I don’t fully understand the relative value or absence of value of using standardized test scores to evaluate college applicants. Now that COVID restrictions have largely been lifted for standardized testing, are universities keeping their TO stance because they have now come to the conclusion that they are no longer meaningful metrics? If so why?
Highly selective private secondary schools require applicants to report their scores from the ISEE or SSAT.
New York City Specialized HS require applicants to submit SHSAT scores.
Graduate schools require applicants to report their scores from the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, or MCAT
Law school graduates are required to take the state Bar Exam
Medical school graduates are required to take the 3 step USMLE and those scores are used by residency directors in selecting who they want to match.
I haven’t heard of anyone making those tests optional for applicants. So why are the SAT/ACT exams treated any differently?
I wouldn’t bother me a bit if most or all colleges went test blind. But if Test Optional is bad because of grade inflation, then why isn’t Test Blind just as bad or worse?
@MDparent, I think we are moving toward a situation where test scores are considered just like any other extracurricular accomplishment. Would you feel better if test scores results were relegated to the EC section of the applications, where the student has the option to including whatever they feel best represents their abilities and interests?
They could have made essays optional to “increase applications from students they have been trying to reach out but who were put off and/or intimidated by” the essays, couldn’t they? Or any other requirement?
Because it is SOMETHING to give some semblance of objectivity to grades that radically vary from school to school. In the same way, AP scores or IB scores GIVE some frame of reference to validate the grades. As you can see from MIT’s recent announcement, that institution needed SOMETHING beyond grades to give a semblance of objective validity to grades.
By contrast, the UC system has taken the brave step of saying that we don’t need standardized tests.
SATs/ACTs cannot be equated to ECs, as you indicate. I would love for the CDSs to state with specificity as to which EC is very important.
As I said, I am perfectly fine with eliminating the standardized test requirement. However, going TO and crowing about your current SAT medians after the pandemic is too much.
I guess we “agree to disagree”. There is something very odd about this midway position. I totally respect UC and MIT for removing any uncertainty.
Yes and no. Mostly I’d feel better if they moved it to considered so as to be consistent and make sense. Better than “very important” and TO which makes no sense. But best approach would be to just require all of it as most schools have and move everything to considered. That is a truly holistic approach. Because honestly grades don’t tell the whole story either.
Take classes where a kid gets a B in the class but a 5 on AP test. Versus a kid who gets A in class but a 3 or 4 on same AP test. One gets a bump if grades are primary consideration but is that the correct answer? Maybe/maybe not.
Sure. But they may feel like the other aspects of the application are more valuable to them and/or less of a barrier to the applicants they’d like to reach.
And in some cases colleges have moved away from certain requirements. For example, MIT dropped their subject test requirement because the requirement presented too big a barrier given what else MIT could consider.
Those tests are not even remotely objective for admissions purposes. They have to be viewed within context of the each applicant. Second, I don’t think that was really MIT’s reasoning, but that’s a bit off topic.
Aren’t ECs “very important” but also optional. Think of winning a major math competition, for example?
Actually, it’s very much on topic. So, I won’t let that go unanswered. Are you seriously contending that an AP or IB score has no relevancy to validating grades? If a student got an A+ in IB Econ (for example), but a 3 on the IB score, that would tell me something.
I strongly believe these tests validate the grades. Please let us know how else grades can be validated? LoRs, sure. But if I were an AO, I would want as MANY data points as I can get before making a selection.
I agree with the value of having some objective measure of aptitude. Especially when it comes to math, which by definition is not squishy in any way. It’s either correct or is not. Either you learned the material and got the answer right or not. And considering how low a bar the SAT has for math concepts, how can anyone really argue that SAT or ACT (or AP test) shouldn’t be used as a measure of mathematical aptitude? Regardless of the learning loss resulting from COVID. In other words if you haven’t mastered algebra I concepts tested on the SAT, how can you argue you’re ready to take on advanced math class at MIT - so I think technical/math focused schools and majors absolutely should require standardized testing as an objective measure of what you’re coming in with and whether you’re truly ready. Grades in classes are not always the right measure - some teachers expect you to get it right the first time; others allow unlimited test corrections (just as one example of difference in grading) - and that’s between teachers in the same school.
