You’re not wrong. We just disagree about holistic admissions, and, I suspect, about test-optional. An AO cannot “holistically” assess a student via the 20 minutes that is allotted when there are 50,000 applications. And that a 4.1 gets in over a 4.5 from the same school is precisely the problem.
One admissions system is primarily objective (not perfect, but objective), transparent, and based on a 4-year track record. The other is mostly subjective, ambiguous, school-dependent, and relies on human beings to determine intellectual & personality attributes, fit, passion, uniqueness, etc. in a few minutes. It’s hubris, frankly. The entire process is about engineering a class, not about selecting the students with the highest merit over four years or potential for the next four. That initiative has been wrapped in the “holistic” buzzword for political & PR cover. Similarly, at this point, test-optional has little connection to Covid.
I also find the idea that a 250-word “essay” is now more important in admissions than, say, 5s on all of the English APs, to be crazy. That standardized tests have flaws should mean that those flaws are addressed, where possible. It shouldn’t mean that we replace one flawed system with a more flawed one. Finally, spots aren’t being filled this year because UVA is a T10 safety. That has always been the case. Spots are more competitive among high stats students because test-optional has taken many of the old slots away from the high stats students.
In short, between test-optional and devaluing objective metrics, Dean J and admissions administrators, nationwide, have made it harder on themselves, harder on parents, and harder on students. I have no sympathy for colleges who largely created their own admissions mess, though I appreciate UVA’s transparency about it.
