Covid is making it harder to get into a top college

Applying to College
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It was more that just statistically significant. The score on the SAT Writing section in isolation explained 17% of variance in cummulative GPA, which was the 2nd strongest correlation with cumulative college GPA in isolation among any of the analyzed criteria, after HS GPA. The combination of all sections of SAT with optimally selected weighting (different from combined score) was no doubt had a noteworthy correlation with college GPA in isolation, probably with a slightly higher % variance explained than the UC study reported. Yet when the SAT removed from their model, they found that no significant loss in predictive ability. The predictive ability of the SAT appeared to be almost entirely duplicated by the other factors that that remained for test optional applicants, particularly the combination of HS GPA + strength of schedule + AP credit total.

That is SAT score in isolation without considering anything else in the application. It would be relevant if colleges admitted based on SAT score in isolation, without considering any other factors. However, for the purposes of test optional admission, the more relevant question is how much of that 21% is duplicated by other components that will be considered among test optional admits? I expect that the overwhelming majority of 21% is duplicated, such that little predictive power will be lost with SAT removed, like occurred in the Ithaca study. Strength of curriculum including having past success in college level classes (taken during HS) is particularly relevant for predicting freshman GPA, yet strength of schedule and/or success in college level classes (taken in HS) does not appear to be considered in the study. I expect SAT scores serves a partial substitute for these missing important criteria.

It’s also worthwhile to note that colleges rarely emphasize trying to admit the class that will have the highest predicted first-year GPA prior to effects of the a curve. Instead they are generally more concerned with success beyond just freshman year, particularly successfully graduating from the college.

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That was great for your daughter that she had National Merit to show schools, even without having had the opportunity to take the SAT.

SATs were offered at many schools across the country in the fall, to make up for the repeated cancellation of testing dates in many areas of the country in the spring and summer, thus giving many students the opportunity to eventually take a test. You report that your child did not have that opportunity, and certainly, tests were cancelled from about March through August. Beginning in September, there were many more testing dates and sites available, including testing dates scheduled in schools across the country on weekdays during school hours, even when schools were on hybrid schedules. But the fact is that most students who wanted to take a test in time for the scores to be submitted for regular decision, were able to access one by early winter. Certainly, some could not, especially overseas students. And it wasn’t easy for all. And some students didn’t want to take one, knowing that they could apply test optional.

I stand by my statement that most (not every single one) who WANTED to take a standardized test, were able to by January. Simply from the string of “Should I submit my SAT score” queries on CC. one could deduce that many students had been able to take an SAT (although some of those may have been from pre-covid administrations). And yes, some, especially international students, said that they had not been able to take one, but those posts were earlier in the year.

But as a parent who spent probably 40 hours battling the ACT’s scheduling nightmare for a testing seat for my kid in the fall, I was well aware of what was going on with access to standardized testing, through other parents’ reports on social media. And the fact was, the College Board, bad as things were, did a much better job of providing access to the SAT in the fall. There weren’t many complaints that people couldn’t find a seat at all for the SAT, that persisted throughout the entire fall, for the SAT. Most of those who wanted to were able to eventually take the SAT in the fall or early winter.

So I stand by my statement that MOST (not ALL, but MOST) students who wanted to take an SAT in time for it to be added to their applications for regular decision, were able to register for and take an SAT sometime between September and January. I am curious whether your daughter continued to try to take an SAT into the late fall and early winter, and whether testing dates were unavailable in your area right through January.

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Tests in NYC were cancelled through December. I am a tutor and many, many kids were unable to take it.

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I think it would be interesting to see statistics from the college board on: tests taken by Seniors in Fall but NOT submitted with first-time testers separate data from repeat testers, test site zip code distance compared to home address zip code, and further, if these students were in more affluent areas.

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I think about her on so many threads
 Definitely miss her voice on the forums.

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I’m torn between two opposing realities. One was the realization I had, as I went through it, when trying to schedule an ACT for my son last July, that it took time, computer skills, persistence, and the means to travel (if necessary), that many people just did not have. And the other vision that popped up was of that old New Yorker cartoon, the New Yorker’s view of the world (which was my view, too, having grown up in NYC). I know for a fact that in neighboring CT, an hour’s car ride, or a commuter train ride away, testing seats were available beginning in September, and all through the fall and early winter. I suspect that this was also the case in New Jersey, and NYS outside of the city limits. There was no residency requirement. So I stand by my statement that MOST, but not ALL, who wanted to take the SAT, were able to in the fall or early winter. However, I think that it would have been a different story for poorer kids who relied on overtaxed school guidance counselors to sign them up for a test.
They may not have had the means to snag a seat, or get to a testing center not near their home.

But as a tutor, I suspect that wouldn’t have been the case for your family. I’m curious, why didn’t your daughter take advantage of the many add on testing dates, with open seats, that were available all through the fall and winter in Connecticut, and I suspect in other areas outside of NYC, too?

