Test Optional - Who Does This Help, and Who Does This Hurt in College Admissions?

Parents Forum
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If “elite” means HYPSM type private colleges, I believe it is more common for such colleges to favor non-URM, non-ALDC lower income applicants than penalize them.

For example, Harvard is one of the “elite” colleges with the most public information about their admission process , due to the lawsuit. In the lawsuit documents, it was revealed that admissions that Harvard was "need blind’ in the sense that admission officers truly did not have access to family income information from the FA forms. However, admission officers still did flag applicants as SES “disadvantaged” based on the information that was available to them, including things like parents’ occupations and wealth of neighborhood/HS. Getting this SES “disadavantaged” flag roughly correlated with less than ~median US income – lower income as well as lower-middle income. Students receiving the SES “disadvantaged” flag for less than US ~median income. were given a significant boost in chance of admission – not as strong as traditional ALDC hooks, but significant none the less.

In the Harvard internal report at http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-421-112-May-1-2013-Memorandum.pdf , the Dean of Admissions at Harvard asks the Harvard Internal Research department to analyze whether his admission policies really are favoring lower income students. As summarized in the linked report, OIR found that having a less than ~median US income (old report, at the time median was ~$60k) was a associated with a boost of admission on par with the boost given to Hispanic students, but less than ALDC hooks. The report also shows a graph listing chance of admission by SAT score for >$60k applicants vs <$60k applicants. At all SAT scores >610*2, the kids with incomes below the US ~median had a higher admit rate than the kids with incomes above the US ~median. Among less than ~median US income kids who also had a good 1-2 academic rating, their overall overall admit rate was 24% compared to 15% for above US ~median income with the same academic rating.

The Plantiff’s independent regression analysis found an even stronger lower SES benefit since it analyzed the SES “disadvantaged” flag directly, rather than using income reported on FA forms. It found that with full controls, otherwise unhooked kids (baseline sample) who received the SES “disadvantaged flag” had a 4.6x odds ratio boost in their chance of admission.

I’ve seen comments from admission officers at other “elite” private colleges, which suggest that they use a similar system to the one described above, in which admission officers flags who they believe are lower and/or lower-middle SES kids based on indirect information like occupations and gives the lower SES kids a boost in chance of admission. However, many schools probably use a lower income threshold than Harvard and flag kid who are truly low income rather than kids with incomes near the US median.

Also note that Harvard and others also indirectly give a boost to many higher income kids through hooks like legacy, deans/directors special interest list, and Z-list. These hook groups are full of very wealthy kids, and they receive a stronger boost than low income kids. For example, the Harvard freshman survey found that ~half of entering legacies reported an income of >$500k. All of the above analyses found that legacies get a stronger boost in admission than low SES kids. Harvard clearly has other priorities beyond just reducing the SES of the admitted class.

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Hm. ALL of D21’s schools are need blind - BC, Wake, Richmond, Colgate, Davidson, Denison, Tulane, William and Mary, Santa Clara. Even the schools she’s still researching for her list are need blind.

S19 is at Bowdoin and they have sworn up and down every time I’ve heard that question asked that they do not consider a student’s financial situation. I do think that athletes are asked if they are applying for aid if they are being recruited. Don’t know that first hand, but I’ve heard S19’s recruited friends say that every school that was recruiting them asked that question. So, that is one way the colleges know and, in the case of a small school with a lot of athletes, that definitely helps them figure out the FA piece.

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@Data10 I was referring to top-50ish colleges, not HYP exclusively. What applies to Harvard may not apply to other elite colleges, especially those a rung or two below. I have also seen the data from the lawsuit and saw no evidence that non-URM unhooked applicants had any advantage. What I did see what many advantages that Harvard preferred to keep opaque and which are accrued by legacies, recruited athletes, wealthy and connected, faculty children, and URMs.

Over and over again, it has been shown that elite colleges favor hooked candidates. That’s why the term “hooked” exists.

Being poor isn’t a hook at most colleges. For some colleges, full pay is a hook.

Being an URM, first generation, or possibly high achieving Pell grant recipient can be at some colleges. Some combination of all three can help achieve a college’s goal for diversity.

Being a poor non-URM is most certainly not an advantage.

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@homerdog
I know that Colgate is need aware. Not sure about the others. Good luck to your daughter, BTW.

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@theloniusmonk "I see what you're saying but I actually don't think A and D are competing for the same slot because they're in different income classes, esp if D is a Pell Grant eligible."

Curious about this comment. Do you think that lower income applicants are competing for different slots than full pay applicants? How do you see this working? Thanks.

