Several extremely selective colleges have said they will be “test optional” for the class or 2025 and that applicants who submit no standardized test scores “will not be disadvantaged.” Several colleges (including Brown, Yale and UVA) have used these or similar words.
What does this mean? Is it really true?
If a “test optional” college does not say that applicants who submit no scores “will not be disadvantaged,” does that mean something different? Does it mean that the applicants who opt not to submit scores probably will be at a disadvantage? Or that they will be at a disadvantage unless they have a good excuse for not submitting scores?
Amherst, Pomona and Wesleyan are among the many colleges that have made submission of standardized test scores optional without claiming not to hold that option against applicants who choose it. Is that sort of like giving someone the “option” of writing “I don’t really want to get in to your college” on the application form?
There is another thread on this topic that goes into intricacies of “test optional”.
There have always been test optional schools. FairTest kept a list of them. Many schools added to that list now.
I know how it works at one test optional college. Admissions is primarily determined by points given to GPA/class rank, Difficulty of courses in context of school, Extracurriculars, recommendations, essays, test scores. Hooks like being a recruited athlete, legacy, development, diversity, all were assessed separately in their own pools.
So if you can get 10 points in each category, a 60 is a perfect score. 30/60 is a 50%. 45/60 is a 75% If you don’t submit grades the max points you get are 50. But then 25/50 is 50% 40/50 is 80%. You get asses on %, not the raw points. This is one real example.
Yes, some applicants will be disadvantaged by this system because those kids who have low test scores and don’t submit them are going to be in the running and each spot such an accepted applicant gets, means one less available overall. I had a kid with low enough test scores so that highly selective schools were not realistic. But take them out of the equation as he has a fighting chance.
The colleges and universities know that the pandemic has caused many students to be unable to take the tests at all, and for others to be unable to raise their test scores by re-taking. So their choice was to only look at students who did get some kind of test before the shut downs, or just toss the requirement for the year. In order to have the largest possible pool of applicants, they opted to toss the requirement.
So if you send the scores, they might look at them. If you don’t, they won’t. If you do send the scores, those aren’t going to be weighted the way they were in previous years because there won’t be enough students with scores to compare you to.
Of course they are going to look at test scores if the applicant sends them, and I don’t think they will be weighted any less. Further some schools are on the record as saying they will limit test optional acceptances, because as of right now USNWR ranking methodology penalizes schools that have more than 25% of the matriculating class entering without a test score. Perhaps USNWR will change their methodology this year though.
I also think many juniors already had test scores before the pandemic, and SAT is working to offer many school based tests during the weekday in the fall…in Illinois our HS’s testing coordinator said it looks like that will happen in Sept (if HS is in-person of course).
Bottom line, it is still an advantage to have a strong test score.
There are colleges out there who don’t mind dropping in the ranks for sticking to a principle, but any individual student - generally speaking - shouldn’t bank against these rankings impact on college presidents’, boards’, and alumni egos either (unless they have too low scores to do otherwise).
“Will not be disadvantaged” can mean there is no disadvantage against the entire pool, or - if they are gaming or attempting to hold their ranking - it may mean no disadvantage against the other 25% max of test optional applicants they plan to admit (75% of their admits will supply test scores).