Covid is making it harder to get into a top college

It may be different depending on the high school.

In a high school with a well-oiled college-admissions train, probably most students take SAT/ACT starting in 11th grade or earlier, giving them plenty of time to retry (or, with COVID-19-based cancellations, plenty of chances to try to get one more test date).

But there are probably some high schools where students do not think about SAT/ACT until late 11th grade or early 12th grade. These are probably lower SES high schools where the college bound students are probably mostly headed to the local community college or less selective state university, rather than the high SES public schools, magnet or special public schools, or academically-focused private schools.

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At our school they were able to have the school day SAT in March and then another one in October. We are a low income school, so almost all our kids only take the two school day tests because they are free. We had a few kids matched with QB and a few accepted ED/REA without scores, so not submitting a score when a lot of your peers are didn’t hurt them.

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Point me to it, please.

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To properly produce the “whole” package for each college s/he applies to, an applicant may have to limit the number of applications, even if s/he doesn’t have any financial constraint. That limit obviously varies with each applicant and the types of colleges s/he applies to. UPenn isn’t one of those colleges that an applicant just needs to fill out some forms. Besides, many applicants are constained financially so there’s a limit to how many colleges they can afford to apply to.

This is fantastic and very fortunate in the case that they had the opportunity to get the all school SAT in March. Our school they were supposed to get it in April but of course thanks to Covid they didn’t and some still have not gotten that SAT which is required to graduate. They have however at least gotten those numerous ACTs since that is actually the preferred choice of parents/students.

Think of all the students that never had a chance to take it and absolutely no prep. I don’t know if your school has any prep since the kids knew they were taking it in March and didn’t have any hiccups in that timetable, but for those that did poor on it this year, it didn’t hurt them in the least, where in past years it most definitely would have.

@ucbalumnus Yes, here most students take the SAT/ACT normally starting in October and then again every time it’s offered until they hit their desired score. Few tend to take it in September of senior year but some shoot for their one last try at increasing it. In our case since it was our 4th time through and we knew how crazy junior year was and how demanding it is and my son is a spring athlete we knew it had to be taken even earlier so he took it in July and Sept of Junior year and then was finished. There weren’t that many juniors taking it with him but that last batch of seniors. He also didn’t want to spend every few Saturdays testing when he had other things going on with school work and activities. He missed out on the subject SAT since that would’ve been in June of junior year and then was cancelled and then got booted out of it in October to make room for SAT seats but then said forget it as far as rescheduling. Some schools also made a better effort at getting kids in and scheduled than others which don’t make for a level playing field at all.

I am happy this is my last time going through this process and it cannot end soon enough. I have told my kid he can basically chill out and do nothing the rest of the year as his grades won’t mean much of anything as far as his GPA (he isn’t about to earn any C’s) but he still cares about only getting high grades so whatever floats his boat. I don’t even care how he does on AP tests at this point or if he has to retake the classes in college. I don’t trust that he is getting enough in remote learning as he would be in person since the class time is so much shorter, but whatever. Maybe he will get to see the inside of his school before the end of the year.

I am there with you! So glad this is the last kid, and so glad he got into his dream school early action (it wasn’t really his dream school before he heard, but after hearing, he decided that he was done!)

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Yes but the T20 schools have very smart people working in admissions with lots of experience. They’re only missing one data point on an application (and I’m curious to see the % of kids who weren’t able to take the SAT or ACT
S21 could’ve taken the ACT 3 times this fall). I would think they’re able to get a good read on applicants based on their school profile and other data points. Most of the applicants this year at least had 2.5+ years of HS to build somewhat of a resume. Next year or the year after will be much more difficult for AO’s because those classes will have little to no EC’s.

Yes. I understand the difference. I was using the typical CC outstanding student stats of 1500/4.0 in general. The number of kids in that stratosphere is the same this year as last year and the year before that
even without the SAT this year. It’s up to the schools and AO’s to differentiate between the tippy-top students and the rung right below them
I think they’ll be able to do that. The admissions office in these schools know what they’re doing.

