Interesting (and surprising?) stat from the Middlesex site’s admissions section: “In 2020-21, 53% of applicants did not submit testing, and 50% of our admitted students were admitted without testing.” Anyone have stats from other schools?
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I noticed that too. I don’t think I have seen any other schools post this kind of information.
I’d love to know the “buckets” breakdown for that 50% admitted without tests.
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When our private school’s HS placement advisor last year told parents of applicants that it was likely that many private high schools and boarding schools would be going test optional, there was a loud gasp from one parent on the Zoom: “But we spent so much money on that.” It was true, many of the parents had poured tons of money and time into private tutors for their decently fine but not genius kids to pump up scores as much as possible. Another family had had an SSAT tutor for TWO YEARS for their kid to get the 90+ percentile score they believed was needed to ease into a legacy private school spot (no, not the same kid of the gasping parent and yes they were successful)… And that’s just the basic route - pouring cash into tutoring. Years earlier, in my older kids’ class, one parent described to me that at the first SSAT administered on school grounds, maybe 1-2 kids had time accommodations. At the second test? More than half the kids in the room magically had gotten diagnoses for time extensions, and one kid had a calculator supposedly. So I am fairly cynical about these tests and basic fairness as schools look to increase diversity and access to kids who are absolutely smart but might not have parents even aware of what these tests are much less the foresight and disposable cash to plan a year or two ahead for prepping for them. I assume that is a big part of why Mx did it, I know they are taking diversity pretty seriously; they had one of their two essay questions on it last year. I don’t know about the buckets, but my hope is that it was less of a consideration for FA applicants, because they would likely have the least access to test prep and ability to take the test easily in the pandemic…but it might have just as easily been less of a consideration for kids from “known” schools that send kids there year after year, or for kids who would have had lower than normal scores in a typical year anyway but really were needed/wanted for an athletic spot.
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