@JBStillFlying this boy in particular is a hopeful chem major and is retaking next semester with a schedule built to make room for it. The girl, if I read correctly up thread, is interested in a social science area for which calculus isn’t really a barrier or litmus test either. My daughter actually doesn’t have to take a single math class to graduate from her (well respected, I believe) college (she’ll take stats anyway, but never calculus). Math isn’t everything.
UChicago is test optional, not test blind…test blind means scores aren’t accepted, or evaluated, in the admissions decision. Hampshire College is the only school I know of that is test blind, but of course there might be more. I believe the UC system is expected to become TO, not test blind…unless I have missed something. At this point, there are over 1,000 TO 4 year schools, out of a total of less than 3,000.
I’m not sure how you come to that conclusion from the article.
The studies in question did find an increase in scores of those who had test prep. Other studies have shown increases as well.
IMO the most important finding is that a 20-30 point higher math SAT score would be meaningful to AOs.
'My daughter actually doesn’t have to take a single math class to graduate (well respected, I believe) college (she’ll take stats anyway, but never calculus). Math isn’t everything."
@milgymfam - Math may not be “everything” but at uChicago the ability to navigate quantitative / mathematical reasoning is considered to be a basic outcome of a liberal arts education, regardless of your specific major. Therefore, there is a two-quarter Core requirement. There are ways to get that number down to one course or even none but they are more exceptional circumstances, not the general rule, and you have to be coming in with even MORE mathematical knowledge to make that happen. It’s not the open curriculum that your daughter’s institution seems to have. You have to take the placement test and you have to start where you are placed unless you are either invited to honors or successfully petition your placement (the latter is not usual).
Two points:
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UChicago does NOT require you to at least start in Calc. unless you placed into it. The article says that’s what happened with this TO-admit so she was able to do the work, most likely. We were worried about our son’s placement into Calc. 2 but he was fine. They are pretty careful about Calc. placement! However, for those with no pre-calc. experience there are other options; for instance, lower math, stats or CS (all have to be from the approved sequence list to count as Core). The good majority of the first year class will be taking Calc. and one can easily see that by looking up the class search tool and counting up the enrollment in all the sections. But it’s not the only path.
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Interestingly, Harvard just restored/re-introduced - or maybe introduced for the first time? - a Math requirement in their gen. ed’s for Class of '23 onwards.
I’m just flat out skeptical about TO. When it’s used at a private university or college, they can use it however they like and some schools have acknowledged that they use it so they can admit first gens, URMs, etc who may not have test scores in line with the kids who are admitted with scores. They’re allowed to do that. What I think is unclear is if TO can work for kids who come from schools where the college would expect to see a score. I completely understand that there are kids who don’t test well and who are terrific students. But would Chicago take one from a highly ranked high school instead of taking a similar student from the same high school who submitted strong scores? I doubt it. So much for holistic admissions.
Some schools insist they do not use TO exclusively for certain groups, but they also don’t provide any details nor do they have to. So we are left guessing. I would love to get a admissions officer from a school like Bates or Wake Forest into a room and get the real scoop on TO. How do they really use it? As much as I don’t like standardized tests and the stress they can bring to kids, they do show differences. Even in our own family, we’ve got two kids who are taking similar classes at their high school and getting fairly similar grades. One of them self studied for the SAT, got a high score early junior year, and was one and done. Our second child has been self studying for the ACT for months and can’t seem to get close to knocking it out of the park. So, while their transcripts look more similar than different, there is a difference between our kids and I don’t use the excuse that our second child “doesn’t test well”. I would fully admit that she’s not quite the academic star that her brother is and it’s showing up in her testing. My point is that using transcripts and grades alone does not tell the whole story and testing really can show differences.
Yet, we live in a school district that is well-off and the average SAT and ACT is very high at our school so D will continue to study and take tests until she get to or near her goal. I really just don’t believe it when schools say they would look at her transcript the same without a score. I think it’s a red flag to apply without it. I know a lot of posters on CC disagree with me and can give the advice that an otherwise strong student in a really great school district can apply TO if that’s an option but I’m not willing to risk it.
As for the higher SAT score mentioned above, I do think every point can count. Especially if the student has no hook. Colleges with high ACT/SAT scores need students to keep those high and may look the other way for the hooked kids but not the unhooked ones.
“I believe the UC system is expected to become TO, not test blind…unless I have missed something. At this point, there are over 1,000 TO 4 year schools, out of a total of less than 3,000.”
- @Mwfan1921 Yes - Test blind IS different from TO but I thought UC system was considering scrapping test scores altogether? Lots of rumors - maybe I'm going off older info or misunderstood an article at one point. That's one big university system so would make an impact even if TO. And that decision may come out soon, right?
To reiterate, UChicago Admissions stated in the article that they are NOT considering Test-Blind.
@TheVulcan - Can’t recall which test(s) your son took but the College Board has made the SAT very preppable just using Kahn. However, any notion that a score increase is guaraneed or you can ace the test given enough prep is clearly erroneous. They actually ARE indicators of stuff like mental processing speed or ability to figure out the tricks to a problem. No getting around it. And those things tend to be correlated with doing well in college. Though of course we all know the kid who for whatever reason aces the test but does poorly in high school and ends up at a sub-par institution for his/her mental abilities. Self-discipline, perseverance, etc. are highly valued by adcoms for a reason.
UC’s faculty/academic task force is due to make their recommendation in the next month or two. It seems the trustees widely support TO based on various snippets here and there…not hearing test blind is really on the table, but who knows what the faculty could end up recommending. This article is a good summary: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-02/uc-sat-test-optional
If the UC System does go TO, yes that will be a big impact…test blind would be like setting off a bomb.
