<p>An astute homeschooling parent pointed out to me elsewhere in cyberspace that Bowdoin College, famed for its test-optional admission policy, is not test-optional at all for homeschooled applicants or applicants whose high school provides a narrative transcript. </p>
<p>"Note: Home-schooled applicants and candidates applying from secondary schools that provide written evaluations rather than grades are required to submit SAT I and SAT II or ACT test results. SAT II tests should include Math IC or Math IIC and a science." </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bowdoin.edu/admissions/pdf/applic_instruc_06-07.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.bowdoin.edu/admissions/pdf/applic_instruc_06-07.pdf</a> </p>
<p>So Bowdoin is best described as a high-school-grades mandatory college rather than a testing-optional college. Some applicants still MUST submit test scores to have their applications considered. This illustrates the dishonesty of a certain advocacy organization, which I will not name here, that lists colleges that don't require standardized test scores for admission. Most such colleges don't require test scores because they don't require anything else for admission--in other words, they are open-admission colleges. All that is required to enroll at hundreds of nonselective colleges around the country is "a heartbeat and a check." Bowdoin is, to be sure, a reasonably selective and reasonably good quality college, but it is also a college that requires standardized test scores from a subset of its applicants. There are very few colleges indeed that are both selective in choosing applicants and testing-optional for every one of those applicants. Colleges look at standardized test scores for the simple reason that high school academic programs are NOT standardized, and not every high school graduate is well prepared for challenging high school studies. There is no college anywhere that actively prefers applicants with low test scores to otherwise similar applicants with higher test scores.</p>