For those curious in the future about applying test optional, etc.:
My D22 applied test optional. She was accepted to the honors program at NYC campus for fall 2022 admission. She applied to Pace as an English major.
She received a merit scholarship of $30K per year. She had 4.0 UW and 4.36 W, and her class rank was somewhere in top 15-20% of a very big suburban competitive high school class of about 800.
Her extra-curriculurs were solid but nothing too fancy. She’s taken seven AP classes total during high school, while many of her peers take that many in a year.
She submitted as many rec letters as were allowed, which at Pace may be only one if I recall correctly. (I think they do allow additional letters from a small number of categories which her additional letters did not fit into…) I’m fairly confident her letter/letters was/were strong.
Her essay was well-written and very much in her own voice and did not center on really anything in the way of accomplishments.
We did do an on-campus summer visit and are from a state in the southeast.
Hope that info may help anyone pondering applying test optional. I’m in the camp that hopes test scores fall out of use for college admissions:).
Good luck to all!