimated number of students who did not submit scores at 4-5%. I’d still consider 4-5% “few”; and regardless of the specific number, it’s still “few” in comparison to all peer schools, as stated in my original post.
In any case whether the portion not submitting qualifies as “few” or not, or whether the 1-2 years of information on underclassmen performance (no information on performance in major, graduation rate, post grad outcomes, …) on these students enough to do a quality internal study on impact of “test optional” (allowing students without scores to apply is not the same as being “test optional”) prior to returning to test required is a moot point. MIT Chris confirms above that the performance of these students had nothing to do with their decision to return to test required.
Well Holy Grail might be too strong a term, but Harvard and Stanford are also known for their STEM programs. If you’re talking just CS, this would be a rough approximation of the number of CS majors that apply there:
Harvard: 5200 applicants (61K apps, 8% CS majors)
Stanford: 9000 (55K, 16%)
MIT: 5500 (33K, 17%) They don’t have a pure CS major, from what I can tell, they have CS and Engineering. They also have AI, Math and CS, which I didn’t include.
Couple of differences to note, one is that MIT’s class size is about half of the other two and MIT has EA while the other two have SCEA, so if you apply to either Stanford or Harvard, you can’t apply to MIT EA.
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When visiting Caltech last month, I was impressed that nearly every other building is a laboratory. Half the students had laptops up in groups and were working coding or math equations, not Instagram. 
maybe it would feel the same inside Purdue’s engineering complex or at MIT.
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I wasn’t. But the worship of MIT as school and CS as major seem to walk hand-in-hand.
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I prefaced my assumption with an “if”:
In the absence of knowing the exact number, I find the assumption to be a reasonable one to make, partly because there was no discernable decrease in the number of submitters of both scores in 2020 (the year pandemic started).
I didn’t, and still don’t, question how MIT reached its conclusion. I don’t question how Caltech made its decision to extend its TB policy either. If I recall correctly, you were among those who were skeptical about MIT’s decision to require test scores again and often used Caltech’s decision to extend TB as a counter example.
Most students take the SAT in junior year and/or early senior year. There was relatively little testing limitations during ;all of 2019, as well as a portion of early 2020. In contrast, there was severe limitations in mid/late 2020 and early 2021. It’s a completely different situation, with a completely different expectation on testing. This contributes to why the percentage submitting tests is so much lower among students applied in late 2020/early 2021 for fall 2021 than among students who applied in late 2019/early 2020 for fall 2020 at MIT, and at every other peer college.
My post stated:
" After seeing outcomes and internal research from ~15 years of test optional showing “no statistically significant difference in the performance of students who submitted scores compared with those who didn’t”, WPI chose to switch to test blind."
A few post later, you stated:
" Both MIT and Caltech have been studying the impact of their respective TO/TB policies. It’s likely that the impact was greater and felt more quickly at MIT…"
Given the context of discussion, it implies you are talking about MIT changing to required testing in response to the studying the impact of their “test optional” policy .
No testing limitation in the spring of 2000? I find it hard to believe. Many parts of the country were shut down.
As I said, I don’t question how they reach their decisions. I’d assume MIT and Caltech had used the data they collected in the past (including the last 2 years).
That was a typo that was edited prior to your reply. MIT’s application deadlines for the class entering during fall 2020 were November 2019 (EA) and early January 2020 (RD). Applicants took SAT before these dates, presumably in 2019. There were no cases of COVID reported outside of China prior to MIT’s RD application deadline. I am not aware of any standardized testing closures due to COVID prior to MIT’s RD application deadline. It’s a completely different situation from the class entering in fall 2021, many of whom pursued testing during a period while COVID was in full force, without a vaccine available.
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Care to explain why you don’t believe @MITChris when he indicted that the decision to continue to require testing “had nothing to do with the performance of students from those two years?”
Perhaps the users who are debating test policies of MIT and Caltech can take it to PM. Alternatively, they can start a new thread in the unlikely event that there is anything new that wasn’t covered in old threads on the topic.
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I found this Twitter thread on the topic of test optional admissions interesting:
https://twitter.com/james_s_murphy/status/1632581869458845696?s=46&t=Rj8bJmSvYNwbKOalo1Ig0w
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We visited a couple of highly rejective private universities recently and they are all TO.
The AOs all said that they utilize the test scores when submitted as just an “additional data point” to assist their evaluation of the applicant. They professed no preference whether an applicant chose to send in a score or not. However, one AO went on. He said that if you are an applicant from a HS that this university knows very well and you have classmates who are also applying. If you happen to be the only applicant who didn’t submit a test score to us, what do you think we will assume is the reason?
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How would you know the test-submitting status of all other applicants from your school? Friendly questioning? Inquisition? And would you inquire not only the intention to submit test scores but also the scores themselves? So you can judge whether to submit your own?
Did anyone question this AO’s line of reasoning?
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It isn’t the students that need to know this, it is the actual AOs. And they definitely know who did and did not submit a score from the same high school.
I think the AO’s point was it is just another data point, but it may hurt to not submit when in general students from the area do.
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