The student’s other stats (grades, rigor, ec’s, letters of rec, probable essay strength…)
The competitiveness of the school in question
Whether you are concerned about getting admitted or getting scholarships.
D22 took the ACT once in March without studying and had a very nice score. She will submit it as is to her target and safety schools, where it is above their average. For her reach schools, she will either retest to bring up the one lower subtest (hopefully), or not submit at all as her grades and level of rigor are very strong and speak to her academic qualifications. If she retests and gets a higher score, that will be helpful for any possible merit at her target and safety schools (though we do not qualify for FA, so don’t expect much).
Agree with @songbirdmama list of 3 and would just add the question of effort. If your D’s baseline test was already within range and she could do a little prep and get to the 75th percentile for the schools on her list then I think that is a good idea. If it would be just too many hours and stress to get there, that time and effort could likely be better spent doing something she enjoys more to boost her app.
For S22 his test scores are a positive for him, and probably a little better than his grades. Same with his AP scores. And I think because we feel like there are so many question marks around admissions due to covid and gap years and high yields this year, he wants to submit anything that backs up what kind of student he is.
Thank you, @songbirdmama, @smiles2122 and @packacards! (Oops, mistyped, I have a S22, not a D22.) So S22 said he is not willing to retest as he’s never been a good test taker so we are just going to have to go with his GPA, course rigor, EC’s, which I think are in the excellent average/good average range. I am anxious. He is not. It’s so hard to know how hard to push or encourage regarding the entire process.
I think it is good that his situation is so clear cut and I am happy for him that he gets to avoid stressful prep (that may or may not have made much of a difference). Many believe that a lot of schools will just stay Test Optional so that students can choose the best way to put their app together.
@homerdog was in your shoes last year wondering if TO will matter and it all worked out great for them going TO - and @homerdog can give you empathy for the uncertainty, though - it doesn’t feel great going through it.
Would you feel better or worse if I said there are more impactful things to focus your worries on?
Yes. Going TO last year was stressful until we started seeing D’s results come in. If anyone has any questions, feel free to post them here or DM me. Basically, we had decent info on Naviance that her GPA and rigor were very competitive for all of the schools on her list and her results ended up being exactly as expected. She got into a good handful of schools with lower than 20% (maybe even 15%) acceptance rates in RD.
We think showing interest was key even for those schools that said they don’t track it.
We are in California, so all public schools are test blind. My kid took the SAT in June. All the prep she did was watch a few videos on test strategies. She scored in the upper range of all but one of the private colleges we have in mind. She could take it again for the one, we need merit, but she will not. Her summer break is shorter than usual this year, and she has too much going on to worry about it.
@homerdog Do you mind sharing how you showed interest in the colleges? I know many of my S22’s essays include “Why XXX college?” But are there other ways that you felt helped? We have attended virtual tours for most of his colleges and signed up for email lists, but I’m not sure what else we can do. We are too far away from the colleges on his list to visit in person and none of his schools have ever sent admissions representatives to our high school in the past.
We are on the fence. My son took the SAT once with minimal prep, received a mediocre (but not dreadful) score and is undecided about taking it again. He is an above average student (3.65 UW and 4.10 W) with good rigor (all honors/AP) at a competitive HS in MA. He also did well on his AP exams. He isn’t shooting for top 20 schools so it may not matter. The only value would be for a couple of his potential reaches, but they are mainly TO so it may not be worth it.
S22 took SAT once last fall and did great, but he is a strong test taker. We will submit his score as it can only help and it may make it easier to receive merit which we desperately need.
Many schools are TO and from what I hear around me, many students will apply TO. I would use the SAT score if it fails within the 50+% range. If it’s below the 25%, I would go TO. I am not sure about 25-50%
One may also apply TO to some schools and submit the score to others. If the score isn’t too good and you are worried about going completely TO, then perhaps include it but only for a few schools.
We live in an area where scheduling tests has not been an issue. Plus, my S22 has scores in his head he wants to hit and is not yet ready to give up on that; so he’ll likely take the SAT and ACT one more time. He’s taken the ACT twice and the SAT twice.
I think not submitting scores at TO schools may only hurt with merit scholarships. But that’s just based on my reading of numerous threads on CC for the class of 2021.
Sure. D21 reached out to every AO at the colleges on her list the summer before her senior year and asked if the supplemental essays would remain the same from last year. In her case, it was easy to look on each schools’ website and see who was reading apps from which part of the country. All of them got back to her.
Some (most?) of the schools on her list sent admissions officers to her high school (last year it was virtual) for info sessions. She signed up to meet with each of them. Many of the schools on her list didn’t have a lot of seniors show up for these and, in a handful of cases (with Colgate, Richmond, and Lehigh) she was the only student in the Zoom meeting so got to have 30 minutes with the person who was going to read her app!
