i really am just trying to understand this all; it just doesnt make sense from the two different schools our kids have attended. maybe we are outliers!
My D16 a& S20’s attended an urban, low SES school (82% low SES) - the admin is just trying to pass the kids so they graduate. There were no failing grades. They pushed kids into AP classes for more diversity - and these kids pass the classes - but the AP test pass rate was dismal. my s20’s class had one kid out of 500 who had ap with distinction (like a 3.5 score rate). No science olympiads, no STEM competitions or groups at this school. The schools’ focus is on food distribution, football, and equity and transportation. Ok, that is all needed, not arguing on that. But when an underprivledged kid shows up with a high ACT score, it’s celebrated and noticed. High GPAs are standard to adjust for the low education levels.
i guess that’s the type of school we were at for 18 yrs; and familiar with. So wrapping my mind around hollistic is hard.
My kid attends a racially and socioeconomically diverse school with 40% qualifying for free/reduced price meals. Although there are also neighborhoods of 3000 square-foot $800k homes, there are not more than five kids going to Top 20 schools per year and no one is up in arms — the emphasis is very much on improving high school graduation rates instead.
The holistic review is intended to help kids from low-SES backgrounds. Instead of celebrating just the ONE kid with the high ACT score and letting that kid join the rich kids at a top 20 school, the idea is that a lot more kids from that low-SES school could potentially be considered for top colleges based on having a decent GPA and other “holistic” considerations — like a part-time job in lieu of science olympiad prizes, etc.
That’s the goal, anyway. Does it work that way in reality? I don’t know. The most privileged tend to find ways to work the system to their advantage no matter what system you pick.
here are my next questions: if a kid gets into a top college hollistically from an underperforming and artificially high GPAs school (like what i described above) - will that kid be able to succeed? AND - what about the truly gifted genius-type kids? will they be with students who are similar to them, who want and need to be truly pushed? Or with kids who are deserving of a chance at an elite education; but still havent passed any AP classes? (That’s probably being simplistic; i’m sure the AOs know what they are doing. )
Here is a link to a This American Life episode that dealt with those very questions (in regard to Texas’ top 6% admission to UT Austin). I am sure you will be relieve to hear that those students often go on to be highly successful, as long as they aren’t put into remedial classes, but rather are placed in regular/honors classes with support.
Yes and no. I have no problem including AP exam scores in admissions. Unlike others, I do not believe that less information is better.
On the other hand, middle and working class school districts do not offer as many AP classes as wealthy school districts or prep schools, so these kids are simply not going to have a lot of exams to take. Also, AP’s are just for a segment of the college bound applicant pool. How many AP exams are taken on average by applicants to schools outside the Top 100? I am guessing it is not a huge number, and they won’t be comparable between candidates. As a result, the value of AP scores in admissions is somewhat limited.
I do not think there is a single Rosetta Stone to use to figure out what the perfect student is for each school. I believe that all factors should be considered when selecting students for a school.
Test opponents believe that tests should not even be considered in an admissions process. Most of this thread is discussing the problems with not using test scores at all.
My S graduated from an urban low income school and some of his friends at top schools went TO and some submitted scores. Everyone is doing great including the kids in STEM. His best friend is studying STEM at Princeton and doing really well and friends roommate, a kid from a top prep school, is struggling and dropped his STEM major.
My point is that only the very top kids from our district are getting into top schools. These are kids that even if they don’t have the test scores have everything else in the app.
This thread is about “Test Optional”, not test blind.
There are Test Optional supporters on this thread but if you see any Test Opponents you should flag them for being off topic. (I haven’t seen that - I just see people who support Test Optional).
But you seemed to be arguing that test scores were the only way to distinguish among a group of students who overwhelmingly have high GPAs or that inflated GPAs are a result of test optional policies. At least that’s how I interpreted your comments.
I think that using a test score to decide who gets in is somewhat arbitrary in terms of picking among a group of kids all likely to succeed at a school. You might as well draw names out of a hat. And grade inflation was happening long before schools went test optional. It is part of the same furious escalation that led to increasing test scores, too.
I am not anti-test in principle.
