My son has high grades and very good extracurriculars, but he doesn’t test well for the kinds of schools he wants. For his first SAT his Verbal is 700; in SAT math, which he loathes, his score is 600, despite the fact that he does very well in math at school. I’ve heard some of the more elite schools that say they are testing optional are not truly optional for middle and upper class kids. Is this true? He is going to keep working at it but is very frustrated since he’s been working unbelievably hard for so long and wants to go to one of the very good LACs (all of his very smart friends seem to test very well, so this adds to the frustration). The schools talk a lot about “holistic” appreciation but is this true for someone who is not an athlete or legacy, and who comes from a relatively comfortable background? He has been working on practice tests for a long time, with some tutoring, but just seems put off by the questions in that time frame.
Is it true that these schools are test optional? Mostly, yes, especially for some LACs. Some, like Bates, accept a lot of students without test scores. Others want subjects test or AP tests in the absence of the SAT or ACT. I suspect that some are test optional for just some students; in other words, tests are possibly expected for a certain demographic, but they won’t actually frame it that way.
If your son is serious about upping his math score, I suggest consistent tutoring over the course of a couple of months. Look for word of mouth tutors.
Yes, I was suspicious about the idea of test-optional but they do exist and at least in our experience they seem true to their words. Here is the full list –
https://www.fairtest.org/university/optional
I wouldn’t sweat the SAT test if you don’t think he will be attending a public school. Many public schools tend to be more by the numbers. If you can avoid the testing, there’s enough pressure on kids as it is and he will find the right school for him test or no test. As you can see by the list, there are many schools that are test-optional that are excellent and will provide him with a great education.
Bard
Allegheny
Bucknell
Clark
Colby
Connecticut College
Denison
Dickinson
Drake
Earlham
Drexel
George Mason
George Washington
Goucher
Guilford
Hamilton
Hobart and William Smith
Ithaca
Juniata
Knox
Lake Forest
Lawrence University
Beloit
Lewis and Clark
Marist
Marlboro
Middlebury
Muhlenberg
Wesleyan
Wheaton in Massachusetts
etc
Many many more
Best of luck to you.
My D is very similar. She was accepted at all but one test optional school and received great merit at two of them. I highly recommend interviewing, if that is an option, as well as completing any optional essays and reaching out to the AO early.
I don’t know if that made the difference, but it was the differentiator from the one school she did not get vs. the others. Best of luck!
She also received some great acceptances with her lower score, so don’t discount the holistic approach to admissions being real!
CC and even the colleges themselves had given me a skewed sense of values placed on the test.
Thanks, GrayStrong, that’s a relief. Can you tell me where she got in? It might help relax us a bit. Do you think interviewing at the school versus in our city (NYC) makes a difference?
first world probems if you think a 1300 is bad
You’re correct, it is totally a first world problem, and it’s not bad, just not nearly high enough for the schools that he feels fit him the most and that he would prefer to attend. He’s been working very hard and wants to go to a certain kind of school (and is in a culture where most of his friends score significantly higher, though their GPAs are all the same). We live in NYC so it’s a skewed world.
It could be truly optional for many LACs. But for truly selective schools, if you are from middle/upper middle class and not URM, I have serious doubt.
S19’s experience with George Washington U. Test optional with a twist…
My son wanted to apply without test scores but accidentally checked the box that said he would send scores. He called and asked admissions to change his preference to ‘no test scores’. They refused due to policy but told him that his scores would have very little bearing on his overall app. His SAT is high 1200s - below the 25th percentile for GW.
His story and his ECs are interesting and do a better job painting the picture of who he is.
He was accepted with an $18,000 Presidential Scholarship.
I was shocked and I am now a (slightly skeptical) believer in ‘test optional’ programs.
I agree with Graystrong that the holistic approach is real at many colleges, including those that are test optional. This has been our experience too. I think that interviewing on campus is helpful. They get to know you better and your child can send genuine signals of desiring that school, if that’s the case. For my child who did test optional, her dream school was test optional and she visited every chance she could get – self-organized, I did nothing – because she loved that school. she also attended the NYC interview day. Every chance she could get she just wanted to be part of that school experience. I’m sure that was one reason why she and the school clicked so well.
