Let’s hope the question is rhetorical, because the debate over minutae seema to be like Bill Clinton stating, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. "
Coin toss? Picking a card? Shoot for it? Bird sign? Magic? I do not think you will find a concrete answer to this question or any of the other issues with TO from the pro-TO camp.
I am just going to let it go, since I do not want to spend time convincing anonymous internet posters of anything if they do not want to be convinced of, but the issue becomes less philosophical and more practical when new posters ask whether they or their S or D should provide test scores with their application. Since there are many different views on the role of test scores in the admissions process going forward, it is hard to provide a concrete answer to the specific question of whether to submit scores.
My S22’s approach will be to provide scores if he is above the 25th percentile of the 2020 class’ scores for the school in question, and not bother applying if he is not. We will see how it goes.
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I don’t really have a dog in this fight, my son has 4.0 GPA and >1570 SAT, so I don’t care if the schools are TO or not.
I just find it extremely funny that people assume that if at some point of time the outcomes could have been predictable without a test score, that means that they will continue to be predictable in the future once the rules are changed.
I am sure that if somebody did a study 10 years (completely random number, I have no idea when this particular nonsense started) ago if starting a non-profit correlates with successful admission, the answer would have been “yes”. Nowadays… not so much.
People will game the system no matter how you change it. That’s probably one of the reasons colleges don’t like to make their processes more public.
I remember an interesting comment posted on NYT in an article about changing the admittance policies for the elite public high schools to make them admit the top X% of each school. The commenter wrote that this won’t change anything and the same kids will get into these schools. The parents will just make sure their kids go to a school that guarantees them to be in these X% and diversity seen now in the top X% of the schools won’t exist anymore.
Why not address the many posts that listed realistic comments about what they believe test optional colleges would actually do in the proposed scenario, rather than just ignoring them, and making unrealistic claims?
Repeatedly saying that you are not going to post, then continuing to post similar ideas less than a day later does not increase the credibility of your claims.
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Perhaps the disconnect is that, while you are making policy arguments about the way things should be, many of us are just trying to explain the way things currently are. Whatever you think of TO, the colleges seem to have embraced it, so it might not be a bad idea to try to understand it.
Likewise regarding various “views” on whether or not to submit scores. Some provided extensive data, while others have been through the process, discussed it with college counselors, and have viewed TO in action, and have seen the early results. We aren’t so much arguing a preference as we are trying to help people understand the decision they face.
You, on the other hand, seem incredulous that there is even a decision to be made, and insistent on proceeding as if there wasn’t. I’m not sure that ignoring the current reality is a prudent plan for any student or parent.
[*By the way, I haven’t seen anyone from the supposed “pro-TO camp” advise anyone to definitely submit or not submit. I have seen a number of posters who advocate for submitting scores regardless of the circumstances.]
The two numbers illustrate the highly correlated nature of GPA and SAT in most cases. They may be similar to a person’s height vs arm span. I have no issue with TO and my son has similar numbers to your son’s.
And yet, there are students with 4.0 GPA and 1400 SAT. And these numbers are not exceptions.
If anyone is curious, the Ithaca study found the follow measures were most correlated with test scores. Number of AP hours had a particularly large correlation with scores, more so than HS GPA. I expect part of that correlation with number of AP hours relates to attending a better resourced HS. Kids attending better resourced HSs tend to both take more AP classes and have higher scores.
SAT Math x SAT Verbal = 0.44
Number AP Hours – Verbal = 0.46, Math = 0.41
HS GPA – Verbal = 0.39, Math = 0.29
Rigor of HS Courses – Verbal = 0.30, Math = 0.30
First Gen – Verbal = -0.09, Math = -0.07
Female – Math = -0.19, Verbal = 0.03
Non-White – Math = -0.15, Verbal = -0.12
Being female was interesting. Being female had a noteworthy positive correlation with cumulative GPA at Ithaca – both in isolation (0.27) and partial after controlling for the other variables (0.20). Being female was also positively correlated with all transcript metrics – HS GPA, AP hours, Strength of Schedule – as one might expect for a group with higher average GPA at Ithaca. However, being female was significantly negatively correlated with combined Math+Verbal score. Women had higher grades at Ithaca, yet had lower scores. This fits with my earlier comments about women being more likely to benefit from test optional, and being overrepresented among test optional admits at test optional colleges.
