“I guess some schools that aren’t really serious about being test optional could manipulate their admissions process so that they never take more than 25% of the class TO but that seems like a stretch to me.”
Why a stretch? it’s the logical strategy for a school that is trying to maximize their likelihood of a USNews ranking upgrade, and we know that there are some schools who care deeply about that.
@bluebayou:
“OTOH, I’d love to know if a school like Wake Forest reports it’s athletes’ scores”
Doesn’t the NCAA require athletes to report standardized tests?
Doesn’t really matter, though, as only the 25th and 75th percentile scores are reported by USNews, and a quarter of a class is a lot of room to hide athletes.
I’m sure that some of the colleges referenced in the article were not surprised by their results. It was intended results for them. However, the fact that some colleges take advantage of the test optional system does not mean all test optional colleges are doing so for less altruistic reasons… For example, the paper at http://www.ithaca.edu/ir/docs/testoptionalpaper.pdf discusses Ithaca’s reasons for going test optional and results of implementing the policy. The study found that including test scores in the application only improved their predictive accuracy of Ithaca student’s GPA by 1% above an application without test scores. The only SAT section that had a statistically significant effect in improving prediction of academic success beyond the rest of the application was the SAT writing section, which no longer exists. After the test optional policy was implemented, overall applications increased, in particular among URMs. This led to the most diverse class in the college’s history, immediately following going test optional. IPEDS suggests a >60% increase in African American. Reported test scores changed as listed below, after going test optional. Yes, the 25th percentile increased, but not by a ridiculous amount that will distort USNWR rankings.
Year before Test Optional – 520/630 and 530/640
First year of Test Optional – 540/630 and 540/640
NCAA Division I and II academic eligibility requires SAT or ACT scores in addition to specified high school courses and GPA: http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/test-scores
In theory, NCAA Division III schools are supposed to “hold student-athletes to the same overall standards for the institution in which they’re enrolling”: http://www.ncaa.org/about/what-we-do/academics . But that does mean that if an NCAA Division III school is also test-optional, a student-athlete meeting its normal admission standards may not have submitted SAT or ACT scores.
Many of the test optional schools require the SAT/ACT unless you have a 3.5+ gpa so you would have to prove that you are academically successful before having that advantage.
@megan12, Which schools do that?
Some schools used to omit special admits like athletes out of their reporting for rankings.
@Sue22 I noticed it a lot with the southern schools. If you check the fairtest.org list, you’ll notice numbers next to the colleges, which mean there are special requirements.
The Cal State University system says that they are test-optional if a student has a GPA above 3.0. But at impacted campuses, they require students to submit scores anyway. https://www2.calstate.edu/apply/freshman/getting_into_the_csu/Pages/testing-requirements.aspx