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Test-opional colleges that are also highly selective are often LACs, but the majority of test optional schools on the list at <a href=“ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest”>http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional</a> do not appear to be LACs. </p>
<p>I think that the standardized test scores provide a convenient sorting mechanism for highly selective universities with large amount of applicants–but overall not particularly useful info about applicants-- so I think that’s why you see selective LAC’s more willing to let the tests go. </p>
<p>The actual information provided by the tests probably has become less and less useful over time. Back in the day when kids took a once and done approach to the tests – the results might have been more informative. In an environment where the majority of applicants are taking test prep courses and repeat sittings to improve their scores — then the numbers lose whatever utility they could have had. </p>
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<p>True, except that there are only a couple of highly selective schools on the Fairtest lists. On the LAC side, Bowdoin and Middlebury could be considered outliers! Although the definitions of “selectivity” are fluid and very much in the eye of the beholders, the overwhelming majority of test-optional schools were never very selective as most schools easily accept more than half of their applicants, and substantially more in the ED rounds. </p>
<p>The test “flexible” schools are mostly milking the strategies to boost their placements in the rankings. And will do so as long as the rankings carry weigh in the applications’ decisions. </p>
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<p>Fwiw, the same argument could be made about the … GPA. In an environment where kids are now being tutored throughout the K-12 or schlepped from one Kumon to another prep program, the GPA becomes just as questionable as the results of “prepped” standardized tests. And this does not even addresses the massive parental help in producing projects (think elementary school “science” projects) and perfect homework or … buying the teacher’s solution books! </p>
<p>It is quite a mistake to think that the “prep” industry is confined to standardized tests! Take a look at Asia or at the next shopping center! </p>
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<p>Or increasing grade inflation trends in many K-12 high schools so 4.0 is no longer the absolute ceiling it once was due to factors such as adding points for AP classes(has some good points) or fears of incurring the wrath of well-off active parents who dominate the PTA in an era when failing any student is automatically blamed on “bad teachers who can’t teach” (bad). </p>
<p>There were some threads here where some mentioned as many as the top 50% of the graduating class could graduate with 4.0 or greater…</p>
<p>The colleges have school profiles to work with - for example, for the OP with the “middling” test scores, they would have a huge amount of information about the student’s school and they have class rank information.</p>
<p>Also, there is a big difference between prepping for a test and getting outside, content-based tutoring. Kids who are sent to Kumon centers learn strategies for doing math. Kids who attend a test prep course at Princeton Review are given mostly test-taking strategies geared to the multiple-choice format, not content-based instruction. For example, they will be taught how to recognize which math questions are best solved by a process of elimination by plugging in the values given in the answer choices, as opposed to actually doing the math. </p>
<p>There is a huge difference between the goals and outcome of a student whose parents have arranged tutoring with the intent to bolster overall academic achievement and students who are getting tutoring with the goal of increasing scores on standardized tests. </p>
<p>In any case, that world of Kumon-type tutoring is not one that my kid was part of – and any college would see that from her EC’s. It was pretty obvious that as a kid, when she wasn’t in school, she ws at the dance studio. I assume that’s the same with most applicants – the essays, LOR’s, and lists of EC’s give a good flavor of the student’s life outside of school hours. </p>
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It depends on your definition of highly selective. With acceptance rates of under 15%, I think Juiliard and Pitzer should be included on a highly selective college list. Many would also include Weslayan, Colby, Hamilton, Bates, etc. It’s not until you get to the high acceptance rate group that LACs stop being overrepresented. </p>
<p>I don’t think the test flexible policies are primarily used for USNWR rankings. Most of the colleges on the list are not even USNWR ranked (just as most colleges in the USA are not USNWR ranked). There are valid reasons for de-emphasizing test scores, including test scores providing little additional benefit in predicting academic success in college beyond the information available in other areas of the application for most applicants (most notably a combination of grades and course rigor/harshness of grading); and test scores often showing a notable correlation with income level , rather than academic success, among similarly qualified candidates, with similar grades, course rigor, etc. I’d expect test scores are most useful for candidates with unique backgrounds that make the grades and course rigor measures less meaningful, such as home-schooled student or a student attending a high school where 15% of the class has a 4.0 UW. </p>
<p>Along the same lines, requiring test scores is not synonymous with you’ve gotta have 75th percentile test scores or a big hook to be accepted. Some selective colleges that require test scores place less emphasis on them than many on this forum assume and show a very different pattern in their acceptance decisions, such as Cornell, as a described in more detail earlier.</p>
<p>I’ve come to the conclusion that colleges employ the standardized test scores more for their own rankings than for evaluating applicants.</p>
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<p>Of course! Do you realize that your point … reinforces my argument. Your attempt to trivialize the SAT prep reinforces that the other prep might be more useful, and thus have a higher impact on artificially boosted GPAs and indirectly rankings as students who are not forced to get tutoring earn worse grades. </p>
<p>Strange how that works, doesn’t it! </p>
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<p>Says who? Do you pretend to know this for a fact? And do you pretend to know what the objectives of millions of parents really are? Seriously! </p>
