Makes sense. Will also be interesting to see if states stop requiring the ACT or SAT for HS graduation, around half the states do so currently. In my state, Illinois, the SAT is still a grad requirement for class of 2021 and many schools haven’t offered it yet this school year.
2 Likes
I predict that second tier colleges will no longer require the tests but more competitive colleges will simply because they are going to need an objective standard and like it or not, especially with grade inflation at many HS, the ACT and SAT still are going to matter.
In our state, many school systems have greatly declining enrollments and this will eventually bubble up to colleges. They are already predicting many will fail so those will be the ones that will go TO for sure to keep enrollments steady. Colleges that still attract the best students will want the tests to help decide. Even if they are technically test optional I believe they will show bias to candidates who submit very good scores. Thus, they will still matter.
Some people on these forums believe or want to believe that the SAT is for testing aptitude or IQ, rather than achievement in something learned in school (for which there are plenty of tests specifically for this purpose, like SAT subject tests, AP tests, and state tests for specific high school courses). Such people prefer it if the SAT were not prepped, and were changed to be less affected by preparation, so that it can (in theory) measure innate aptitude or IQ. Whether or not that is a realistic expectation of the SAT or other standardized tests is another matter.
But if any colleges subscribe to this viewpoint, they may also prefer to see test scores without the intensive preparation that is common today.
2 Likes
I suspect that no matter how the SAT/ACT or any other standardized tests are modified, it will be the same kids making the top scores. So I think it is more likely that most colleges will be test optional until USNWR forces them to change.
Given that high school GPA, regardless of grade inflation, is a better predictor of college success than standardized test scores, why should colleges care what the test scores are?
Test scores’ utility for admissions offices isn’t to differentiate among students, it’s to provide an easy quantitative measure that doesn’t require all that much thought. Basically, it is, depending on how generous to adcoms you wish to be, useful because it helps them be efficient or lazy.
The current crisis is clearly resulting in the development of alternative measures. Since test scores don’t really have any clear usefulness of themselves, once a replacement has been found why should colleges care to go back to using them?
3 Likes
Assuming the prediction is for a post COVID worls where the student can safely take a standardized test, I think we first have to answer why the colleges can’t weigh the test score during the holistic process? Is it really just the US News ranking? I have a feeling it’s deeper than that.
I have a hunch that the current process is the product of decades of refining, and they lean on test scores, essays, and ECs to tell them subtly about things like how much FA, whether the student is likely to graduate, or how involved they will be in campus. They could get to the same place ditching the standardized test score, but that means they won’t be as accurate until they become comfortable with a new metric.
Lol. Top holistic adcoms aren’t sitting around predicting “college success” measured by college gpa.
Scores don’t predict things like campus engagement. Nor are elites as beholden to usnwr as many assume.
A kid has a responsibility to pull a full app together. Not in some vacuum and not per the standards that your hs or district set. The goal is to please the college, make yourself a compelling choice. That’s lot more than scores.
But, nooooo. Everything comes back to scores, in some folks’ minds. SMH.
And when you make this so much about scores, then many try to explain them, dissect, imply meaning, get distracted by income discussions, who gets test prep…and on and on, missing what gets an admit… or not. In toto.
Oh, well.
Scores mean zip if you can’t satisfy the rest.
I’ve said I simply see scores as another metric, another hurdle to jump. Why not prep, if you’re so inclined? (Especially when elites are looking for drives.)
But drives and other attributes are expressed in many ways. Or not.
As some of you may have guessed, I am not a fan of standardized tests being used for admissions. On the other hand, tests are a data point (although maybe a flawed one). I am warming up to the idea that test optional should remain. Let the people who want to take and submit do that, and the people who don’t take or take and choose not to submit, do that. I think even a less motivated admissions officer can tell the difference between applicants with or without them. And if test optional allows for underrepresented groups/low income applicants to be selected more often, for whatever reason, I vote test optional.
2 Likes
@michaeluwill one of my longstanding gripes is how CC people generalize about lower SES applicants, all the assumptions, then the sideways trek into studies showing this or that.
From my perspective, this doesn’t reflect the body of fine, highly motivated lower SES kids. In many cases, their sum records and presentations in their apps exceed what’s offered by the more typically revered and touted richer kids. They’re out there doing, in many remarkable ways. Not remarkable simply because they start from less. I used to warn that many frankly leave “our kids” in the dust. No, not the highest scores but acing more that matters.
Not all. Of course. And not in large enough volume to see a huge impact in freshman profile details. And many don’t matriculate at elites, for various reasons.
But the assumptions drive me nuts.
2 Likes
We actually agree that they are more impressive much of the time. Many kids, at least for me, are rarely interesting and go through high school unchallenged personally and academically. The question is whether test optional allows people to appreciate the other disadvantaged kids more. Will that amazing disadvantaged kid with a 1090 get admitted to a top college? I think it is more likely with test optional.
