I’m going to put a marker down for honest self-assessment. Some kids thrive when given a challenge and when surrounded by competitive classmates. Some do not, and benefit from a less competitive environment. Both can be fine paths to a great college education and set a kid up for good next steps. And I don’t think a test score necessarily really tells you what is best for a kid, because it is so much about them as an individual.
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Who exactly are you talking about?
Are you under the impression that low admissions colleges have been enrolling an increased number of unprepared students?
The admissions “arms race” to the “reaches” has become more intense than it has ever been, and the number of great applicants is also higher than it has ever been. That means that the academic qualifications of any student who is being accepted to those colleges without “hooks” has never been higher.
The only students who are actually falling behind, academically, in these so-called “reach” schools are legacies, athletes, and the kids of the wealthy, powerful, and famous. The number of applicants from these groups has not increased, so the academic qualifications of these have not increased at all or very little. They’re not any less qualified, but unhooked students need to the top 1% of applicants versus to 10% a few decades ago, whereas the hooked students still only need to be the top 30%-40% academically of their group.
Yet the athletes, the kids of the wealthy and powerful, the kids of legacies, etc, are not the ones who have more mental health issues.
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This is absolutely incorrect. Legacy at top schools have, on average, slightly higher stats at admission and slightly higher GPA than the general population.
The % of FGLI has increased tremendously. The ones I have met are brilliant but are often the children of immigrants and feel a tremendous pressure to perform/succeed. Keeping up is not a matter of intelligence. The “how to do college” learning curve is steeper for someone who came from an under resourced high schools than for the large number of students who comes in knowing to use office hours, study groups and other resources to their advantage.
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Source please.
Doesn’t matter; it’s off-topic. If someone wants to start a thread discussing unpreparedness of FGLI, be my guest. Otherwise, let’s return to the topic - which to be clear is the 62nd thread on the topic of test optional.
Further off-topic comments are subject to deletion without comment.
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The high achievers are not randomly scattered across the student population, at Bama, or at any college, for that matter. They tend to be in the same classrooms, they tend to hang out in the same social activities, etc. Moreover, the entire “Honors College” concept was created to make sure that they have to put very little effort into finding each other.
Hooked kids have been attending places like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford with tests scores that have been in the bottom 25% for decades. Yet their rate of failure has been miniscule.
My SiL’s nephew, a bright kid, attended Stanford, and said something which I have heard echoed for most of those colleges - the most difficult thing was getting in. As others have stated - the classes have not been getting any more challenging in the past 30 years.
So, 20 and 30 years ago, these colleges were selecting 15% of their unhooked applicants, so they were taking the “top 15%” of the applicants. These days, they are taking 3% of the unhooked applicants, so these have the “top 3%” of their applicants. Yet the graduation rates have stayed the same.
BTW, the bottom 25% of Princeton Verbal and Math SATs was, in 2022, 740 and 760 respectively, putting them in the 97th and 97th percentiles nationally.
In 2004, the bottom 25% of Princeton Verbal and Math SATs was, 680 and 690 respectively, putting them in the 93rd and 94th percentiles nationally.
That means that students in 2020 with SAT scores of over 700 (93rd V) and 730 (94th M) would be as qualified as those with Verbal and Math SAT scores of over 740 (V 97th) and 760 (M 97th), even though you are claiming that they should be applying, because you think that they are not qualified. Admissions and retention data from 20 years ago seems to demonstrate that they were just as qualified as the students today with higher SAT scores.
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I don’t think anyone is claiming any student should not be applying, or even attending if they are accepted. Just be aware of what one is getting into.
For whatever reason, students were much less concerned about grades when I attended college. We were all pretty certain we would be fine regardless of grade point average. That seems to not be the case at many campuses, including elite ones. Students seem to care deeply about gpa everywhere.
Also, frankly there was less of a gulf in preparation levels when I attended school. Whether that is due to levels of inequality, increased academic rigor in high school, the decline in urban education-whatever. I think the disparity in preparation has never been higher and has profound consequences for what students end up studying and how happy they are.
So caveat emptor.
As roycroftmom said, I don’t claim kids in the bottom 25% should not apply or attend if admitted! After all, 25% of the kids there are in that group (obv.)
