SAT Optional

Parents Forum
1

With so many schools being SAT optional, should I be concerned about my daughter’s score being average 1030 even though her GPA is around 4.0? She is looking at smaller private schools that don’t require the SAT. Just curious for some viewpoints.

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If the school remains test optional and merit money is not tied to standardized test scores (or not needed), then I wouldn’t worry at all.

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If her score is significantly outside the range of test scores for the school/program, it may not be a good academic fit.

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@1NJParent I disagree. Scores are not always an indicator of academic ability. The tests respond to tutoring and studying. Not all of the kids with higher scores are necessarily more academically capable. They just spent time to learn how to test.

@ilaudio You have 2 choices.

  1. Stay the path of test optional. There are so many outstanding schools that are test optional and a 4.0 is excellent! Without focusing on test prep, she can spend her time working on her grades and extra curriculars.

  2. Test prep. If she devotes a significant amount of time to test prep, she could increase her score.

Tests are becoming less and less relevant. With a 4.0, she sounds like a great student and there will be a lot of places who will accept her without a score.

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Kanfly, As my wife is fond of telling me, some people just don’t do well on standardized tests. She earned nearly 4.0s in secondary, undergrad and grad schools, yet had mediocre scores on her ACTs and GMATs.

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ilaudio, Does your daughter attend a highly ranked HS with a strong curriculum? The better the HS, the less important standardized test scores are. Colleges - especially state schools that get many in-state applicants - track how students from various high schools perform, and they take that into account during admissions evaluations. I am certain that UIUC knows how students from New Trier and Walter Payton HS have done over the years.

Standardized tests provide a common metric for colleges to evaluate students from different high schools that vary greatly in curriculum, competitiveness and student body. A “B” student at a competitive magnet school might be an “A” student at an average school.