It was absolutely right that the schools went test-optional for this year, and appear not to have held it against applicants who applied without test scores, because the fact is that it WAS difficult, but NOT impossible, to get a test seat, from September onwards, and that a testing even in January would yield results in time for regular decision applications. The argument for next year being test optional due to the pandemic? Not so much. The SAT and ACT were never intended to be taken over and over, to “learn” the test to get a high score, although I have a feeling that the College Board and ACT are just thrilled at the unfortunate reality that some students have done just that. But I have a feeling that as colleges compare the performance in college of the test-optional cohort vs the test submitted cohort, they may very well come to the conclusion to stay test optional, which is going to lead to far, far fewer students even taking the test at all, unless it’s administered in school, during school hours, as part of the curriculum, or as a mandatory hurdle for high school graduation.

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Reading through your response, ultimately I think we’re interested in different things. To me, if standardized tests add something to the measurement, they’re valuable. It seems to you, if the schools can get close to the same measurement without them, then standardized tests should be done away with.

Some of the possible consequences of NOT using SAT/ACT tests (say, going test blind, like the UC system was this year):
(1) female applicants will be further advantaged, since on average their high school grades are far better than males, who have in the past had counterbalancing higher average test scores to help even the playing field. (on a side note, if we look at ages 12-25 and consider the percentage of males who end up in prison, don’t graduate high school, mortality rates, etc., I’m not sure that taking further steps to disadvantage them is wise or “fair”).
(2) schools may look to other standardized measurements, like AP tests (number of AP tests taken was one of the factors used by Ithaca), which I would guess will heavily skew towards high SES folks and certain demographics.
(3) the value of feeder schools (whether private or public) may increase.
(4) more applications, like we have seen this year, means less opportunity to conduct the sacrosanct “holistic review” (although, ironically, most of the factors of which were added in the past to discriminate against certain groups – echoes of which have been seen in the Harvard admissions lawsuit). Certainly a school like UCLA, which received over 130,000 applications this year, and whose admissions officers tell students that they spend 5-10 minutes reviewing the personal essays, is not conducting “holistic reviews”.

Perhaps we need a different test? I do know that the LSAT does a very good job of predicting success in law school. It’s a different environment – there is far more consistency in courses taken (yes, there are electives, but far fewer than college, and most students take the same courses first year), and the grading is done anonymously (the professor does not know which student’s exam is being graded).

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I have heard it said that high scores and lower grades are potentially a ding against a student - as an indicator that they don’t work up to their potential. The flip - strong grades and weaker scores indicates you are a grinder, which is a good thing but concerning to the extent a very rigorous school will over-tax the student.

The sweet spot is if the scores match the very high grades in the most rigorous curriculum. Then you get confirmation the kid is a fit. The question is, I think, how valuable that confirmation is if the high grades and everything else is already very predictive? If you don’t have the confirmation it is most likely going to lead to some grinders getting in that wouldn’t, but most of them will still be fine.

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Part of your dogged insistence that most people could take the test if they wanted to seems bound up with you creating a narrative about yourself – as a parent who “battled” for the test while others simply didn’t try hard enough and gave up.

But that’s false too. We were willing to drive anywhere within a day’s drive (I was not willing to fly b/c of covid) and had tests scheduled as far as a 10 hour drive away with airbnb set up for the night before. Those were cancelled too.

I and many others on this board have debunked your erroneous belief and a cursory glance of many threads shows students and parents who attest to the fact that they COULD NOT (right through to January) get a test.

Clearly you’re attached to this false idea for reasons of your own so


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Of course, regarding the spring and summer, you are right. But you are not right about the fall and early winter. Test seats were available in CT for the SAT (and ACT) beginning in September, and all through the fall and early winter. Which is why I asked you whether you had tried that option in the fall or early winter.

The scenario that you describe is absolutely what happened from mid-March through August. My description of what I went through in mid-July in an attempt to schedule an ACT for September is an illustration of exactly why the schools had to go test optional - access to the test at that time for early fall required tremendous effort, skill, time, and luck. Please don’t misinterpret this as self-glorification. I relate my experience as an illustration of what was required, hence making it inappropriate to require the test.

But that situation changed in much of the country in the fall and early winter. It became very possible to get a seat for testing, as both the College Board and the ACT opened up extra testing sites, extra testing dates, and in addition, coordinated with those schools that were open in any form, to offer in-school testing dates. For this reason, I say that MOST, not ALL, but MOST students who still wanted to take a test in the fall or early winter were able to.

Did your child continue to attempt to get a testing date into the fall and early winter, and found it impossible? Did you try the suburbs and the rest of the tri-state area in the fall and early winter?