<p>Sorry, but sometimes test scores do matter. I have no doubt that son’s GC mentioned how well he did on state exams, how he compared to others in his school on other standardized tests. Plus, how he was first freshman ever to earn a spot in academic games. He was the first from his school to be accepted at his UG. </p>
<p>But colleges also know how many people suffer from test anxiety. For such folks, the prep classes help them minimize these fears. They benefit from psychologists and coaches who help them with such fears and developing strategies to rise above their innate feelings. Fortunately, there are many colleges who look at the whole individual–their GPA, their LORs-- and conclude that that person freezes on major exams. </p>
<p>At both of my sons’ schools, one a private, the other a public, there were many kids whose parents arranged tutoring to bolster overall academic achievement and also engaged tutoring with the goal of increasing SAT/ACT scores. They’re not mutually exclusive. </p>
<p>In my experience informally tutoring my kids and their friends, and neighbors’ kids, for the SATs, I think there is a ceiling for each kid on each section of the test, beyond which no matter how much tutoring or self-studying they do, they won’t be able to exceed it. Because of that experience, I am a believer that the standardize tests do reveal aptitude & knowledge. The tricks taught in a Princeton review book or class can only take a kid so far. Often low scores (or scores that don’t match grades) are an indication of some lacuna in knowledge. Erica meltzer’s website, the critical reader, is the site I used a lot to tutor the critical reading & writing sections (as well as her books, which i think are the best). She’s a leading tutor in NYC; her blog affirmed what I saw happening with my students, particularly in the reading section. </p>
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<p>Mostly? Most of the schools listed in <a href=“ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest”>http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional</a> appear to be relatively low selectivity, prestige, and ranking (if any), or are specialty schools (e.g. art, music, religion).</p>
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<p>While that’s a factor, there’s also the factor such tests are also meant to examine whether someone can assess, evaluate, process, and arrive at a correct answer in the quickest amount of time in a pressured environment. </p>
<p>In short, something some employers I’ve read about would term “quick studies”. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-little-difference-academic-success-students-who-do-and-dont-submit-sat#sthash.viXdOKNN.dpbs”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-little-difference-academic-success-students-who-do-and-dont-submit-sat#sthash.viXdOKNN.dpbs</a></p>
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<p>Ucbalumnus, reading this tiered list might help understanding my post.
<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf”>http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf</a></p>
<p>Fifty percent of the first ten or twelve LACs listed on the FT Wall of “fame” are flexible schools. Same ratio for the first 4 universities After that … better keep looking! </p>
<p>And, obviously, the Fair Test lists are overwhelmingly culled from the lesser prestigious schools. Hence my statements about the handful of outliers. That does not mean that the flexible schools are not astute gamers! </p>
<p>Xiggi, When the first schools voted to go test optional the USNWR rankings didn’t exist. It’s possible that some schools are trying to game the USNWR rankings, but that was not the original motivation behind schools going test optional. </p>
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<p>Not true. As Xiggi’s own list (linked again below) shows, 40 percent of the LACs ranked 1-100 are test optional/flexible. There are fewer test optional/flexible national universities, but the list still includes some great schools like Wake Forest, Brandeis, NYU and Texas A&M.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf”>http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf</a></p>
<p>It’s true that the majority of the schools on the list are less competitive, but of course that’s true for schools that aren’t on the list. The majority of schools in the US, whether they require testing or not, are not particularly competitive.</p>
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<p>Note that the public universities in Texas, Arizona, Mississippi, Kansas, and Nevada which appear in that list have automatic-admission criteria which make them test-don’t-care for a subset of in-state students with high enough class rank or GPA.</p>
<p>Along these lines, FairTest’s listing of almost every CSU is inaccurate. Only the 7 non-impacted campuses are test optional, and then only for California resident students with 3.0 HS GPA applying to non-impacted majors.</p>
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<p>Also, NYU’s status as a nationally sought “dream school” has only been in effect for around a little more than a decade. </p>
<p>Not to mention to many local New Yorkers, especially older ones…it is still remembered either as a commuter school or a locally oriented one for well-off NYC area residents. </p>
<p>Sue, the original motivation has historical relevance, but it remains that in the PRESENT the flexible schools are reporting inflated schools with very few exceptions. They do indeed milk the system. </p>
<p>For the rest, I use the term lesser prestigious schools and you use less competitive. It is all a matter of semantics and personal preferences. Prestige and reputation remain in the eye of the beholder. It is normal for people to disagree about the inclusion or exclusion of certain schools among the less competitive or less selective schools. </p>
<p>If the few colleges that chose to go “test flexible” instead of test optional are doing so to boost their USNWR ranking, then as a whole they are not having good results with this policy, as there has been no significant improvement in rankings for most of the schools since going test flexible. For example, Colby, Bryn Mawr, and NYU went text flexible in 2009. In 2008, they were ranked 22nd, 24th, and 33rd respectively, Today they are ranked 22nd, 30th, and 32th – Colby and NYU had no significant change in rankings, and Bryn Mawr dropped in rankings. Instead the test flexible colleges that have high rankings generally had high rankings prior to going test flexible. </p>
<p>There also hasn’t been a tremendous change in test scores at most of these colleges. Instead most scores had a small upward trend, like we often see at typical required SAT/ACT selective colleges. Choosing the same 3 colleges as before:</p>
<p>Colby changed from 1280/1430 to 1240/1430
Bryn Mawr changed from 1200/1410 to 1210/1470
NYU changed from 1250/1440 to 1260/1460</p>