No I’m speaking specifically of some schools’ CDS (northeastern for example) which lists tests under very important but TO. I’m pretty sure ECs are listed under considered or important but not very important or primary weighted criteria. I’d have to go back and look.
If ECs were listed as Very important and I didn’t submit any (optional as you suggest), I would expect to get dinged on that area. The AOs are suggesting not submitting test scores has no negative impact though. So not the same at all. If you didn’t submit scores and also got dinged then yes, it would be comparable and I wouldn’t have an issue.
Edited: confirmed - ECs listed as important; Tests listed very important
This is what I tend to not understand here on CC. Most here aren’t, or haven’t formerly been AOs, yet we all know that many AOs have said again and again that they don’t need test scores to evaluate applicants and build their classes. It seems some posters believe they know better and/or don’t believe the AOs/enrollment management professionals who are saying this. Fascinating really.
MIT going back to requiring tests is an outlier, because MIT is a ‘fit’ school that is quite unique in the US college landscape. What works for them definitely wouldn’t work for the vast majority of colleges.
As many data points as possible - I agree. LORs by themselves aren’t great validators either. Two different kids - one very introverted and the other quite social and talkative with teachers - might get different LORs even if the quiet introvert is a great student.
More data points are good. I don’t mind or even disagree with holistic consideration of all those data but at least consider them all.
I’m going off what the CDSs say, as well as the advertising the schools employ, formal or informal, that includes standardized test scores to boost this very mercurial concept called “selectivity.” Witness, for example, NYU…
I don’t think I said anything about IB or AP. I was discussing SAT/ACT.
[quote=“mynameiswhatever, post:67, topic:3615807”]
I strongly believe these tests validate the grades. Please let us know how else grades can be validated? LoRs, sure. [/quote]
Many AO’s disagree with your strongly held belief, and one could argue that they are in a better position than we are to make that assessment.
Anyway, not sure why you think grades need to be validated, or how the SAT/ACT (which aren’t even necessarily testing the same subjects) validate grades.
Does a 1400 on the SAT validate or invalidate an A in Honors: Design and Data Structures?
How about a B+ in the Rise of the Modern World: Art and History?
Or an A- in Genetics and Biotechnology?
Or an A+ in Shakespeare and Our World?
Even even if the requirement drove away a high percentage of the pool of potential applicants you were already struggling to reach?
I don’t disagree that a TO school rating standardized test scores as ‘very important’ on the CDS could be confusing/sends mixed messages. What many don’t understand is that the school’s institutional reporting department completes CDSs, sometimes with little to no input from admissions. Clearly these groups should get on the same page.
I don’t understand what you are referencing wrt NYU…haven’t they been test flexible for a long time? Definitely pre-pandemic.
If any school wouldn’t need test scores from its applicants, it would be schools like MIT, wouldn’t it, since it tends to have more data on its applicants that help validate their competence?
That would suggest that achievement based tests, like SAT subject tests for ordinary high school level material, and AP, IB, A-level tests for more advanced material, would be more helpful than general (formerly “aptitude”) tests like the SAT and ACT. Indeed, some research has indicated these these achievement based tests were better predictors of college performance than the SAT and ACT.
However, colleges’ use of SAT subject tests declined over time (partially because they were somewhat of an additional barrier to students in less advantaged situations, due to being the non-default/incumbent tests), resulting in discontinuation, and not all students have taken sufficient advanced enough courses by 11th grade to have AP, IB, A-level scores in “important” subjects by then.
The good thing is that by listening to most schools’ admissions presentations and/or direct communications with their AO, a potential applicant can learn the school’s position on test scores and their importance, how to decide if the applicant should submit test scores, how the schools evaluate apps, etc.
Admissions presentations and direct AO contact >>>> CDS
No but I’d argue a 600 on the math section which is heavy on algebra I and geometry might say something about an A plus in those subjects.
Or an A plus in English language composition and 600 on ERBW and a 3 on AP exam.