<p>Agree on 200 or 300 pt diffs being predicitive of level of achievement and less than that being useful for prescriptive course work, which SAT is mostly not used for. And I'm pretty convinced that colleges and universities "know" HS's no more than HS's "know" college and university requirements, expectations, nuances, and annual alterations ... perhaps aside from the upper echelon of private schools and their Ivy League counterparts. Sounds good, but I believe is mostly admissions mythology. </p>
<p>No, I believe the loser in this system is the generally very neat kid who worked hard in school, maybe played a sport or two and an instrument in band, mighta been in NHS, whose ancestors came from France or England or Ireland or Finland or Germany or ... has blond hair and blue eyes, is heterosexual or otherwise not yet "out", graduates in the top 10 - 20%, knows what a Christian youth group is from 1st hand experience, and is simply very good in a whole bunch of things and areas and has 2 parents who've worked hard to ensure their child might have a shot at top shelf school. No quirks, no color, no real negatives, no tatoos, solid citizens, and often ... no chance because he/she brings nothing strange, "unique", romantic, quirky, no potential NCAA title, no Rhodes ... only a great work ethic and likelihood that he/she will be a solid citizen, employee, neighbor, community member. These will be the losers because those spaces they would have filled will now be filled by those who will be unlike any of that. Why? They're diverse.</p>
<p>I'm sure that this is part of some planned out strategy on Wake Forest's part. It may be to drop acceptance rates (though making the ACT/SAT optional will definitely make their ranking drop anyways), to increase diversity, or some thing hidden that's not as obvious. Well...we'll see in the next few years how it works out.</p>
<p>whistlepig, I have to agree. I've got a daughter who fits your description of the kid who misses out. Her scores are super high, all-around great candidate, and she's beginning to be very concerned that she won't be accepted at any of the top-notch schools for the reasons you state. Now it looks like even her test scores may not give her any advantage, at least not at WF.</p>
<p>I'm always confused by the issue of the SAT
It's definately a pain, but compared to other countries, the United States has almost no standerdized testing when leaving high school.
I'm only really familiar with the educational systems in Spain and England; in both of those, testing is extremely important -- really the most important factor.
I have a friend in England who is the same year as me in school -- I'm a junior -- and every step she takes is determined by testing -- taking the GSCES determines what they can study in "college" (11th and 12th grade) and then the A-Levels determine where you can go for college and what you can study there
similarly, my friend in spain had a sister the same age as me, and she was just finding out the results of her tests -- and 0.1 points would determine whether she could go to school to be a pharmacist (as she wanted) or if she could have to find a different career
now I don't agree with that level of testing. But I've never been able to understand the huge hubbub around the SAT - its only 1 four hour test, and its only part of the package.
Though I think the results are skewed, especially with all the prep classes available now, it seems to me that its necessary to have some sort of baseline for comparison...colleges can't possibly know all of the high schools in the country well enough to put grades in context</p>
<p>This seems to come at awfully good timing, with all of the news articles exclaiming "Wake, the only TOP 30 UNIVERSITY...." before the new rankings come out next year.</p>
<p>I could see this helping WFU in the same way that it has helped Middlebury, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Holy Cross. Only students with good SATs will submit them, so the school's SAT average will go up. More people will apply because now they have a perceived better chance of getting in without high SATs, which will result in a lower acceptance rate. Future top students will then see WFU's higher SAT average and lower acceptance rate than what it would have been previously, so they will apply too (thinking it's a better school than prior applicants would have thought) when before maybe they would have only applied to Duke, Emory, W&L, Davidson, Vanderbilt. I don't think WFU loses anything by doing this. </p>
<p>Where do the machinations end? Every school other than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT doing this? Perhaps.</p>
<p>If wake forest wants to do this then fine. I just know that I won't be applying to a school where the only numbers that matter are gpa and rank. You aren't going to get the brightest students that way, nor do you deserve to.</p>
<p>^good point gellino. didn't think of it that way. except for the fact that most people applying to top schools like duke, emory, vandy, etc know that wake forest is not even on the same level.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I could see this helping WFU in the same way that it has helped Middlebury, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Holy Cross. Only students with good SATs will submit them, so the school's SAT average will go up. More people will apply because now they have a perceived better chance of getting in without high SATs, which will result in a lower acceptance rate. Future top students will then see WFU's higher SAT average and lower acceptance rate than what it would have been previously, so they will apply too (thinking it's a better school than prior applicants would have thought) when before maybe they would have only applied to Duke, Emory, W&L, Davidson, Vanderbilt. I don't think WFU loses anything by doing this.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not true concerning only submitting high scores. If you read carefully on the Wake Forest site:</p>
<p>
[quote]
U.S. News and World Report considers standardized test scores as part of its system for determining a college or university's ranking. How will this policy affect Wake Forest's rankings? Will its ranking improve, suffer or be unaffected?</p>
<p>We don't know. Because we will gather scores from all admitted students, even those who did not want them considered in the admissions process, we do know we will provide data to U.S. News and World Report that reflects the true range of scores represented in the entering class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
^good point gellino. didn't think of it that way. except for the fact that most people applying to top schools like duke, emory, vandy, etc know that wake forest is not even on the same level.
[/quote]
You don't have to make that sound so elitist, Wake is on a similar level as those schools, they are certainly peer schools to Wake.</p>
<p>Actually, a teacher at my school quit a few months ago to work at Wake's admissions office. I never had him, but I know plenty of people who did, maybe if there's someone that's still in contact with him, I can get them to ask him more detailed questions. Dunno if he'll say anything besides what's already made public, but it's worth a shot.</p>
<p>I was strongly considering applying to WFU last fall. If I was class of 2009 instead of 2008 and knew about this, I would laugh off WFU. I can't take seriously a school that does not take standardized testing into its admissions calculus. I lost a lot of respect even for UofC when I found out standardized test scores were not highly regarded in their admissions process.</p>
<p>"Like other universities, Wake Forest is asked to provide standardized test score data to outside agencies. For this data to be accurate, Wake Forest will ask students who chose not to submit scores during the admissions process to provide them after they are accepted and before they enroll at Wake Forest." - from the WFU PR. Interesting...</p>
<p>This is simply a ploy to achieve a lower acceptance rate. SAT optional will attract applicants, however I can't imagine there will be many kids accepted without such scores. Before we celebrate Wake's open-minded, holistic approach to admissions, lets look at the motives... THEY WANT TO BE RANKED HIGHER BY HAVING A LOWER ACCEPTANCE RATE.</p>
<p>I don't know i'm just confused now. I was gonna apply to WFU, and I was even considering ED but this just ruined my attitude toward this college.
2 things can happen. 1. Wake loses its reputation and ranks lower: wake made a mistake and will not be regarded as one of the top tier. 2. Wake gains more people applying, ranking bumps: then wake is not being serious, having fun with college admission process like a game. Either way is disgraceful. I am upset with it.</p>