Wake Forest to drop SAT/ACT

<p>Just read in this morning's newspaper [url=<a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com%5DCharlotte"&gt;http://www.charlotteobserver.com]Charlotte&lt;/a> Observer | Frontpage<a href="look%20under%20news%20flashes">/url</a> that Wake Forest University will no longer require SAT/ACT scores for admission starting with the class entering in 2009.</p>

<p>School officials say they are changing their policies after research showed the tests favor the wealthy and are not good predictors of college success.</p>

<p>NY Times reported today (May 27th) that both Smith College and Wake Forest will no longer require students to submit SAT or ACT scores starting in the fall of 2009.</p>

<p>I think this is a great decision, and other Universities should follow suit. I did poorly on the SAT,but I was still accepted to a college and so far I have stellar grades in all classes(3.7 GPA). In other words, the SAT does not accurately demonstrate one's potential performance in college.</p>

<p>Very interesting.
There is some more information on the Wake website:
WFU</a> | Window on Wake Forest</p>

<p>It reflects well on Wake that we are one of the first elite schools to do this.</p>

<p>Wake Forest so far is the most highly ranked college (by the U.S. News methodology) to do this. I don't think this is a signal that there will be a rush to abandon SAT testing at the top of that or of other ranking lists, but rather this illustrates how tough Wake's competition is for the high-scoring students to which it sends recruiting letters.</p>

<p>I'll be interested in the first competitive school that declines to look at any standardized test scores at all.</p>

<p>Ironic that the SAT was introduced to introduce FAIRNESS into admissions.</p>

<p>If we compare Duke's score profile </p>

<p>College</a> Search - Duke University - Duke - SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>

<p>to Wake Forest's, </p>

<p>College</a> Search - Wake Forest University - Wake Forest - SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>

<p>we see essentially why Wake Forest decided to take itself out of this brutal in-region competition. This is a typical pattern for SAT-optional colleges: some other college that is otherwise comparable has much higher SAT statistics. That's why Worcester Polytechnic Institute went SAT-optional, and also why Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota did.</p>

<p>I agree with that, it helps distinguish us so we do not get lost in the shuffle of schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, UVA, W&M, UNC, Emory, Davidson, etc. Furthermore, I think this is an attempt to promote diversity on part of the administration in terms of geography, race, socioeconomic status, etc.</p>

<p>^ It will also probably make many very strong applicants decide NOT to apply there.</p>

<p>I have to agree with mammall, I think this could be a strike against WF with very academically gifted students--makes one think that the other very subjective factors that weigh in on the admissions decision could result in a less academically inclined student body.</p>

<p>As tokenadult suggests, this may just be making a virtue of necessity. Wake will still consider SATs, and you can bet they will take students with as high scores as they can get--but they already weren't getting them.</p>

<p>Well, congratulations to Wake Forest on being bold. I have to wonder, however, what is truly behind this. </p>

<p>One fears it paves the way to allow more "social engineering". You'll get more marginally qualified students from the oppressed groups, and more marginally qualified students from the groups financially successful enough to pay for themselves and others, and woe to the merely highly-qualified who fall into the middle ground.</p>

<p>I suspect that SAT scores are the inconvenient truth in the way of the priviledge rectification business that the soc professor prefers to the business of education.</p>

<p>This is simply a move to increase the number of applicants:</p>

<p>Students will mistakenly believe that not submitting their low scores will improve their odds of admission. The application numbers will swell from applicants who have little chance of admission.</p>

<p>Wake Forest can continue to take low SAT students with other attributes just as they do today. They will simply assume that anyone not reporting scores is a low-scorer.</p>

<p>What's more, they can say that they don't care about the fact that they have lower median SAT scores than other schools, because to them it is no longer "important."</p>

<p>All the families I know who have visited Wake love it. They love the campus, the students and the whole "vibe". Very few of the kids wind up going there, for some reason. I guess Wake falls into that sort-of "middle range" where a lot of the applicants who, even though they love Wake, get into a more selective school and pick it.<br>
It will be interesting to see how this new move pans out.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Wake Forest can continue to take low SAT students with other attributes just as they do today. They will simply assume that anyone not reporting scores is a low-scorer.

[/quote]

I am sure it will also raise their reported SAT scores quite a bit (the low scorers will be more likely not submit their scores), and thus raise the ranking in USNWR. (That's how Middlebury has such high score ranges - they only use the "reported scores", while being "SAT optional"...)</p>

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<p>Thanks, Cur, for the book reference. </p>

<p>Thanks too for pointing out that my point would have been clearer if I had referred to Wake Forest as a "national university" rather than use the more general term "college." The U.S. News methodology makes it debatable just how specific colleges in the national university category compare to liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I am sure it will also raise their reported SAT scores quite a bit (the low scorers will be more likely not submit their scores), and thus raise the ranking in USNWR. (That's how Middlebury has such high score ranges - they only use the "reported scores", while being "SAT optional"...)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Get your facts straight. Middlebury reports the SAT I scores for every student for whom they have scores, regardless of whether they were used in admission or not. Eighty-eight percent of last year's matriculants submitted SAT I scores and 24 percent submitted ACT scores.</p>