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Yes. I’ve told you this many times. :woman_shrugging:

How you think you can extrapolate what happened in CT and apply it to other states like CA is beyond me.

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Umm, during a pandemic when Covid rates were spiking throughout the fall and early winter in hyper local ways, closing schools and businesses in a way that was impossible to predict
how much effort does anyone think any family should expend to take a standardized test that most schools had already declared optional?

Searching a tri-state area for a testing site and date for standardized testing during an airborne pandemic would not have been on my top 1000 lists of things to do. If the test wasn’t being offered within 25 miles of our home with massive covid protocols being well enforced, I would have considered taking the test to be ‘impossible’.

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I don’t have a child applying this year but if I did I wouldn’t have felt comfortable having my kid taking a 3 hour test in a room with a bunch of other students during the pandemic.

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Actually, I was asking you, who had said you were in NYC, specifically about whether you had tried the tri-state area in the fall or early winter. You had brought up NYC specifically, and it was my experience that there were plenty of seats available for the SAT and ACT in CT from September onwards. In any event, since only the College Board and the ACT have the actual data about when and where the test was offered, how many seats were available, and how many of them went unfilled because of adequate availability of testing seats, let’s put this to rest, unless anyone has that data.

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You are confused. I am not, nor did I ever say I was, in NYC.

I am on the other coast, in the Bay Area.

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In my area the school scheduled SAT and PSAT in the fall were both cancelled. If anyone wanted to test the first opportunity was January of this yr, after many applications deadlines.

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Nowhere in Washington state. D21 had 5 SATs cancelled. Schools are still closed here.

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Student Perspective Here:
I’m very torn on the issue and I think there’s a lot to be said for both sides. My experience here is definitely an anomaly and shouldn’t be looked at as any rule. I’ve already made a post similar to this on another thread, but it seems fitting to put on this too.

My Story:
On my first PSAT in 10th grade I got an 1160 then in 11th grade I got a 1250 on the PSAT. I took a course (signed myself up, obviously my parents paid but it’s not like they were recommending I do a course). I think I really just needed a weekly structure to do practice problems and hold me accountable (I know, I won’t be able to pay $700 in the future just because I need someone to look over my shoulder and tell me what to do). From January to March 2020 I spent I think 3 hours every Sunday doing practice questions at Northeastern (Princeton Review) for the course and did homework prep (I’d say like an hour) every week before the course itself. My course was designed for you to take the test the 14th of March. Friday before the test we decided to check out the school to ease any test day stresses and the person at the desk told us they just cancelled it, called the college board and was on hold for hours until I finally got through and they announced it was cancelled.
Rescheduled for August. Took some practice tests before and did khan academy for about 3 weeks and got my highest scores yet, but it was cancelled. Figured after that I would have to go test-optional for Early schools then my school announced they’d be holding an SAT in early October, so I did khan academy prep for a few weeks again. Decided to take another one in December and I got it. All in all I took 2 test, having had 2 cancelled

My Takeaways:
I was able to go 2/4 on tests, but I only got to submit my scores to early schools because my high school broke pandemic rules and held a test against the districts recommendation, and I can’t help but imagine that I was able to take my December test because I live in a big city with a lot of high schools. And hard work aside, I wouldn’t have been able to raise my score as drastically if my parents couldn’t put in that $700.

I have a friend who bought a $10 test book and studied on his own with his khan academy and got a higher score than me.
I come at this from a place of privilege but I’m of the mindset that tests are important. I think, as the only truly standardized part of our application, they should be looked at (obviously this year’s an exception since some couldn’t get a fall test). I think the most helpful thing that came with practice was getting over the time crunch. That is to say, if the time limits were lightened, I’d imagine people would do a lot better without needing to put in any money to study.

The biggest problem is by far early childhood education. I’m not gonna get on my soapbox here but removing the SAT permanently would be a bandaid on a bullet wound. I think as it stands, anyone applying to Harvard has the time to buy a $10 prep book and study on Khan Academy. I think among the people that actually stand a chance to get into T5s, removing the test won’t drastically allow social mobility. The real problem is all the kids who, from the day they were born, stood 0 chance at getting into a T50.

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I live in the NYC metro area and there was a brief window in September and October when you could test. The SAT was easier to find than the ACT, but both were available with a bit of effort (we had to drive to Horace Mann in the Bronx for one test and out to Long Island for another). After October, the Covid numbers started rising and testing pretty much shut down again.

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We are in NC and our DS had his ACT cancelled 3 times but we kept rebooking and he took it in October. I believe most in NC that wanted to take a test could have done so if they were persistent. We know many that took a test but applied TO as they were not happy. We also know several that never took either test, but they quickly quit after their first booking was cancelled.

For anyone that is an SAT tutor, have you seen your business decrease since Khan Academy became available? In our area, I do not know anyone that uses an SAT tutor any longer but in the past, it was quite widespread.