Yes. The number of secondary students has been increasing. I think this is the peak year at my S21’s HS but the number of kids enrolling in college has been decreasing so is it really more competitive?

https://thebestschools.org/magazine/us-college-enrollment-slump/

I just find the headline a little “sensational”. The number of tippy-top students hasn’t changed post Covid. Some percentage of kids were able to take the ACT/SAT. This class was able to take the PSAT for NMSF status. The number of kids the T20 schools will enroll is the same as before Covid. So the acceptance rate goes from 7% to 5% at some of these schools. Is that really significant? It was already very difficult to get accepted.

The only thing that changed was TO and some students throwing out a Hail Mary. Some schools have already gone TO the past few years and do just fine. I would think the Admissions office at these T20 schools are very savvy and know how to pick the right students.

In sports terms I look at it like college football. When the first rankings come out there’s a lot of debating. However, as the season goes on everything seems to work itself out. The best teams seem to bubble up to the top. I think this year’s T20 admissions will be the same way.

The Harvard admission process has been well documented due to the lawsuit, perhaps more so than any other highly selective college. The admission decision involves consideration of a large number of components and rating applicants in a wide variety of different criteria. The film should have little to no influence in most of these criteria. How do you know that a film that was submitted with the application is the reason that the student was admitted? Or changed the decision from what it would have been with no film?

It sounds like you thought a kid outside of your family was not as intelligent as his siblings, and hearing he had a lower SAT score confirmed your belief. This is not a very scientific analysis. More thorough analysis of tens of thousands of students find that test scores are poor predictors of getting through college to graduate. In some studies, SAT score has explained as little as <5% of variance in chance of a particular student graduating. The other >95% depended on other factors, most of which probably have little to do with stats.

If you compare the incremental benefit SAT adds beyond the rest of the application, the benefit is even smaller. Other components of the application are likely to reveal a weaker student besides just his score. This is particularly true at highly selective colleges. It’s quite rare to have a student who has As in a very high course rigor compared to a national pool, LORs from his teachers talking best student in years, ECs/awards that are impressive among a national pool of applicants, and excels in every thing else
 except he bombs the SAT. In the rare instance where this occurs, I’d expect the combination of numerous other factors are the more reliable indicator, and instead there may be a unique reason for the poor SAT such as test anxiety or slower reading due to 2nd language.

Going test optional is not a new an unknown frontier that has never been attempted. Instead prior to COVID-19 there were over 1000 test optional colleges. Several of them have published documentation comparing performance of test submitter admits to test optional admits. Almost without exception, such studies find a negligible difference in graduation rate between submitters and non-submitters at test optional selective colleges.

For example, some stats from the Bates 25 years of test optional report at https://www.bates.edu/admission/files/2014/01/25th-Year-SAT-report-Stanford-6.3.11-wch.ppt are below.

Mean SAT Score: Submitters: ~620/~620 , Non-Submitters: ~540/~535
Gender: Submitters = 48% Female, Non-submitters =59% Female
Race: Submitters = 3% URM, Non-submitters = 5% URM

Mean Graduation Rate: Submitters = 89%, Non-Submitters = 89%
Mean College GPA: Submitters = 3.16, Non-Submitters = 3.12
Natural Science Major: Submitters = 23%, Non-Submitters = 17%
Humanities Major: Submitters = 31%, Non-Submitters = 28%

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“To properly produce the “whole” package for each college s/he applies to, an applicant may have to limit the number of applications, even if s/he doesn’t have any financial constraint.”

As someone (I think a student) posted, you can copy and paste essays, even for the Penn’s of the world. Remember that without campus visits, you can use a lot of the same material, here’s an example:

Penn - I would have loved to visit Philadelphia but couldn’t because of covid, I know its a great city with lots of things to do
 I will totally find myself there!

Columbia - I would have loved to visit NYC but couldn’t, I know it’s a great city with lots of things to do, I will totally find myself there!

“Point me to it, please.”

I think I mentioned (maybe another thread) that the college board doesn’t publish officially (unless I missed it) test takers by grade for a given SAT test. I know that many jrs here in the bay area take the SAT in Oct or Dec of jr year along with the PSAT since they studied for both in the summer. It’s a few high schools so anecdotal but lot of kids take it in jr year fall.