She did a lot of work researching each schools’ mission statements and looked closely for specific groups on campus she’d like to join and, if appropriate in the supplemental essays, wrote very specifically about how she would contribute on campus.
She did multiple info sessions, virtual tours, student panels, etc. for each college. This was time consuming but also helped her write good essays that showed fit.
We didn’t do any official tours until after acceptances.
She was accepted to Colgate, Boston College, Lehigh, Davidson, Richmond, Furman (with $30K merit), Loyola Marymount (with 32k merit and direct entrance to their honors college), Santa Clara (with around $20k merit, don’t remember exactly) and Denver (with $22k).
Waitlisted at Wake (not completely surprised as they have very poor yield from our high school and started WL kids instead of flat out accepting them). Denied at Vanderbilt (which was no surprise as Vandy really only takes kids from our school in ED.)
I don’t think that’s true about merit everywhere. See above. D21 did well with merit. She didn’t apply to any big state schools with auto merit so I’m not sure how that went last year but, at the privates she applied to, she got the merit (or more) that we expected.
Showing interest in colleges? A few years back, I went to a talk about college admissions put on by a former dean from Franklin and Marshall, and recently listened to “Who Gets In and Why” by Jeff Selingo, and both shared what the school sees as demonstrated interest. Basically, colleges have big data going on behind the scenes and can determine clicks, time spent on on their website, etc. (I have no idea how a VPN might affect this, if anyone here knows, please share your knowledge.) Going to the virtual tours definitely show interest. All those emails that get sent to your student? Open them, and promptly. Got a snail mail flyer with a QR code? Scan it. Got something in the mail addressed to the student to send back for more information about the school? Send it. Do you follow them on social media? Is this all a stupid game? Yes. But they’re the ones making the rules and doling out the decisions. My kid is exasperated with all the marketing material and she doesn’t listen to me on this, so admittedly I can’t get her to jump through the hoops.
I know this benchmark has been debated before on CC, but I’m still unsure whether to have S22 look at accepted student scores (not always easy to find) or enrolled. For the latter, I think some common data sets fold scores from TO applicants into the reporting, which tends to give a deceivingly rosy picture.
It seems there can be three (often overlapping) ranges to consider: admitted, enrolled non-TO, and enrolled with TO. Can someone offer some wisdom on this question?
You may recall S22 couldn’t get an SAT in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we flew to Boise in June so he get could take it. Bunch of other rising seniors from various high schools were on the same flight, dubbed the “SAT Shuttle”.
It was a roll of the dice. S22 ended up with a solid score that puts him at the 75th percentile at his target school. Glad it worked out, but he would have gone test optional if it hadn’t.
We had plenty of tests here for D21. Her colleges would have known that suburban Chicago definitely had tests. Full disclosure, she took three ACTs and two SATs and just couldn’t move the needle much on her score. I do think if it was a normal year, it would maybe have gone up but not sure. She self studied like S19 but just isn’t the test taker he is. Covid and TO was a huge silver lining for her. I bet she could have been denied at a few of the schools were she got accepted if she had to send in her scores. For her safeties, she was at the 75th percentile but, for Davidson, BC, Colgate, Richmond, Lehigh? If I remember correctly, she was below their median.
Agree with what @homerdog said as far as showing demonstrated interest. One of the easiest ways to get your student’s name out there is by contacting the AO. Since August 1 is around the corner asking what the supplemental essay questions are doesn’t really make a lot of sense at this point but just making contact and asking any generic question, even if your kid knows the answer is key. It can be simply “Are you planning to make a visit to my high school this year and will it be in person, as I’d love to talk to you about xxx school as I’m really interested in the xxx program there.” Then through the application process keep asking questions.
Don’t worry so much about opening every email a school sends or stuff like that. But if you can’t visit, do a virtual tour. Due to diversity issues, schools are starting to track some demonstrated interest like actual visiting less than they did 5 years ago and some don’t track it at all. But, having a relationship with an AO helps.
Also, in the essays as a way to cater them to the specific school like “Why xxx” always have your student research the school and a certain professor that does something (research) or teaches a course that they are really interested in and mention that Professor and give examples of what they’re interested in when they write the essays. It shows the school that they didn’t just recycle their essay for every school, but go one step further and actually tell your student to reach out to those professors and engage with them about that research or course or club and then when they write the essay they can include that in the essay. It will humanize your student to the reader and show them that your student is truly interested in the school. If your student isn’t interested in doing these things, then take it for what it’s worth and just know it may be a crapshoot for them for the school or they may get in based on strength of somethng else. It was a rough year last year and is only going to get harder as TO threw a wrench into the mix for sure and many schools have over enrolled with much higher yields than expected.
