Because the exact scenario mentioned (though I’ve seen others) involves a specific (though publicly profiled) student, it would be unfair to include too many details. However, this applicant was denied at 18 schools, which may lead to the inference that the highly selective test-optional college at which he was accepted believed this student could succeed within its curriculum, while similarly or less selective schools that required standardized testing did not see the student as an academic match.
I deferred to what appears to be the general perception of “highly selective,” that is a school with an ultra-low acceptance rate. The example given (from the print version of USN), while perhaps offering insight, may not be representative of general practices.
More likely that the specific “highly selective” college that admitted the student felt that the student was a match for some other reason, since a 3.3 HS GPA would ordinarily mean close to no chance of admission to a “highly selective” college otherwise (regardless of test required, optional, or blind, and regardless of what test scores the student had). It is a stretch to say that because that “highly selective” college happened to be test optional that it also regularly admits students with 3.3 HS GPA.
The GPA was included not to advance the point directly (though some may see comporting indirect implications), but mostly to offer context for those who might have assumed that the student in this example applied with a high GPA.
Let me ask a different question. If AOs can always make “correct” decisions in the absence of test scores, why did they use test scores for so long and at so many different places? Or did they just want to discriminate?
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I have no actual knowledge, but I suspect when the SAT was young, AO’s believed in its promise of identifying kids with college aptitude. By the time there was a dawning realization that the test wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, the College Board was a multimillion (billion?) dollar industry, with many constituencies invested in keeping the status quo.
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I’m no fan of the College Board or ACT so you won’t find me defending them. However, I don’t equate their business practices with the necessity of standardized testing. As some of you may know, I’m also no fan of the current tests. I think they can be significantly improved to serve two purposes: 1) to provide a uniform standard to measure students’ academic progresses; and 2) to help identify students who are the most talented in certain areas that some colleges/disciplines need.
I think it’s been there for decades and has been one of the “legs of the stool”. How much weight is it carrying? At a big state flagship probably a lot. At a small private probably very little.
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I only see one kid on the USNWR website student profiles who was admitted to a highly selective pre-COVID test optional/flexible college, with a relatively low GPA. This profile is at https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/2015/10/02/how-i-got-to-college-briana-garrett .
The student was accepted to Middlebury with a 3.2 GPA and 26 ACT. At the time Middlebury had a 17% admit rate and 25/75 ACT range of 29 to 33. However, from the student profile you can’t tell whether the 26 ACT was submitted or not. You also can’t tell whether submitting vs non-submitting would change the decision. And you certainly can’t tell whether she will be successful at Middlebury or not.
This profile was from a few years ago. Since the article publication she graduated in 4 years from Middlebury, with a degree in International and Global Studies… one of the majors she mentions considering in the article. Her GPA at Middlebury was high enough to get accepted to a Master’s program at Northwestern, where she completed a MA in 1 year. So all indications point to her having been successful at MIddlebury, in spite of the relatively lower stats. I see no reason to assume that she needed watered down course curriculum.
I realize this was probably not the student that was being referenced earlier, but the point is, one anecdotal student being accepted with a lower GPA + lower test score does not tell you much of anything about how test optional is likely to impact colleges.
I’m not sure if you have asked this rhetorically, but standardized tests were, at their inception, regarded as democratizing.
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That student had an affinity for languages at the time of her application and seems to have written an engaging essay. If Middlebury took a chance with some aspects of her credentials, they appear to have seen her as a good match (academically) based on others.
Nor are we clamoring for keeping standardized test requirements.
I mean, having been tenure-stream faculty at a range of institutions ranging from quite selective to open-access, I feel pretty safe in saying that we on the academic side don’t really care at all about such details of requirements for admission.
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Funny you should say that because, from my experience, faculty does have opinions on this stuff.
More selective - will we hurt our reputation by offering certificates or degrees outside our core that do not require tests? will we be lowering our average student (and maybe, in some cases hurting our ratings)? How about for online, should we relax our standards?
More open access - should we require tests, regardless of the score received, just to show a level of seriousness? what can we do to make sure we do not have too high a drop-out rate?
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Faculty clearly has opinions on this. How strongly they express their opinions is another matter. Most of them probably don’t feel the impact one way or the other as of now. Opinions also likely vary from college to college and discipline to discipline.
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It’s not likely that the top administrators at the college care what professors think about admissions standards. There’s a reason for all that tension between professors and top administrators…
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As the parent of a junior I hope schools stay TO - simply because this year has been enough of a slog for my son and the idea of spending hours test prepping just seems like too much. In our area there have been few sittings for the SAT and no ACT. As it is, the PSAT still hasn’t been administered because there was an emergency delay, and, then COVID ramped up. Typically our HS has the SAT in March but that is in question right now and nothing has been announced.
Of course, any change in college admission criteria will eventually be targeted by parents with money who will use it to buy their kids the best opportunities to do well on those criteria.
Today’s announcement of the elimination of the (by now pretty useless) essay section of the SAT and the SAT subject tests has to fit into this discussion somehow, but I haven’t digested it enough to really have a clear idea of what the ripple effects might be.
Mentioning it, though, because I’m curious what others’ speculations are.
The essay is probably more expensive to grade than the rest of the SAT.
In the early 2010s, it seemed that test prep companies figured out how to game the essay and teach students who were mediocre writers how to score well on the essay, probably destroying its predictive validity that was formerly considered by colleges to be stronger than the rest of the SAT. So that may have led to colleges de-emphasizing it since then.
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I’ve always thought the lack of focus on the essay was a missed opportunity for College Board and colleges. A randomly assigned topic and 1 hour to write an essay could produce something valuable to holistic schools because it’s close to guaranteed to be the applicants own work.
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