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It’s more than just the “why us” essay. For example, this year’s UPenn-specific essays are:

a) How did you discover your intellectual and academic interests, and how will you explore them at the University of Pennsylvania? Please respond considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected. (300-450 words)

b) At Penn, learning and growth happen outside of the classroom, too. How will you explore the community at Penn? Consider how this community will help shape your perspective and identity, and how your identity and perspective will help shape this community. (150-200 words)

There’re more essays if the applicant applies to M&T, Huntsman program, etc.

Generic essays would do little for the applicant and likely a waste of time.

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I’m in the bay area. My kid, along with the bulk of her peers, could not take the test. In our local bay area schools, the PSAT is administered in the Fall of Junior year and then the SAT in March.

So I don’t think using anecdotal evidence either way provides much clarity. If there is no data available, then there doesn’t seem much point in extrapolating from one’s own kid’s experience. Sweeping statements about who could or could not take the test aren’t very useful.

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There continues to be posters who insist that all students could have taken an SAT or ACT test sometime since Mid-March.

I find those posts short-sighted. And, I think these posters need to be reminded that even if a test COULD be taken, some students chose NOT to take one bc of the risks they would expose to them self and others (eg family members who may be older or autoimmune compromised, etc) if they did.

My S was very fortunate to have taken the ACT in Feb and got a fabulous score and thus, did not need to try and take it again.

However, even if he had done poorly or just okay on it, there is no way I would have allowed him to try and register for one at anytime since then. For us, the possible health risks would have been way too great to even consider taking a test the last 9 months.

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What do you mean by the SAT is administered in March, is that one where it’s hosted at your high school? The SAT is administered eight times a year, at last check. I don’t know why you keep bringing up the March date. Maybe it’s the one at your hs so it’s convenient, there’s no way your hs, if it’s in the bay area, can tell you when to take the SAT. The Oct and Dec SATs were hosted at local hs and places like SJSU.

“There continues to be posters who insist that all students could have taken an SAT or ACT test sometime since Mid-March.”

I don’t think most are saying that, I pointed out that you could take it in fall of 2019 before the pandemic. Actually, the SAT was offered five times, once each month in Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, 2019. I agree that it would be unreasonable to expect a test at the March or anytime afterwards.

I’m well aware of how many dates there are. I tried all over the Northern part of CA state to get a test for my kid. We are in the North Bay.

Yes, the March date was our school date. Cancelled. And they never tried to host it again.

So I had her registered in June and Sept at local community colleges (both cancelled). Then again in Oct (two separate dates, I think) in Shasta County and Plumas County, then in November in Lake county and in December in Sonoma county. All cancelled.

We were en route to the Shasta County test, (in the middle of fire season with the AQI at 450 ) when we got a text that it was cancelled because a student tested positive for Covid. At least all the other tests gave us more notice.

The only one of my kid’s friends who managed to take the test has a second home in Tahoe, and he took it in NV.

The argument is not about how many kids got to take the SAT/ACT before March. The argument is how many kids got to take it in time for college applications. @parentologist as well as @srparent15 has maintained that most kids who wanted to take the test could. I’m simply pointing out that this is not the case.

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delete

I agree, there also many kids in the non-cc world who plan to only take the test once because of finances and usually that’s senior year fall since they need the three years of math/English, and those kids could not have taken the SAT.

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While I know many tests were cancelled in CA, many tests were cancelled in NY as well and in Illinois but I know a lot of people in all three of these states that drove to other states to take the SAT or ACT this fall when they were offered numerous times and not cancelled just to make sure they could get it in even if just one time. It sounds like you at least had it in March while these were kids who didn’t even get it at that time that drive to Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Arizona, Maine, Jersey, Ohio, or just anywhere they could get the test in.

I can’t remember the publication I read it in but in October there was a number that listed the percentage of seniors that had taken the ACT/SAT at least once and it was a pretty big percentage. Obviosuly if you’re school had every junior take it in March then it had 100% of all of this year’s seniors take the SAT so in fact what both @parentologist and I are saying is indeed accurate.

What I said was, our school cancelled the March date. My child does not have a test. Her peers do not have a test, despite being willing to drive many hours to find an available center.

I don’t understand the investment in proving that most kids had the chance to take this test. Mine didn’t but I’m not on some quixotic quest to prove that most other kids are like mine and also didn’t have that chance.

I’d simply like to be pointed to the data that you keep citing, but now can’t locate, that says that most kids who wanted to take it were able to.

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