As a NYC parent whose kids attended the entire range of high schools, I feel that it’s important to say that it’s only a “skewed world” of you make it so. It’s not easy, to be sure, to change that, but I had to get off the “skew” track early as it was clear that one of mine was not going to stay on the track. I had to suck it in, when this child was in fourth grade – or maybe earlier – and make that attitude change! It was hard because it looked like my peers had things all figured out. Their kids were flying along at full speed, while mine was struggling. Yours isn’t struggling, i know, but I’m only attempting to give you permission to gently look at slightly lower ranked schools. Most of the schools in the upper 60 or so are pretty darn good schools. And your child may get merit money by being the higher-performing student in their application pool. People chasing merit attempt to apply to merit-giving schools and to be in the upper 25th percentile of the schools applicant pool.
For example, his scores would be pretty good for Muhlenberg, which gives merit. Muhlenberg is not test optional. It’s a happy school and I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like it once they toured it. A good number of NYC kids go there. The arts there are plentiful and it has serious science tracks. It’s average SAT is 1296 and GPA is 3.36. But because of the merit, it attracts a lot of very serious students with 4.0 averages – who get a good amount of merit.
On the test-optional list, he might want to toss an application at Middlebury, for example. What’s he got to lose? It’s test optional.
Hobart and William Smith
St. Lawrence
Allegheny
etc.
Some evidence of successful standardized testing can substantiate other aspects of an application. If your son can show himself to good advantage with results from SAT subject tests, APs, or IBs, then he could raise his prospects to a reasonable level for some text flexible colleges. In these cases, he could report his SAT I EBRW score without his math score.
If a school says it’s test optional I take them on their word. The “not-optional” for upper incomes was really more about the subject tests.
My younger son had higher scores that your kid, but his Math score remained stubbornly 100 points below the verbal and he got almost identical scores both times he took the SAT. He applied to a wide range of schools and ended up doing much better than expected. He was in the top 6% of his class, but he had lots of B’s and B+'s. He did have 5’s on all the APs he’d taken so far, he had great recommendations, decent ECs including one unusual one that he wrote about. He found a safety that had an honors program that was tops in his major that he could have been very happy at - they ended up offering him a nice merit package. He ended up attending a school where his math score was in the bottom 25th %ile, and his verbal was in the top 25th.
I remember one parent asking me why my younger son wasn’t applying to more Ivy League schools. I just laughed and said because we didn’t think he had the grades to get in. (He applied in the end to two and didn’t get in to either.) If your son is interested in LACs he should be aware that some have much more favorable acceptance rates for men than women. Check the Common Data Sets.
“On the test-optional list, he might want to toss an application at Middlebury, for example. What’s he got to lose? It’s test optional.”
Middlebury is not test-optional. It requires SAT, ACT or 3 subject tests.
The test-optional NESCACs are Wesleyan, Connecticut College, Bates, Colby and Trinity College.
@bklynkids
My friend’s son had the exact same score as your son and a high gpa. He was accepted to Connecticut college, Macalester, Grinell, U Rochester and Brandeis to name a few. Some schools he did not send scores and some he did. I do not remember all the details. The problem with the very elite test optional schools is not just if they are “truly” test optional but their acceptance rate which is extremely low. At those schools kids with high scores are routinely rejected (for example Bowdoin and Midd). How would you even know why your kid did not make it? It could be that they are not truly optional for your demographic or that just he wouldn’t get accepted anyway even with high scores. I would also consider LACs that are looking for more boys (Vassar?)
Good luck and I am sure your son will have great choice next year.
And Bowdoin.
@trekslxchick good information. The list from Fairtest needs updating or clarification, then.
We were just at Gettysburg College (test optional), where the admissions officer said test scores are required to be considered for merit scholarships. And that some people will see the school’s average SAT is 1320, so they won’t submit a 1290. Which is a bad idea, partly because of the elimination from merit consideration. But also because if you don’t submit scores the school already knows you don’t have a 1320 (or you’d submit) so you might as well tell them you have a 1290 and not an 1180.
As far as I can see, there aren’t that many test-optional schools where submitting a 1300 (which could also be a 1340 or 1360 after a retake or two) is clearly worse than submitting nothing. If you’re more than 100 points below the average, or definitely below the 25th percentile, maybe you want to just let the school guess, but otherwise it probably won’t have much effect either way.
Note that at even some highly selective schools such as Bowdoin, a 1300 reaches the 25th percentile.
And where would we put Hamilton? “Test flexible”, perhaps:
https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/hamilton-makes-permanent-its-sat-optional-policy