I disagree one is more “prepared” than the other. At a certain point schools may as well put names in a hat and draw them out lottery style. Imo, in your hypothetical, they are both going to do just fine. They’ve shown the grit to do well in high school and that’s going to translate to college.
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How else would adcoms ascertain grade inflation though? At Yale, if every app shows a GPA above 3.8 and course rigor… how do they choose? That’s why I see the test score as another academic data point that helps schools make difficult admissions decisions. It may not be 100% predictive, but really nothing is. It’s another data point.
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This thread is about test optional and how students fare applying that way. There are plenty of threads that discuss the pros and cons of test submitting/test scores - maybe take that topic to those instead.
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But (most) everyone at Yale has a 1600/5.0–that doesn’t really help distinguish either. It’s a gatekeeping mechanism.
That said, no idea yet how test optional will work. We suspect that the same schools the tests might not have helped are the same schools that will penalize for not submitting tests.
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I feel that test-optional isn’t test-optional for homeschoolers at competitive schools. Even if his math score is below a target school’s average, I think we need to report. He’s great at math, but more the kind of math where you do one problem for three hours, not tons of problems in one hour.
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Some schools like MIT, Georgia Tech, Georgetown are no longer TO. They said I guess from reviewing current students they have that came to the school TO, the SAT was a good measure of who was prepared and would do well. And have now removed the TO for applications.
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SAT score of 1400 is in top 3 % (nationally representative sample) and in top 7 % of SAT users.
If 3,500,000 graduate high school per year and let’s say an additional 500,000 international students apply (4,000,000 applicants per year), the best 3 % is 120,000 applicants.
Top 50 colleges and universities accept maybe 100,000 to 110,000 students per year, which means if SAT alone was basis for selection, 1400 would not be enough for any of those top 50 colleges or universities.
Do all of your kids also have accommodations? I have a son very similar to @3SailAway. Due to accommodations, he will be able to take exams in a different area where he will be allowed breaks.
(Backstory: DS has a learning difference and has always had an issue with the visual format of standardized tests. The font doesn’t work for him and when he’s used a “large print” test, the font is so ridiculously large that it affects his tracking. It’s also surprisingly time consuming and annoying to fill in large print bubbles. Although he is granted additional time his feedback after the PreACT was that after the first 90 minutes or so his vision didn’t hold out and “everything went to hieroglyphics”, thus additional time would not have helped. From the printout we received it seems that everything he finished he answered correctly, but he was unable to finish. If he could have taken the test over a longer period of time with breaks built in to recenter his vision he probably would have done fine. Even before most schools went TO for the general population, he probably would have been a kid they granted TO status, which is how we applied to prep school, due to all of the documentation we have about his learning differences and academic ability)
S23 (highschool)/27(college) applied test optional to large schools that were in the top 20 for his major and got in everywhere he applied. His top 3 choices were/are University of Minnesota (honors program), Colorado State (honors program) and Michigan Tech (honors program/invitation for full scholarship competition). I believe he got the top merit at each school as well. I believe he did so well because he really looked for schools that were the right “fit” and then let that shine through with his essays, contact with AOs and what he chose to highlight in his applications.
When applying he had a 4.0 UW GPA, was #1 in his class (but class is only 75), took the most rigorous course load (no AP’s offered/school does Cambridge courses), was captain of 3 varsity teams, NHS, prefect, head admissions ambassador, faculty awards in every subject, book awards from a few universities, etc. etc. etc. Glowing LOR’s and research experience in the field he wants to go into. Basically a golden child.
AND, he (pooped) the bed on his PreACTs. Like, bring in a mop and bucket.
Luckily, we had started our college list early (end of sophomore year) and one of the things we tracked on our spreadsheet was if the schools were test optional. Once he decided on his short list, only one school wasn’t TO and it really wasn’t in his top 10 so we decided it just wasn’t worth the stress or prep time to even take the test. Every other measure put him squarely in the likely range and even if he brought his test scores up, unless he was in the 35-36 range, it would have been a mismatch with his other metrics. I think if the majority of schools had not gone TO, our search would have looked very different.
We are very confident he will do well at whatever school he picks despite his crap PreACT scores and he has investigated the academic support at his top three choices. He feels all of them can accommodate his needs and he is very capable of advocating for himself. I believe the skills he has learned to remediate his LD, his leadership skills, his academic drive and curiosity, and his ability to advocate for himself are much better indicators of success than his test scores. I’m glad more kids are getting the opportunity to be reviewed holistically rather than just being cast aside due to a measure of how well they can take a test.
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D23 applied to 4 colleges, all test optional. Accepted to all 4, waiting for merit award information from 2.
Received top merit from one acceptance, 2nd largest merit award from the other.
Test optional worked really well as far as we were concerned. The schools ranged from Top40ish to Top 75ish rankings wise.
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Just an fyi. I have a kid who gets accommodations for ACT/SAT. There is an option(accommodation) to circle answers in the test booklet… avoiding the bubble in sheet.
D23 applied test optional to 13 schools, she’s heard back from 12 and has been accepted to all, many with higher merit than we were expecting. They ranged in ranking from higher (but not crazy high) like Furman/Baylor to mid-ranking schools like Butler/Elon.
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I love hearing stories like your husband’s. This is the best part of the American system - that you can mess up and still get a second chance. I have an in-law relation who ran away from home and had to get his GED instead of a high school diploma. Now we call him FakeNameJohn, GED, PhD.
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My father was very dramatically kicked out of a very highly-ranked college as a junior. Picture the Animal House scene where they threaten to call the draft board. My dad was drafted the day he arrived back home after flunking out.
He went to Vietnam, another college, got an ivy league MBA, and became very successful. Very few roads are a straight line 
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Another great story about redeeming oneself through second chances!
Unfortunately, I know so many people who have never experienced this blessing - and I
think it leads to much more stress and helicoptering. If the parents were self-motivated scholars, they expect their offspring to be the same. Fortunately for my kids, although my husband and I were complete nerds, our siblings were not, so we learned about winding roads early on!
I think many students don’t want to take time away from their studies to do the test prep that would increase their scores. My daughter attends CC as dual enrolled for an AA in science- she would rather spend her time studying for Calc and Physics to keep her GPA up than spend time learning how to beat a test. Add in clubs and sports and it’s really just figuring out priorities for that student because there is only so much time in a day.
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Forgot to mention in my previous post that D21 was also offered MLK Scholars program at NYU which included a small merit scholarship tied in with participation in the program (summer stipend and a trip).
If the question is “how has your child fared”, I would say exceptionally well. She has gotten into several Big 10 direct entry business programs: Kelley (Indiana), Krannert (Purdue), and Carlson (Minnesota). She is waiting to hear from Broad (MSU) and Gies (UIUC), but we’ve been pretty happy with the outcome so far.
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Hi
I appreciate of your child. it will be a very happy moment for you.