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The regression analyses in my earlier post controlled for hook status, including both URM and ALDC. You can think of them as a comparison of lower income (below US ~median income) unhooked White kids to higher income unhooked White kids. The Plantiff’s analysis at http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-2-Arcidiacono-Rebuttal-Report.pdf breaks this down even further. It adds a second dimension of controls, allowing one to analyze how the lower income benefit varies by race. It found the near reverse of your claim. Unhooked URM kids received a much smaller benefit for being lower SES than non-URM kids. Unhooked Black kids appeared to receive no benefit at all for being lower SES (same strong boost regardless of whether high SES Black or low SES Black). A summary of findings is below.

Lower SES, Unhooked, and Asian – Receives 5.9x admission odds ratio advantage over higher SES, Unhooked, and Asian

Lower SES, Unhooked, and White – Receives 4.6x admission odds ratio advantage over higher SES, Unhooked, and White

Lower SES, Unhooked, and Race Not Listed – Receives 4.6x admission odds ratio advantage over higher SES, Unhooked, and Race Not Listed

Lower SES, Unhooked, and Hispanic – Receives 2.6x admission odds ratio advantage over higher SES, Unhooked, and Hispanic

Lower SES, Unhooked, and Black – Receives no advantage (1.00x odds ratio) over higher SES, Unhooked, and Black

The effect above could occur due to some type of maximum hook ceiling for non-ALDC. For example, Black kids are already getting a big boost. Harvard doesn’t want them to have a super hook by combining the Black hook with the lower SES hook, so they limit the maximum hook strength to the Black hook alone. Similarly Hispanic students are closer to the maximum non-ALDC boost than non-URMs, so they see a lesser average benefit to non-URMs…

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The college adcoms know the high school the applicant attended, their zip code, and probably the job titles of the parents. I just don’t believe that colleges that say they are “need blind” when accepting students can be 100% true. They always, remarkably, seem to arrive at the perfect mix of full pay and financial need students, year in and year out. I don’t think colleges leave anything up to chance as the higher education industry is a business, let’s not forget that.

One example, is students on a waitlist. Do you really think that there is an equal number of partial/full need and full pay applicants that come off the waitlist? Would love to see the granularity of those numbers from “need blind” colleges.

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Thank you. I googled all of the schools and one story made it sound like Colgate is need blind…but it does not say so on their website now that I check!

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If more colleges are TO, more kids are likely to apply who wouldn’t have bothered before. That will make it harder for all, not easier. Love how all these self proclaimed “experts” write about some magical formula for college entrance. It’s a mix of things. The more pluses you have the better your chances, no guarantees.

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Maybe, but any student throwing a bunch of apps out there without careful consideration of fit isn’t going to be all that successful. There will be more apps but maybe not more real competition.

The kids who have a shot at admission to any given school without a score are likely the kids who would have had a good shot if they had a score since the rest of their app is strong. I just don’t think there are that many kids whose test score bumps them so much that it’s the detail that puts them in the yes pile.

What I’m trying to say is that I doubt there will be more strong candidates applying with really compelling apps than there have been in the past. There’s likely to be more apps but they will be either mediocre or not-well-thought-out apps that will be easy to say no to.

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Well, no. The SAT and ACT don’t test intellectual ability as much as they do access to a quality education. Standardized tests have also been shown to be a poor predictor of academic success in college. So your comparison is in no way apt.

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These days does the NFL combine not somewhat test access to quality coaching and access to professional development and training?

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@hillybean : "Well, no. The SAT and ACT don't test intellectual ability as much as they do access to a quality education. Standardized tests have also been shown to be a poor predictor of academic success in college. So your comparison is in no way apt."

There has been a lot of controversy about how much the SAT or ACT predicts college grades. Research into this topic has shown that high school GPA combined with SAT/ACT scores is more predictive of college GPA than either alone.

“Kuncel and Sackett found that the SAT and ACT are valid predictors of college GPA from freshman year through the completion of college. While they found that High School Grade Point Average (HSGPA) was the single best predictor of college performance, test scores were right behind it. Moreover, the combination of HSGPA and test scores yielded the most powerful and informed predictions.”

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Being a poor non-URM is most certainly not an advantage.

Yes, overall. Correct.

In comparison to all applicants, not just against a subcategory of other unhooked candidates.

Example: “Study on Harvard finds 43 percent of white students are legacy, athletes, related to donors or staff”.

The percentage of poor non-URM students among this 43% is not high. I don’t need to see data on that to know that.

Now if we get into the weeds on this, and say for the remaining % of spots that are for non-hooked, non-URM students, it’s a scramble for the few bread crumbs left over. It’s plausible that at Harvard (and this may not, and probably does not, generalize to elite colleges a rung or two below HYP), they may give those bread crumbs easier to lower SES kids. Highly doubtful this applies to the majority of elite colleges that don’t have multi-billion dollar endowments.