Don’t add 200 points if that’s in reference to that old, miserable and misleading Duke study.
True, in the end, it might pick up more (let’s call them) of the borderline scores less privileged kids. But it remains to be seen, yet.
What we’re saying (agreeing, I think,) is these bright, lower SES kids shouldn’t be discounted from the get-go, the way CC does. It not only stereotypes, it’s also does nothing for our purported openmindedness.
The elites, contrary to public opinion, are not all about success measured by college gpa, test score ranges, future income or being listed in Forbes. At its best, holistic allows a more confident view of what life success is and how future influence can work in many ways, many contexts.
1 Like
i erased that just as you wrote.
I expect millions of persons care, as well as the vast majority of selective colleges in the United States, particularly as how it impacts the income distribution of their incoming class and how being test optional/blind impacts various metrics correlated with that income distribution such as FA, % first gen, etc.
For example, earlier in the thread, there are quotes from the Dartmouth and Harvard press releases about the early class of 2025 that mention higher or record portion of the class with various metrics that are well correlated with lower income. This indicates that both the college cares about the income distribution of their class, and they believe that many of the people reading the press release care.
I doubt that Dartmouth and Harvard were completely blindsided by the apparent increase in lower income kids this year, but if they were blindsided, it’s a safe bet that the administration will not say, “It’s interesting that we are getting more lower income kids. Unfortunately we don’t know how, why, and cannot analyze it in any way since we use a holistic admission system, rather than a formula; so we have no way to know, if we’ll be surprised again during next year’s class of 2026.” Instead I expect they’ll want to analyze and understand the contributing factors for the change, including how being test optional impacts their incoming class income distribution and why. And this analysis/understanding may impact how they use the SAT/ACT for the class of 2026.
4 Likes
Data, i think that, over time, you ascribe more significance to income status in the review process. It may play some role in the final crafting of the class. But many factors do. And how colleges then report is not necessarily indicative. The old joke was how they may mention they’ve got a juggling unicyclist. That does not tell us the hobby is anything which moves any needle.
Much discussion space has been spent on CC suggesting how kids get in without a deeper look at what it does take. There is so much in the rest of the app, after scores, which does reveal various qualities and merits.
Absolutely, a kid must have the grades and have taken advantage of available rigor. But it’s another diversion to place so much energy on grade inflation.
I was not referring to adcoms “crafting” the class based on income or kids needing more than stats to get accepted. I was referring to the correlation between incomes and scores, and how being test optional influences income distribution as well as things like change in % FA, % first gen, % Pell grant, etc. Even if the college is completely income blind and does not change how they “craft” the class in any way from previous years (aside from the lack of scores), a change in these metrics is still likely to occur when a highly selective private college suddenly becomes test optional/blind, and colleges absolutely care about that change.
Of course, you are seeing the successful ones, the ones who had to have had superior records and presentations to get through the additional barriers that they faced, compared to the top 4% scions who make up half of the frosh classes at the most desired private colleges. On the disadvantaged side of an unlevel playing field, you have to be better than, rather than just as good as, others in order to succeed.
1 Like
Yes, admittedly, I’m seeing the ones who deserve the opportunities of an elite. (I’m not speaking of a different sort of college or opportunity.) But on that so-supposed unlevel playing field, many ARE better than the 4%.
Aside from various studies or reports, it helps to consider these kids as individuals.
No one should assume just having privileges is what makes a compelling app. A lot of what so-called priivileged kids note about their accomplishments is not what makes some special difference. Maybe within their hs, but now we’re talking college.
This, particularly, makes it difficult to study the effects of test optional policies within a single college. At colleges that have been test optional, students admitted without standardized scores may graduate with comparable GPAs in relation to students who submitted scores, but it might be under-recognized to what degree colleges adapted their curricula to their students to produce this result. To the extent that this recursive aspect represents the case, widespread test-optional admissions may scale-up under largely experimental conditions.
I was surprised to see that the vast majority of students who posted their EA decisions on the Purdue thread yesterday had scores.
My prediction is that the SAT/ACT are here to stay, especially in STEM focused programs. If they go away, they’ll be replaced by something else. I could even see colleges utilizing their placement tests earlier in the process.
3 Likes
I predict that AOs will long for scores for 2022 (so juniors should test between now and the fall if they can), but that colleges will still be test optional.
I predict that some time next year, AOs will wake up and smell the coffee that grades during covid are less reliable and indicative than during normal times. Covid grades will comprise half the transcript for high school class of 2022, the most crucial half. The admission process is extremely nutty for class of 2021 (as we see in our house) but I’m beginning to think that class of 2022 has it worse.
(I am referring not merely to top 20 elites, but to universities in the top 50-100)
1 Like