Despite schools’ claims that they do not consider SAT scores when evaluating applicants I cannot help but think that they still take test scores into account. If a school has two students with comparable grades, ECs, DEI points, etc. where one student submitted a strong SAT and the other did not provide a test score my guess is that the school will admit the SAT student over the other applicant.
Schools that are test optional, however, still might use SAT scores to determine merit awards. I called Michigan Tech about admission requirements and the advisor swore up and down that they did not look at test scores for admission, but they did for financial aid. In fact, there is a matrix of GPAs and SAT scores showing the financial aid on their website.
My advice would be to prep for the SAT or ACT - get tutoring, take practice tests, etc. - and take the test again. Just knowing how the test is scored and getting used to the time pressure can help tremendously.
Thanks for posting, the replies are very helpful. I’m in a similar position my D26 - she’s very bright but just got a solid 50% on the PSAT. Straight As, but doesn’t test well at all, even with accommodations. She has the same GPA, ECs as her older brother who tests very well (35ACT) and is a freshman at Brown. Because of her learning style, it takes her longer to do homework, so the thought of extensive ACT/SAT prep over the next couple of years is really daunting. It’s tough to have a smart kid who doesn’t do well on standardized tests, but can handle rigor and has straight As. She’s just as smart (if not smarter) than her brother, and I hate to see something like a standardized test hold her back from going to a great school
From what we believe we know however, the consideration of a score happens at an early, threshold-based sort of level. That’s come out of the recent admissions podcasts, more or less. So by the time Sally High Score and Suzie No Score are being fully considered, they’ve passed beyond the point where baseline academic ability is in play.
Further, in general adcoms do not spend much time comparing Sally to Suzie. Applicants are generally discussed one at a time. And by that time, the SAT score or lack thereof has likely left the conversation among considered factors.
I note those comments about it not really being a factor beyond the initial screen also seem supportive to me of what I will call the nuanced view on the value of these tests.
This may be like the situation with the colleges that “recommended” SAT subject tests before those were discontinued. The general impression was that applicants from more advantaged situations where the tests were readily available were to treat “recommended” as “required”, but applicants from disadvantaged situations or where the tests were unavailable were given more flexibility.
Also, remember that test prep need not mean hundreds of hours of prep (which likely indicates very time-inefficient prep) that seems common today. Back when I took the SAT, I did maybe 15 minutes of prep, which was doing the sample questions in the booklet with the sign-up sheet (basically test familiarization). Although few would consider that “sufficient test prep” today, someone taking a test may want to do one each of practice SAT and ACT, in order to choose the better one, and then possibly spend a few hours on the types of questions most likely to be missed.
For (particularly first-generation-to-college) students in low SES high schools in states where the state universities are test-blind for admission, or other states where state universities are test-optional but not that selective even for the state flagship and do not have lots of scholarship money attached to test scores, taking the SAT or ACT may fall off the radar of students, counselors, and teachers. In such states, there may also be fewer testing centers which may be less accessible commute-distance-wise with less space that may fill up early.
Have her try an ACT practice test. Some kids are more suited to the ACT than to the SAT. Easterners often do not think about the ACT as an option, but it is.
THIS. This is exactly what the area private school counselors have been saying the past 2 sessions. HS class of 2021 it was unknown (and was really difficult to test). It has become more clear each cycle since then that it is not optional for all, especially the unhooked.
Sounds like the OP wants to chase some big highly-rejective names, some of whom were known to be high-score obsessed pre covid, so my opinion is prep for it and take it. Do realize that an unprepped 1250 in 11th grade may not be the kind of kid who would thrive at some of those filled-with -99th %ile schools, many of whom had high 1300s or higher unprepped in 10th and got 99th%ile on the real test easily. Testing is not everything of course but especially in Stem fields much of the college grading puts you on a curve with your peers so coming in likely to be in the bottom 10-25% is not a good emotional fit for some kids.
Not just STEM- I was a humanities major in college and coming out of a large urban public HS, I didn’t know what I didn’t know until I saw my peers who came from private prep schools and magnet schools. Being a strong writer in my HS meant appropriate punctuation and no obvious grammatical errors. Watching classmates bang out a three page essay in an hour- which would take me days of edits, rewrites, restructuring… it was humbling. Some of those schools REALLY taught writing. So in the humanities too- the curve is real even if it’s an invisible curve.