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Both of the referenced analyses found that being a poor non-URM was an advantage compared to “all applicants”, as well as compared to wealthy applicants in the same hook + race category . For example, the Harvard internal analysis I previously linked to at lists the following admit rate among applicants with a 1-2 academic rating, which indicates above average among applicant pool. The lower/lower-middle SES kids had a 24% admit rate, compared to 16% for all students. That suggests a significant boost compared to all applicants. The lower SES boost is certainly not as large as the legacy boost. Nobody said it was. Nevertheless, being lower SES appears to be associated with a significant boost at Harvard, compared to the overall average for all applicants.

Admit Rate for Harvard Applicants with 1-2 Academic Rating
Athlete – 83% admit rate
Legacy – 55% admit rate
Less than ~median US income – 24% admit rate
All applicants – 16% admit rate

Harvard is far from the only “elite” college with such policies. I mentioned admission officers at other “elite” colleges referencing a similar system. Along the same lines, this type of “elite” college often have news releases listing the portion of first gen and/or lower SES kids in every class, implying that they care about these numbers and want to keep them high enough. There are also plenty of highly selective colleges with very different policies towards lower income kids. It depends on many factors including the college’s applicant pool and financial health. This wide variety of different policies at different colleges makes it difficult to generalize, particularly if “elite” is taken to mean far less selective than HYPSM… type colleges and/or includes public colleges.

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Except that the more likely sample of applicants looks like this:

Student W: wealthy (top 0.5%) full-pay with test scores above the 75th percentile
Student X: “upper middle class” full-pay (top 5% excluding the top 0.5%) with test scores above the 75th percentile
Student Y: “upper-middle middle class” (top 20% excluding the top 5%) with test scores in the middle 50% range
Student Z: median income with test scores below the 25th percentile

Test scores skew toward family wealth, so your students A and D are uncommon outliers. Students from wealth have greater access to test preparation, and are more likely to attend high schools that help prepare for the tests and have counselors telling them about what tests are coming up, giving them time to start early and prepare, instead of one-and-done in late fall senior year.

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A high GPA low SAT/ACT applicant will benefit from test optional. A high SAT/ACT low GPA applicant will not. The former are more likely to come from lower SES backgrounds, while the latter are more likely to come from higher SES backgrounds, although there are individual exceptions.

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…

A large increase in applications and selectivity when going test optional is by no means a given. The previous linked review of test optional colleges looked at how applications changed upon going test optional at 22 test optional colleges. They compared the change in applications at the new TO college to peer colleges that required testing during the same years. The median was a small increase in applications compared to peers, but there was a wide variation at specific colleges.

5 of the 22 had a large >20% increase in applications compared to peers
3 of the 22 had a large >40 decrease in applications compared to peers
14 of the 22 had more moderate changes in applications that were within 20% of peers

Most of the colleges above were not super selective. One of the most highly selective colleges to go test optional is University of Chicago. A comparison in how applications changed at Chicago upon going test optional to HYPS is below. Chicago had a 7% increase in applications upon going test optional and introducing other measures, some of which seem to target lower SES enrollment, such as no tuition for <$125k income families with typical assets.

While a 7% increase was above all of the listed pears, it is not enough to for typical students to see a large difference in selectivity. I also doubt it would be enough to overcome possible negative application effects of COVID-19, such as more students want to stay within driving distance, virtual learning instead of classroom issues, financial/family issues, etc.

University of Chicago – 7% increase in applications
Harvard – 1% increase in applications
Yale – 4% increase in applications
Princeton – 7% decrease in applications
Stanford <1% increase in applications

Some other changes upon Chicago going test optional and introducing the other measures above are

Pell Grant increases from 11% to 14%
First Generation increases from 9% to 12%
Website reported URM increased from 24% to 26%
Rural students and veterans increased
HS Varsity Athletics EC increased from 53% to 60%
High School Theater EC increased from 17% to 25% (this may have more to do with Hamilton)

Reported ACT/SAT range is largely unchanged (probably only includes test submitters)
Yield decreased from 77% to 73.5%
USNWR Ranking drops from #3 to #6

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Per @ucbalumnus: "Test scores skew toward family wealth, so your students A and D are uncommon outliers."

While there is indeed a correlation between average SAT/ACT and income, there remain many high scoring, low income applicants. You are also correct in that they do not apply to elite colleges at the same rate as high achieving wealthy students (“outliers”). That is a separate issue. For those that do apply, TO will not help them. That was my point with my hypothetical sample.

THE MISSING “ONE-OFFS”:
THE HIDDEN SUPPLY OF HIGH-ACHIEVING, LOW INCOME STUDENTS

“Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard find that there are indeed low-income students with SAT and ACT scores and grades that place them in the top 10 percent of all students – between 25,000-35,000 of them…many of these low-income, high-achieving students live in non-major urban areas.”

https://www.nber.org/papers/w18586.pdf
https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/the-missing-one-offs-the-hidden-supply-of-high-achieving-low-income-students/