Any idea if the 80 percent submitting test scores is common at competitive schools?
Based on what I have heard from the CCs at our school, I am guessing it is. But I donât have hard data.
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I didnât attend an âeliteâ high school either, although it was the high school in the region that got the most graduates into elite colleges. Top 10% of the class went to Ivies, Top 10 SLACs, top ranked national universities like Georgetown, etc. Highly educated parents but not elite by any means- no country clubs, very few children of lawyers, etc.
People absolutely did prep back then (~2 and a half decades ago), but the prep was less involved than it is today. Prep courses were more like weekend cram sessions at the local high school with students from multiple schools. The instructors traveled around to different communities. I remember because I wasnât allowed to participate. I couldnât afford it on my own with my job, and my parents thought it wasnât necessary. My husband did them with his friends (at a big public high school on the other side of the country).
I think the prep has gotten more involved and more expensive because 1. itâs what the market is willing to pay and 2. many prep programs, especially in-person tutoring programs, are really remediation courses for students with significant gaps in their academic preparation.
Iâve toured a good mix of colleges with DS24, and I donât believe that the class of 2024 is going to widely be treated with the same deference to a lack of test scores as the class of 2023 has been. Thatâs been the clear message stated to us by deans, provosts, AOs, etc. giving parent presentations at these events, even though their websites say that they are test optional.
I am happy for all of you who have kids that were successful without SAT scores. And I know how flawed the test is. But I think it is naive to claim the system works better with TO. It did for your kids, great. But TO shifts the weight to other factors that are just as flawed. what about the kid whose closest connections with teachers who he asks for LORâs just donât lead to great LORâs? that kid will never see the LOR to know but maybe that biology teacher who loves him just canât write a good sentence or doesnât know the ins and outs of college admissions and what a letter should say? or maybe the AP History teacher who loves him has 3 kids at home and was just too tired to put time into that LOR?
and maybe it didnât occur to this kid that he could have his English teacher or his uncle the author edit his personal statementâŠ
and maybe he wasnât the type of kid to go groveling to his guidance counselor and ask for him to make some calls to college admissions officersâŠ
and maybe the college he wants just didnât need another oboe player this particulaar admissions cycle and wanted the flutist insteadâŠ
there are so many ways the system can be unfair to a kid, and I am sure TO hasnât always helped every kid.
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Like everything else, taking/submitting the SAT/ACT is a cost benefit analysis.
if you have a kid who is smart but not a great test taker, why bother. It may barely help in the admissions process (if at all). And why put them through the stress when the outcome is probably not going to be super favorable.
If you have a kid who is an avg/good test taker but needs a ton of expensive prep and time commitment, that may also fall into the ânot worth it categoryâ.
However, if your kid is a really good test taker and can buy a couple of study books and doesnt require intensive tutoring, then why not? If they do great, they submit and if they dont, they can still go test optional.
I think if you can score in the 60-75th%, you should submit the test score. Thatâs just my opinion. And some schools like UF, FSU, Univ Tenn all require it.
I still believe that if you are chasing merit, a good SAT/ACT score will help get more scholarship money, so it can be a really good investment under the right circumstances.
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Thank you for mentioning the score report bans! I donât remember this info on my own test reports back in the day, but today, SAT score reports give the test taker much more specific information about their relative strengths and weaknesses. They can use this information to address what courses they should take in high school, what skills they need to practice more or re-learn, etc. I found the report much more helpful than report cards Iâve seen.
I guess I am not convinced schools will be staying TO. Is this for certain? Thats my first question.
I have S25 at home and our plan is full test prep this summer with a tutor we have used with 3 other siblings. He wants to take both the SAT and ACT. Iâve always encouraged my kids to be finished with testing by around January of their junior year so summer can be used to write essays. Then apply early to their schools.
Im also suspect that TO in the eyes of admissions isnât really a good choice for a demographic that is either wealthy or doing well, from an area that offers many social, educational and recreational amenities, and has a great public school system. But it really seems to me that this thread is saying itâs not about being disenfranchised, but rather itâs simply your choice to test. Do schools really not care that a student who has no reason not to take the SAT skips it? Im not so certain.
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I agree with this as well, and it isnât noted enough in discussions on college.
My S23 moved to three states (across the country- not near one another) and five schooling situations just from 6-12 grades (not counting two states before that) with the Covid situation thrown in the middle. Thus, he did not have leadership opportunities, did not have that one amazing LOR because he had spent 4-5 years knowing a counselor or teacher or coach, did not have opportunities for invested long-term service in a community. What he does have is intelligence, a high GPA, and a high ACT test score without any intense prep, taking it one time in school.
I find it frustrating to always hear that colleges should put more and more weight on things (leadership! service! LORs!) that are also easier for people with stability, household wealth, and connections to achieve, but these things are not questioned the way the tests seem to be. Getting to stay in one place is often a form of privilege (we have to move to yet another state in June) Iâm not saying all these other factors shouldnât count (leadership, etc.). Of course they should! I only agree that it is important to see that all factors can be flawed.
For those who went TO, and it worked out, great! Iâm happy for your students. That is the system as it stands now, and so it makes sense to do an analysis of time within that system and use it best for your student. TO is now an option in a way that âno serviceâ or ânot a stellar LORâ is not really.