I was specifically talking about the hypothetical 1220 kid that, hypothetically, were my own child. For the last year scores were required at Princeton, the 25% was 1460. A 1220 is likely the bottom 2-3% (e.g., a 29 ACT was bottom 7%).
We all come with deep knowledge of our own kids and, personally, I know my child would suffer from imposter syndrome if she were at a school where she perceived that everyone was smarter than her. NOT saying SAT is an indicator of intelligence!! I am well aware of its limitations.
But I am also aware of where my daughter thrives. I think “caveat emptor” is right. It’s unfortunately not the case that everyone thrives at college. It IS the case that colleges are overwhelmed at present with mental health issues among their students. Struggling with anxiety and/or depression is a MUCH greater risk at college than flunking out. The jury is out on why college kids are struggling so much – may have nothing at all to do with academic issues. But, as a parent, I would just worry (perhaps unnecessarily) if my child were attending a college where – by at least one metric – she was at the literal bottom of the class.
We all want the best for our children – for them to thrive and be joyful wherever they end up. And every child is different.
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I think this is the point, ultimately. Test optional strategy is about more than scores; it’s about knowing your child and (more importantly) your child knowing themself.
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We attended a BC info tour in April. AO said TO has no hidden tricks or messages behind this. If you provide scores they will look at them. If you don’t, they don’t include in their evaluation. AO also acknowledged that scores are unbelievably higher than she ever expected. With that said 67% of accepted students in 23 submitted scores. If you provide scores, they look for 50% range or higher. I listened to a podcast from 2021 (?) and the AO said that they are TO but still very much was in favor of test scores. BC has been conducting analysis since 2020 on student results. They published that they would remain TO thru 2023 and reevaluate beyond. Perhaps now for class of 24 they have enough info to make conclusions of TO. It continues to be an evolving landscape for each school. My D24 is applying ED TO. Her other stats are strong otherwise. Wish us luck.
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Concern about GPA back then seemed to vary. The most GPA concern back then appeared to be among:
- Pre-med and pre-law students, although the competition to get into medical or law school was probably lower back then, so the GPA pressure then was likely less than now.
- Students trying to get into majors with competitive or high GPA secondary admission.
But perhaps the competition to get into medical, law, and other professional school has increased, as has competition to get into some of the more desirable post-graduation jobs. College GPA is not the sole selection factor, but may be a first cut-off in the selection process for these things.
Disparity in high school preparation seems to be in large part due to the high end high schools increasing college prep offerings and rigor over the decades to a much greater extent than typical high schools. A high school that offered the basic college prep courses plus a few advanced level or AP courses may have been considered “good” a few decades ago, but is now likely considered very inadequate by upper middle class parents. Indeed, it is not an unusual notion on these forums now that being on track to take calculus in 12th grade (+1 math track) is not sufficiently advanced enough, or is somehow “behind” in the competition to get into college.
Could very well be that both of your explanations are accurate. In any event, that does not change the daily reality for those arriving on campus who are comparatively underprepared next to their classmates and stressed about grades.
She sounds a lot like my D24. She took SAT one time in fall of Jr year, no prep whatsoever and scored 1170. After much discussion and guidance we decided she would go TO.
Here is why:
She has the highest rigor of classes that our private high school offers and is 3.95 gpa. Strong EAs and leadership roles, and assuming good LORs.
Our high school has a 
college acceptance rate and I’m estimating about 30% of them (class size about 150) get into top 30 schools. Last year, 7 got into NEU, 3 BC, 6 NYU, 3 Cornell, 2 Brown, 3 USC, 1 at Stanford, Dartmouth, etc…then lots of 1-2 in good SLAC (Bates, Claremont, Colby, Bowdoin, etc). Many kids went TO but because many are also from upper middle class, wealthier households, they also had strong EAs, varsity sports, volunteer work, etc. (I recognize there is privilege here, so please don’t throw stones).
Junior year was brutally tough and stressful academically but my D24 hit a 4.1 that year. We didn’t want to sink another $2-3k in test tutoring and pile on an already stressful year. Tutoring may have gotten her to 1300+ (?) which was a great score 5 years ago. but that still wouldn’t be enough for schools that require 1400+. So why bother? She does struggle with anxiety which is why we had her focus on her GPA. Mental health and a happy balanced teen was important to us.