Personally, I like University of Washington’s approach, which uses test scores only to admit someone who wouldn’t get in otherwise. From UW’s website:
“The UW is technically test-optional. However, test-optional can mean different things at different schools. At the UW, you will not be disadvantaged for sending low scores or for not sending scores. In fact, when reading your application, the reviewers will not see your test scores, if provided. However, test scores that fall above our middle 50% (see the [freshman profile] for more information) may be considered for a handful of students who may not otherwise be admitted.“
I think the test opponents have covered all the things they don’t like about tests in detail, and these opinions are also available throughout the web if anyone wants to see more of them. I am struggling with how “SATs are not perfect” is a rationale for only using an alternative set of admissions criteria that in many case are much, much worse.
Reported test scores have been increasingly rapidly, but actual median test scores have only increased incrementally over time, and always because of a chance in how the test is scored and what curve it is scored on, not score inflation. The same can not be said of GPAs.
Going test optional and test blind makes the admissions process more opaque and subjective. Who do you think that favors in admissions?
I don’t understand this. You certainly haven’t made this case using any data that I have seen.
Why do you think many, maybe most (at least at schools with holistic admissions) AOs/enrollment mgmt professionals, and industry consultants don’t believe that their ‘alternative set of admissions criteria’ is ‘much, much worse’?
Said differently, what data do you see that supports your statement?
Using test scores to make admissions decisions may seem to be less subjective, but that does not mean it results in picking more qualified students.
It results in selecting the best timed standardized test-takers. And the privileged ones who can be good timed standardized test-takers with the benefit of lots of expensive test prep and multiple attempts.
Look, I get it. I was good at those tests and have a kid who is good at them, too. So I would love for it to be an advantage for personal reasons. Especially because, to some extent, that test-taking skill does correlate with an ability to do well in a classroom, too.
But if I am being honest, I have to admit there are lots of very successful visionaries, inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, and policymakers out there who may not have my test-taking talent but far surpass me in other “subjective” qualities that would have a positive impact on any campus or workplace. The “opaque” and “subjective” holistic review can find likely-to-succeed applicants from all walks of life (and test scores) in an effort to make a campus more vibrant and diverse.
A cynic could say it also is a way to let in rich dummies who effectively pay for a pretty GPA and transcript. But — spoiler alert — those students were already getting into schools through legacy boosts, need-aware policies, attending feeder schools, and other means.
I don’t think test optional policies really change anything other than giving schools more wiggle room to consider candidates — and to encourage desirable but low-scoring students to apply who might not have bothered.
This was a reply to my post, so I assume you are talking about my post in which I listed the % with 4.0 from the CDS. Note that these are recalculated GPAs where anything more than 4.0 is called 4.0. For example, Clemson lists the following GPA in their CDS. The listed average GPA of 4.43 with the listed distribution suggests the 78% with 4.0 have a mean GPA of ~4.6. They are clearly using a weighted scale where the maximum is at least 5.0… possibly 6.0. Perhaps they are using a scale where honors = +1 and AP/IB/DE = +2, so a student who got straight A’s in all AP/IB/DE courses would have a 6.0. Or perhaps they are have a limited maximum number of AP/IB/DE courses in the recalculation, which might make the theoretical maximum somewhere between 5.0 and 6.0. It’s a matter of speculation what system they are using to recalculate, but what is clear is that they are not treating the listed 78% with 4.0 as all the same. The average GPA is listed as 4.43, so many have GPAs well above 4.0.
78% have 4.0 (means 78% have >= 4.0)
12% have 3.75 to 4.0
7% have 3.5 to 3.75
3% have 3.25 to 3.5
1% have 3.0 to 3.5
0.5% have 2.5 to 3.0
0.5% have 2.0 to 2.5
.==============
Average GPA = 4.43
Studies that have found GPA more predictive of college success metrics than test scores (in isolation) specify what system they are using to recalculate GPAs, if they are doing a weight/recalculation. As a general rule, it is important to have some metric that considers course rigor, rather than looking at unweighted GPA in isolation. Recalculation may be partially an effort to do this. However, the highly selective colleges that are frequently discussed on this site typically go further than a simple recalculation formula and review the full transcript, considering things like which courses had non-A grades and how relevant they are to planned field of study, upward/downward trend, grade leniency/harshness of particular HS, how many AP/IB/DE courses were offered at particular HS, etc. Such colleges also consider more than just transcript when admitting test optional kids including things like LORs, GC, essays, ECs/awards, interview, personal/character traits, etc. The relevant question for test optional is how much is lost when transcript, LORs, essays, ECs/awards, … are considered without scores, rather than whether unweighted GPA in isolation is more predictive than SAT/ACT in isolation. This has been thoroughly discussed earlier in the thread, so I won’t repeat.