A kid who has been formally taught to write in all kinds of genres; has been taught footnoting, annotating, how to index and how to do accurate citations and bibliographies-- even if it’s not obvious from an SAT score, those kids are going to be head and shoulders above the kids whose teachers reserve the red pencil for typos.
I agree on the TO not being TO for all. I told S24 - unhooked, UMC kiddo from a nice suburban school - that he’d need a strong test score to have a chance at the highly selective schools on his list. Fortunately, he’s a great tester and got an extremely high score so it never became an issue. That being said, I don’t think it is as critical once you get outside the T50 schools/T25 LAC or if you are hooked or if you come from a disadvantaged background.
I think it’s MORE important if you come from a disadvantaged background (but I understand that you’d need a savvy guidance counselor helping you understand that). A 4.0 average from a HS in Camden NJ (one of the worst school systems in a populous state… or use Trenton or Patterson if you don’t want to pick on Camden) means something. But a 4.0 average from that same HS coupled with an SAT score that is two hundred points above the average score from that school- especially if that puts the kid within the 25/75 range of scores-- is HUGE. For colleges with a demonstrated commitment to disadvantaged, first gen kids-- at a minimum, that guarantees the application gets a second look, even without calculus, four years of foreign language, and all the other stuff that a kid from Winnetka or Chappaqua needs to have.
A solid score on a nationally normed test gets a kid a pass on all the other “stuff” that you are supposed to have at the highly rejective colleges.
About 700-800 four year colleges were test optional before covid, so those colleges aren’t going to change their policies because testing is available again (and AFAIK, testing spots are still tough to come by in California, maybe someone from there can verify).
Different schools have different perspectives on the tests, and for some schools their perspective has evolved over the last few years, and it continues to evolve…things are dynamic and NOT necessarily the same as they were in 2021.
To take an oft cited example, Bowdoin (which has been TO for 50+ years) does not believe tests show potential or subject matter mastery or predict college success/GPA, and many other schools agree. Bowdoin AOs publicy say they can figure out which students will succeed at Bowdoin without tests scores…the schools that require or prefer tests don’t see things the same way…I should wish they would share their data, because there is plenty of data out there that shows test scores aren’t correlated with college performance/success (Bates, Ithaca, DePaul have all published said data. I sure wish Bowdoin would).
I agree strong students, especially those at top high schools, should prep for and take tests. So should those who are merit hunting, starting with the PSAT in junior year.
Yeah, this was the other part of what the Yale AO said that was really important (I thought). He was saying even somewhat low scores by their normal standards could be helpful to disdvantaged/underresourced applicants, and he was lamenting more such kids did not submit scores. He wasn’t saying that so he could reject more, he wanted to admit more.
IMO this is the single big advantage prep school kids have going into college. It’s a high priority. At our school. even the kids who are not writers can write a proper paper. They’ve been working at it (a lot) since freshman year.
People make too much of the “unfairness” of tests. There is an issue of access, sure, but schools always knew (and did) how to interpret scores in one’s context.
The answer is that it depends on whether your kid meets a particular school’s institutional priority or not. And that depends on which schools you are applying to. Most mere mortals have no idea what they are but one can make educated guesses.
A woman Physics major from Idaho raised on a farm could be a great catch for Rice or Duke. An Asian from CA majoring in classics could be a fantastic catch at Grinnell.
Then there are many schools where being able to pay ~60% of cost will be a priority.
Since you/we do not have that knowledge, I recommend asking your kid to study hard for ACT/SAT. It wont hurt.
A lot of the kids in our system have really been working on it since middle school. Like, my S24, and I assume his peers, were writing better research papers in 8th grade than probably about 50% of the papers I used to see as a TA at a pretty good public university.
That was at a K-8 that promised our kids would be very well prepared for selective private high schools by graduation, which promise in turn they will be very well prepared for selective private colleges. So it is all just feeding back. Really right back to the preschools.