If they go TO, what we don’t know is whether UCs would consider TO to be ok from any applicant…for example, an Asian student from a top performing Palo Alto high school…similar to what homerdog addressed above.
Both our kids had ACT 35 in middle school (one in 8th, another - in 7th grade), and they didn’t “prep” beyond taking a few practice tests from a $20 book we ordered on Amazon to help them get familiar with the format.
@homerdog while there have been CC parents who have said their kid would apply TO to UChicago because “they don’t test well” (read: they have the typical college prep but are scoring lower than their school’s average submitted to the elites), the College has been pretty clear how they are using TO. It’s part of the Empower Initiative so has been introduced especially to reach under-represented groups (first gen, low SES/Pell, URM’s rural, military vets, children of police/fire public servants, etc.). Maybe someone can weigh in and let us know whether they were admitted TO from a high school that usually submits scores to UChicago. It’ll be interesting to find out. We know that there are GCs out there advising their students not to submit anything under a 1500 or some such. Not sure that the purpose of TO at UChicago is to cause the average submitted SAT score to spiral up into the nosebleed section.
Anecdotes do not equal data. It’s great that no/little test prep worked for your kids, but it’s not the case for many students who do benefit from test prep.
The data is clear: test prep offers a very marginal improvement at best. Going TO is throwing the baby away with the water.
A question I have is how TO students are accounted for when colleges report their middle 50% ACT/SAT range. Do they just exclude the TO students? Is there a limit on how many students can be admitted TO before college can no longer officially report their middle 50% scores in common data sets?
Otherwise it would be all too easy to put up a veneer of exclusivity and selectivity by attracting lots of applicants by going TO (and no application fee), then only report high scorers you admitted, ignoring the TO part of the student body.
It’s anecdotal of course, as is others experiences here, but my older daughter’s ACT went up 8 points (with the biggest jump by far in math) with some prep and practice tests. It was huge for helping her get into her school, I believe.
I think the particular case of U Chicago going TO is so interesting. @JBStillFlying and I have talked about the distribution of matriculating student test scores before. https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/class-2023-profile
For class of 2023, ACT range is 20-36, and SAT range 1020-1600. Those test scores are in line with prior classes…So, clearly U Chicago has always accepted students who don’t test well, and some GC’s are allowing students to send in relatively low scores, and some of those students are being admitted.
I guess we will never really know if TO will allows UC to enroll students with greater diversity, unless they communicate that and/or start reporting the data differently. It seems like going TO should help them achieve their goals…I expect just going TO gives GC/students with low test scores more comfort in applying, even in light of the historical matriculating SAT/ACT data. Currently, students who applied TO do not have to send in scores upon enrollment, so the data at the link above only includes students who applied with tests.
"The data is clear: test prep offers a very marginal improvement at best. Going TO is throwing the baby away with the water.’
- @TheVulcan - Intelligence tests are learnable and ACT/SAT isn't even a strict intelligence test. It might be the case that data measuring the impact of "prep" on outcomes isn't that supportive simply because no-one is holding constant the quality/length/curriculum of the prep. If you did so you should see overall gains. Now, if you said that specific curriculum over and above simple taking and retaking of various administrations of a practice test offers a very marginal improvement . . . I might agree more with you.
To think about TO properly, consider game theory. Imagine a world where all schools required tests and weighed them heavily. Well, there are is some subset of kids that are really bright but don’t test well. Let’s also assume for a moment that holistic admissions can reliably identify those kids.
Given this situation, if ONE school moved from test-required to TO, it would have a tremendous first mover advantage. It could identify the great kids that other schools miss and get them with little competition. But once many schools do the same thing, the advantage diminishes. With 1000+ schools doing that, there is no advantage to them in aggregate.
Now, UChicago going test-optional changes the equation a bit. It is the only really elite school to go TO. The question now becomes “Are there really many elite students that don’t do well on standardized tests, and can UChicago identify them and recruit them, giving them a first mover advantage among these students?”
I am not convinced the answer yes, mainly because the tests are not really that hard given their lower ceilings compared to past tests. I am also not convinced that colleges can reliably identify kids that are strong but don’t do well on standardized tests. I expect a lot of kids that won’t be able to handle the rigor, and that’s not good for anyone.
My kids also did well on standardized tests with nothing more than basic study guides. Yes, they are from high achievement school districts, but 35 years ago I also did well when I took the tests from a low achievement school district. It’s far easier to do so now with the ample free test prep on the Internet.
My take on UChicago going TO is that Nondorf is looking for another rabbit to pull out of the hat in order to continue the magic that he has been able to do so far. I’m not sure this one will be successful.
First, there are plenty of kids without internet access.
Next, why is it that kids in those well off school districts have such better test scores? Are they really that much smarter? Or is it possible that all of those life advantages contribute to being better prepared for schooling/testing?
Also, why assume a lot of TO kids will struggle with the rigor? I know plenty of students who struggle with the rigor - many parents of high achieving kids in these threads have shared the stories.
A friend’s D is TO at a private college and is thriving. Freshman year she struggled, but she utilized the tutoring services and had a great counselor to get her steady.
If it diversifies colleges and assists kids who are capable but without the early life advantages to meet certain test standards, I say give it a try and let’s see the results.
Bowdoin is also test optional.
Bowdoin went test optional (late 60s) before they allowed full-time degree seeking women (1971)!
Actually, CB’s own research indicates that test prep works. (gotta read their reports in UChicago-style, however (aka critically), to suss out the big jumps.)
I’d bet on it.
If you have a source for that info, it would be great if you could share it!
UC has been talking about it for several years and has a couple of ongoing studies on the topic. Much is in the public domain. For example,
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-02/uc-sat-test-optional
While I have no inside info, my opinion as a long-time UC watcher is that they will get there in the next few years.