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It would be interesting to see a study that calculates the correlation of (Number of AP hours taken by the student)/(Number of AP hours) instead of just the latter. But that wouldn’t work well with schools that have very high number of AP courses so that it is physically impossible for the students to take all of them.
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Another interesting study would be to track where did the rejected students (that would have been admitted with the change) go and what their GPA was. Sadly, that is practically impossible to do as it will involve too much cooperation between students and colleges.
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I have been repeatedly attacked, had posts flagged when I respond (likely by the same posters that are attacking me), and then when I try to leave the thread, get attacked again. This behavior, by many of the same posters, goes on in other threads too.
The post you quoted at the top of this post was actually me trying to get the thread onto a more practical topic, which is how to handle TO policies. You seem intent on preventing that.
You think TO is wonderful. I get it. I do not feel like debating it with you anymore. Please stop calling me out.
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Rather than discussing the specific answers multiple posters had listed shortly above your post, you claimed you won’t find an answer, and instead compared test optional decisions to bird signs and magic. Maybe you instead were referring the bottom of the post, where you listed the test optional application strategy of never applying test optional regardless of score (submit scores if >25th percentile and don’t bother applying if <25th percentile)?
If your goal is to get the thread to move to a different topic or to prevent people from calling you out, this isn’t going to be an effective approach.
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Or like my D, a 3.97UW, top 8% of her class and an 1150. She’s applying TO everywhere.
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You have good numbers here. Do you happen to have numbers analyzed by both sides in the Harvard lawsuit? I didn’t pay attention then but I’d like to see how colleges evaluate applicants. BTW I don’t buy the discrimination claim.
Folks, let’s refrain from bickering. Remember, CC is not a debate society. If the conversation isn’t constructive, please move on from engaging repeatedly with any single user.
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You say that but from all I have read and seen, those were the kids that were most impacted this time around (high stats kids with high test scores). There are a whole lot of kids that in years past would have likely gone to Ivy or Ivy plus schools who are going to strong state flagships instead. And a lot of the kids that would’ve been a shoe in for the strong state flag ships in years past were waitlisted. I hope it works out better for your son!
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I wonder if there’s any thread that connects those high stat, high scoring kids who didn’t get into their reaches because, as I look at our Naviance data now, that’s not the case at our high school. Fairly typical results here as most Top 30 schools took the same number of kids this year as years past.
I know UCs were a problem being test blind but we don’t have a lot of kids apply to those.
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Some of the top kids at my S’ high school took a beating, including UC and Cal Poly per the GC. It is a small school, not particularly well known. The ones like my son who got into at least one desirable UC were waitlisted by several other desirable UCs. There are some practical reasons for that and major definitely mattered but it also seemed pretty arbitrary. Seems like some of the high income kids at great publics in the Bay Area took a beating as well from what I’ve been reading.
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I think I read somewhere that the UCs, while they always strive for diversity, were particularly interested this time around and accepted a very large percent of URMs this year. Might have hurt the acceptance rates of some of the kids you’re talking about. I searched but I can’t find the data that a CA friend quoted to me a few days ago. Hispanics and first gens were a really large percent of the classes this year,even more than usual.
Editing to add - found this-
“Among admitted U.S. freshman, the number of African American students increased by 21% over last year, from approximately 750 to more than 900, while the number of Chicano/Latino students grew by 7%, from approximately 2,430 to over 2,600. The number of admitted Pacific Islander freshman students more than doubled, and American Indian freshman admissions rose by 28%.
Asian American and white prospective freshmen accounted for 41% and 27% of U.S. admissions, respectively.
Taken together, students from historically underrepresented groups make up 34% of all admitted California-resident freshmen — the highest proportion at UCLA in over 30 years.”