My son will be applying for admission this year to several schools which bill themselves as “SAT optional.” I am wondering if schools which bill themselves this way truly don’t view students who don’t submit their standardized test scores less favorably than those who do. My son has taken the SAT once and secured a score which, I think, will get him into most of his realistic choices. He is extraordinarily resistant to using the online course I registered him for to prepare to take it again. But with regard to his somewhat realistic top choice school which isn’t one of his 3 moonshots, his GPA matches their average but his SAT falls short of its average by 100 points and would place him at the 25th percentile. When I asked his guidance counselor this same question, all she would say is “we take what the schools say at face value”, which simultaneously failed to answer the question and left me uneasy about a truth to which I am not privy. I guess my real question is, are kids like my son who are white, middle class and attend a high quality high school expected to submit a strong standardized test score because they are viewed as privileged? Is the test optional policy really meant to assist the less advantaged? If this is the case, I have to concede it’s not unfair. In my son’s case, he will have no one to blame but himself for not prepping for the test.
Test-optional schools do not require test scores. Period. There are no disadvantages in the admission process for not submitting a score to a test-optional school. Low income students get fee waivers on standardized tests, so it has nothing to do with that.
If the applicant’s SAT score is in the 25th percentile of a test-optional school, do not submit it. Enrolled students in the bottom quartile of scores are athletes and other hooked candidates.
Actually, test optional schools may require test scores for merit scholarships, opportunity programs or certain programs . Carefully read what the school requires regarding scores.
^^True! I was just thinking about admissions.
My son applied to 4 test optional schools and did not submit test scores. He was well under the 25% level of their reported test scores. He was accepted to all 4 schools. Did not get any merit money from any of them except for one—a rare specific scholarship He had peers with similar profiles, slightly lower GPA and other factors but upper 25% in test scores and every single one of them got some sort of method albeit little from 3 out of 4 schools.
It is my opinion that not supplying test scores is going to affect merit money, but if your scores are such that you feel they impede your admissions chances, you aren’t going to be getting merit anyways.
A question to which I do not have any idea of the answer is how it affects those who apply for financial aid if the school is need aware.
I’ve heard a number of admissions officers at test optional colleges say that if your standardized tests fall below the average for the college you are better off not sending them (applying test optional) but if your standardized test scores are at or above the average for the college then send them.
The same admissions officers have said that if you apply test optional then the other parts of your application (ex. transcript to include GPA and course rigor, essay, LOR etc.) become more important in the review process.