She will apply to equal number of reach, target, safety this fall. We’re fortunate to be able to try ED. If she gets in, great. If not, then she has many other schools more in the 50% range of acceptance and they care less about TO if other stats are otherwise strong. She is applying only to schools she thinks she will be happy to attend and is a good fit for her.
She is an incredibly hard worker, has grit, and not afraid to take on academic challenges. She is independent and ambitious. She is a well balanced great kid. We decided her success or failure will not depend on a test score.
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Her success or failure wont depend on where she attends college either.
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An interesting piece of advice from an Ivy AO who came to my daughter’s school last week: “Submit if you think it will help you. The best rule of thumb I tell kids is to submit if you are proud of your score. If you are embarrassed to tell your friends your test score – don’t submit.”
I thought that is useful way to think about it because it includes “context of HS” within the assessment.
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I guess the current holistic system can be seen as a virtue when you are talking about typical “average excellent” students being forced onto the college admissions treadmill by their overzealous tiger parents (and why not - after all, this system gives them a chance if they really want it).
But, let’s look at it from the perspective of a kid that is, say, not a top 100,000 or even top 10,000, but a top 100 in their chosen academic discipline nationwide by some objective measures. Or even top 10.
A kid whose goal is not so much to land a prestigious internship, but to finally, FINALLY, get to a place where they will be truly academically challenged in classes, and, most importantly, for the first time in their life, will be surrounded by their academic peers.
Under any sort of an objective system the likes of which exist elsewhere in the world, this kid would be essentially a guaranteed admit at any academic institution they applied, based solely on their demonstrated academic strength.
The problem with the American system is not just that this kid “doesn’t know what to do” (suppose they aren’t even trying to do anything they don’t want to do, choosing to “apply sideways”), or that it offers such kid no guarantees.
If top schools simply ran a lottery and skimmed a random sampling of “average excellent” athletes, legacies, social justice activists, and what have you, this would not be so much of a problem.
Under that system, there would at least be enough true academic superstars to go around for other institutions aspiring to pick them up in sufficient quantities to have the critical mass necessary for these kids to find community.
But the holistic admissions, despite its many drawbacks, is not truly random, and top institutions collectively end up with lion’s share of academically elite students.
And so it is entirely reasonable, even rational, for those students to target these institutions.
Yet any given one of these students still faces tremendous uncertainty in trying to accomplish what is an entirely reasonable endeavor: trying to match their educational environment to the level of their academic abilities and preparation - something that should be the goal of the entire process to begin with.
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True. Such a student should also apply to Oxbridge or other more predictable schools
So according to the Harvard lawsuit data, somewhere around 100 applicants a year got what they called an academic 1 rating, and those students had about a 70% admit rate to Harvard. We don’t know what happened to the other 30%, but I’d guess it is a good bet most of them landed at some other very highly-rated college, perhaps one that fit them a bit better than Harvard specifically. So the extremely rare kids you are talking about are likely mostly getting into one of the top few US colleges for their respective fields.
I note if kids like that are not happy with their US choices, they very likely can apply to Oxbridge, the top Canadian colleges, the top Australian colleges, and so on. Many top universities around the world are happy to accept highly qualified US applicants into relevant courses.
And of course one of the potential virtues of those other systems is usually they would then not have to do all sorts of mandatory core requirements or distributional requirements. It is up to them what they value, but if they really just want to devote themselves to their field starting as early as “grade 13”, the US undergraduate system is generally not the best choice, because the dominant model among the most famous US colleges does not specialize that much so soon.
Of course not, it is selecting for kids who are the best bets to fulfill various institutional goals. Including often being a good bet to be an enthusiastic participant in the entire US liberal arts/residential college tradition, where academics is only one of the valued parts of that tradition.
Again, if that US liberal arts/residential college model is not consistent with a kid’s own values, then the most famous US colleges will likely not be a good fit for that kid.
But this is sort of like noting that for a kid who really wants to just eat pepperoni, it is unfortunate when they go to a pizza shop, they also get all this bread and sauce and cheese with their pepperoni.
If they just want pepperoni, maybe they should just buy pepperoni, and not pizza.
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Whatever will they do when they get into the real world and find themselves working alongside peers from schools like UAH, UT Dallas, or Iowa State. They might even be reporting to people from those schools. At certain companies, especially in tech, it’s entirely possible they might be working alongside and/or reporting to people without an undergrad degree.
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