Exactly. The AO said that they don’t want to keep leading students on, so they prefer to just flat out reject applicants so they can move on.
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i’ve read that 20% or so get deferred. about the same they accept.
yeah i just read that in 2018 900 ish students were deferred and only 99 were accepted in the RD round
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Last year Duke deferred 769 people out of the 4,300 that applied, they accepted 887. It’s pretty consistent with the whole “not wanting to lead us on” thing.
My son was fortunate to attend one of the top high schools in the country. I can tell you that many of his classmates, including him, did not start standardized testing until the Spring of their Junior year. And it turned out alright for my son. He’s a freshman at Stanford.
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in my daughter’s HS the top students all take the SAT starting the summer (usually August) before 11th grade and are basically done by the fall. My daughter took it in once in October 2019 and was done. I doubt anyone is applying TO from her school!
wait wdym by not having a score and living in a wealthy/affluent era won’t slide cause uh that’s me 
As someone from what’s basically a feeder school I would say that this is only partially true. My friend group is very proactive and applying to t-20s ivies but only one of us finished testing before the pandemic started. We all started in the fall as we were advised but I don’t think it’s fair to make a generalization like that.
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Like idk what test prep looks like where you guys live and someone mentioned how it’s hard when you’re an athlete. With my sports schedule we compete almost every single saturday from october to february so it’s almost impossible to test because unfortunately with my sport you can’t miss a competition for the test. And then my team also travels so we were away for the february act and then the pandemic started. Anyways with my test prep company and my sports schedule what people on my team do is the first take a real test in october or september (whichever or both if they don’t conflict w schedule) but then we’re busy every weekend until february. But then we travel in february so this year we couldn’t take feb act so then that left april and we all know what happened then. like we’re all proactive kids but our schedule legit just didn’t allow us to finish testing that early. Many people I know were able to test come the fall but then again they also drove 6 hours to do this. Idk what duke has said but cornell was like don’t travel to another state or area if you don’t feel comfortable and where things were where I lived in the fall i didn’t feel comfortable and i also didn’t to potentially bring covid from where i live to where i tested. Like I get some people are really using TO to hail mary at some schools but like some of us really couldn’t finish testing
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honestly i’m just speculating here, i’m just another senior. but my thought process was just that generally, wealthy people have more access to resources, can get tests done earlier, etc.
Oh ik what you mean. We start test prep usually end of junior year and start early senior year. Only one of my friends was able to finish in the fall but a lot of the rest of my friends had sports conflicts that could not be resolved. I get what you’re saying though
Especially at schools with better math programs. I mean, idk about any other school but at mine, we were recommended to take our first sat when we finished Algebra 2 (which was sophmore year for me and I assume many others applying to Duke) and the ACT partial way through precal (which was junior year) because of the math content in both exams.
If had the time, money, and knowledge to take a test but chose to go TO, I can imagine the AOs will see that and may count it against me. Of course, if I literally couldn’t because of time constraints, they would know because we put all of our activities (and how time consuming they are) in the application. But I can’t imagine they would overlook it otherwise.
In conclusion, @bagelfan26, I think you’ll be fine.
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Please don’t worry. There will be many factors for those who are TO, just as there will be for those who submit scores. Colleges know which regions were shut down, and your school report from the guidance counselor will also include that if they’re on their game. If an applicant is super compelling, coming from a state that was heavily locked down (like ours was—no tests from March through September at a minimum), that’s knowledge that will be readily available to colleges and universities. They’re very cozy with the testing companies; they won’t have to try too hard to get that info if they want it.
At the end of the day, everyone will land where they’re meant to be. And most importantly, you all will thrive. I promise.
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It’s def fair.
wait what are you referring to lol
@NESCACDAD Sounds like it definitely did work out for your son, congrats! That’s why I specifically said “most kids in certain areas…”. It’s not a one size fits all kind of thing but there are certain regions of the country and for other reasons as I mentioned that kids wait to take it until after April.
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@rockypa Our high school is one of the top public high schools in the country. Most seniors take it for the first time in October of Junior year or definitely by December of Junior year. A few if they play a sport take it later. The hyper vigilant or ones with siblings take it earlier. Many kids will take it every time it’s offered just to increase their score 1 point if they can. Of course, not all 400+ kids can get into a top school nor will they try, so I have no doubt many of them will be submitting test scores. It will be fascinating to see who gets into what schools this year because of it because everyone knows who’s taken what rigorous classes and who hasn’t and who has the grades and who doesn’t.
Good luck to your daughter!
@bagelfan26
Exactly my point. You hit it on the head. Some people don’t understand that an athlete’s schedule doesn’t allow them to take it at the same time as everyone else and you live in NY so when the crap hit the fan it really hit and nothing was normal for a long time.
@allsimp Wow that’s a little presumptuous. My son’s school offers a test prep class first semester of junior year. If you take it, then you generally don’t take the test until February at the earliest. If you play a winter sport, then you can’t take it until later. The ACT is not offered every month further complicating things. Also, seats are limited so if you don’t register early enough you don’t get a seat.
But being wealthy and having access to more resources, doesn’t equate to someone taking it earlier. I know plenty of wealthy people who never took it before April.
Tons of people in California never took the SAT because it was cancelled every time. Beverly Hills people couldn’t take it. I would say many of them are fairly wealthy.
Just wow.
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Clown
i feel like it’s not a reach to say a lot of wealthy people take standardized tests earlier. if you have a literal test prep class at your school maybe you take it later on but i don’t think that exists for a lot of people, and i wasn’t really referring to athletes in my original comment either (probably shouldn’t have generalized as much as did though so my fault for that). but like i said earlier, how are any of us going to be real judges of this when none of us are AOs? my main point was that if you don’t have a test but others who go to your school do, they will assume you had access to similar resources and didn’t take advantage of them. and like other people on this thread have said, it’s all just speculation. we can’t control it nor do we have any real insider knowledge on the topic.
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