I see that we have to work with the system. I just donât like the system as it stands for myriad reasons, but using SAT/ACT was/is not my main complaint with it.
PS- My S23 is in a good position to make a final choice, so the TO change didnât really affect him (he gave scores). His lack of service and leadership absolutely did affect him, and should he have been competing without a test score, it would have been a serious problem.
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100% agree. People always assume that kids in upper middle class neighborhoods are taking these super expensive test prep courses when many do not. None of my Dâs friends are taking prep courses and she and her friends are all top students.
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Most of the industry people in admissions/college advising (I listen to an embarrassing number of podcasts lol) are saying TO is here to stay. Now if your universe is just 50 or 75 of the hundreds of viable, good 4-year schools, then maybe itâs something to keep in mind/in your back pocket. Most of the time their point is that families need to stop living only in that universe. But overall and with only a few exceptions, if anything schools have gotten better at admitting without it over the past few years. I think there are good reasons enumerated above for why a student might want a score. But for your average excellent kid with top grades, strong ECs and essays? I definitely donât think it hampered my kid. And prepping for the tests more would have made her life worse last year and taken away from other things that helped her get top merit at some schools.
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Thanks for perspective. We are not locked in on top privates. I think heâll gravitate to solid public schools like Pitt, Ohio State, University of Cincinnati. Thats my hunch
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Iâll add one more time /place where strong test scores might help and thatâs for the guidance counselor recommendation. My D22 is fairly quiet and was involved in essentially no school activities (she had strong extracurriculars but they were almost all outside school). The counselor barely knew her, but Iâm pretty sure when my daughter was national merit commended on the PSAT and then had an SAT score that mostly supported that (for CC it was a middling score but in the real world it was quite good) she sat up and took notice and Iâm pretty sure the counselor letter was better as a result. Now I will say that my D was just off a 1500 and had it been me I would have pushed to break that number. But while she finally agreed to take the SAT a second time and she studied some - more than a bit half heartedly - using khan academy - she was perfectly fine about stopping at 1490. As she should have been. And was proud of it and sent it everywhere (score was 75th % or above everywhere she applied so it was a no brainer). I also think coming from a relatively unknown public high school it didnât hurt her to have a strong score, but in retrospect I think the main place it helped her was in her own high school.
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I think this depends very much on the school. Unfortunately from the applicantâs perspective, it can be difficult to figure out how the school regards test optional applicants.
A lot of schools have been test optional for some time even before COVID, or may have started this policy during COVID but seem to be serious about how students should choose to submit only if they feel it is a useful data point. So there are definitely schools where I think it is absolutely fine for any applicant (even one from a wealthy school district etc.) to go TO without an âexcuse.â
Some schools however have been test optional during this COVID period, but seem to prefer to see a test. And of course some schools are swinging back towards requiring the test for all.
For S23 we spent time trying to figure out âshould he submit?â on a school by school basis and it was stressful.
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But he did test to have that option to submit. I think my son will be more comfortable with this option. I know i am.
Well, it depends which schools he is targeting. We are in CA, and since the CA publics are test blind (and UW also doesnât look at the scores), and so many schools are TO, some of S23âs friends did not take the test at all. Iâm not sure if they feel that it significantly limited the universe of schools where they could apply.
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It is not in the world of selective liberal arts colleges, where some were already TO before COVID (Bowdoin, Bates) and others have moved to be permanently that way in just the last year. Canât speak beyond that.
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If there is a school that you are interested in, google âCommon Data Setâ and the name of the school. In section C of that document, First Time First year admission, it will give you the exact number of students that submitted an SAT or ACT.
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Thanks for passing on that info. What type of schools were those? What I have seen/heard is the opposite - but I have also heard that in addition to the MIT âwe still requireâ schools, there are a subset of public flagships that you might call âthe climbersâ that are aggressively improving their national profile, often tied to generous financial aid and wonderful honors programs, and still see increasing average test scores as a key strategy for this?
But you donât hear college admissions people saying this, do you? I donât disagree that most factors in admission favor affluent students, but generally it all started with those students having better/more K-12 education and opportunities.
Someone mentioned they listen to many college admission podcasts and that is a great way to understand the current issues in the admissions process. Many schools also telegraph what they are looking for on their websites, blogs, and virtual/in person admissions sessions, student panels, mock admission session, etc. I also know itâs a privilege to be able to have the time to do those things. But there is good information out there. Does it make the admission process transparent? Nope, but the more knowledge families have the better.
Respectfully, there is no way anyone can know what led to an admission, or denial.
This is hard for counselors too. I would say itâs one of the most frequent question that counselors post on our various message boardsâŠshould this student submit this test score for this school/major.
Test blind is more straightforward of course, but many AOs say that decision lies with the President and Board of Trustees, and will take some time to happen (many schools will be analyzing their test data/student performance for a number of years), if it ever does at some schools.
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No, nor did I say I did. I hear journalists and parents saying this. Journalists especially like to write as if all students who do well on the tests got extensive prep (which is kind of implied in this thread, too, by saying use prep time for activities as if there is always prep time) which renders the tests âmore unfairâ than many other factors.
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