Hi,
Would love some insight. Student is a great candidate on paper. Great GPA. Great EC. Great LOR. The whole package…but the student’s scores are right at or slightly below the 50% of scores as identified in the Class of 2025 profile. Do you submit scores? Or go test optional? Argument to submit: 1. hope AO sees you are right on the cusp of their range with the knowledge that last year’s range skews higher in many cases…or go test optional ? My worry is that going test optional is going to cause AO to assume scores are much lower than 50% when in reality they are slightly lower than 50% range.
What do you think ?? Any admissions officers out there that want to weigh in on a hypothetical.
Not an AO, but had a conversation with my kiddo’s GC about this recently (unlike many public school GCs she has a lot of “ins” with AO’s and was a private college counselor before working at our HS) and she said NOT to submit below the 50th. Her feedback on TO from her AO contacts is that they don’t have time to speculate about why there is no score - they just evaluate the application on what IS included.
Is there any information on percentage of students that TO’d last year that were accepted? If the school is going back to test required next year? I’d do a deeper dive before not submitting.
First, I don’t think being at, or slightly below, the mid-50 is in any way bad. The range exists because that is where their students are.
I think where it might matter most depends on how selective the schools on the list are and what their enrollment looks like this year. D’s school had a mid-50 SAT of 1370-1500 last year with an acceptance rate of 17%. The issue for next year is the class of 2025 is way overenrolled (more than 20% bigger). That fact alone is going to influence the acceptance rate next year because they need to rebalance enrollment. I think the key is going to be understanding the big picture and what may be the better option for one school may not be for others.
It depends on a variety of factors including details of the specific college, but in general compare whether the application is superior with or without the score. Does the score help or hurt the application? This is not the same thing as above/below 50th percentile of matriculating students. Some example scenarios are below.
A prospective electrical engineering major has a 4.0 UW in a rigorous curriculum, great LORs, great ECs/awards that highlight his interest and ability in tech. All of his application is great except for a relatively weak math SAT. The combined SAT is above 50th percentile of matriculating students, but the application is better without the scores, so probably better to not submit them.
A weaker applicant with notably worse grades, LORs, ECs, … than typical matriculating students at the college. However, the college has a 60% admit rate and kids with his grades sometimes get in, so he may still be accepted. His mediocre test scores are are below 50th percentile for matriculating students, but they are better than typical among applicants with his relatively poor grades. The test scores are a strong point of the application in spite of being below 50th percentile, so probably better to submit them.
Yes, use the data from the latest CDS, not anything posted online about the 2021 admissions class. (I don’t think anyone has released a 2021-22 CDS yet).
TO will skew the 2021 admissions class data. (this is going to be a mess once 21-22 CDSs are out).
I would guess something close to the 2025 numbers will easily exceed the 20-21 CDS (Class of 2024] numbers and should be submitted.
(Fwiw, I disagree that a candidate with poor objective metrics is better off submitting another poor subjective metric).
Not to hijack, but to slightly spin-off, how about if it’s a not very selective school (50% or more acceptance) and the test scores are unbalanced, high in english and low in math or vice-versa. How do you decide?
If high (for that college) in English and Humanities/social science major, submit.
If high (for that college) in English and low math, applying for STEM, don’t.
So, 680EBRW and 520M, college average is 610-600, History major: submit. (The student will take a gen ed “quantitative” class, not a major pre-req math class.)
It’s trickier for low English class because students need English for most classes, so I’d only submit if the English score is at least at the average for the college and Math is above average.
I would submit based on major. If it’ a STEM major (engineering, etc.) than not but if it’s a social science or humanity, then I would.
I personally think a score in general is better than not - and I think most schools confirm this by having a higher acceptance rate of test submitters vs. TO.
I also think there will be more questioning not taking the test this year vs. last when it was near impossible for many. Most can’t say that anymore and that might be held against.
Obviously, I’m an amateur but it’s just what I think.
You have to realize that the scores are skewed lower by “hooked” students who were admitted with lower qualifications. Underrepresented minorities. Legacies. Donor kids. Recruited athletes. When you consider this, the students who didn’t fall into any of these categories likely had SATs at the top 25% of the range or above - someone had to, and it certainly wasn’t the kids who received preferential admission!
So no, barring other considerations, if your student is not “hooked”, I would NOT submit a score that isn’t at least above 50%. I’m assuming that everything else in the kid’s application is far above 50th percentile. Let that stand alone, without a score.
Do the test scores align with practice test scores and predicted PSAT scores if available? Then submit them. If the student is happy to be amongst the bottom 50% in terms of test taking of the admitted class, great! Someone has to do it!
If the test scores are completely off and do not describe the standardized test taking ability of the student, omit.
I’m sorry for being obtuse, I just don’t understand not submitting a score, that sounds like a good score, if you have one. And I don’t buy that all engineering major candidates test well and all other major candidates don’t. Not my experience. I know lots of dyslexic engineers that don’t test well. They are brilliant problem solvers and the world would be a much poorer place without their unique brains.
This assumes test scores are uncorrelated with the rest of the application. This is not the case. Compared to non-submitters, test submitters are more likely to have a higher GPA, higher course rigor, better LORs, better ECs/awards, higher rate of ALDC hooks, higher rate of ED/REA/SCEA applicants, higher rate of full pay, etc. Even at a test blind college that does not consider scores in admission decisions, groups of applicants with higher average test scores (test submitters) are expected to have a higher average admit rate than groups of applicants with lower average scores (test non-submitters).
Several test optional colleges have done this type of comparison of test submitters and non-submitters. There are also many studies that look at the correlation between scores and other parts of the application. For example, in the study at https://web.archive.org/web/20181012020332/https://www.ithaca.edu/ir/docs/testoptionalpaper.pdf , Ithaca found the following approximate correlations between test scores and other parts of the application. Test scores were well correlated with both HS GPA and HS course rigor.
Correlation with Test Scores
AP Credit Hours: +0.43
HS GPA: +0.34
Strength of Schedule: +0.30
The report at https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/publications/research/defining-access-report-2018.pdf mentions the following mean GPA of applicants and admits at 13 test optional colleges. As one would expect from the correlations above, test submitter applicants had a significantly higher average GPA than test optional applicants. However, among enrolled students average GPAs were nearly identical between submitters and non-submitters . This suggests that the admit rate was likely lower for the test optional kids due to applicants having a weaker HS transcript on average, yet test optional applicants were not held to a higher GPA standard than test submitters on average.
Mean GPA at 13 Test Optional Colleges
Applicants: Submitters = 3.60, Test Optional = 3.48
Enrolled: Submitters = 3.64, Test Optional = 3.63
Good info. I don’t doubt the theory. It’s why I think you’re always (not always but when in range) better to submit the test.
And I wonder, incorrectly or not, if this year will be different because last year one could definitely have been shut out from the test taking opportunity whereas this year most can take the test.
Yet I also know schools like Wesleyan test optional applicants are 40% of the pool and Trinity is 60% - so they are letting kids in.
Maybe that’s for economic diversity, etc, or a way to get more applicants to apply. In the end, these are all businesses.