Was test optional, ultimately, a disservice to kids or was it the right choice?

[ucbalumnus]

Older (2019) thread listing what colleges says they consider in their Common Data Sets:

What colleges use in admissions, according to CDS listings

Admission factors listed in the CDS may be rated by the college as very important (counted here as 3), important (counted here as 2), considered (counted here as 1), or not considered (counted here as 0). Some do not fill in the ratings (listed here as unknown / Unk). The average / Avg is the average of ratings other than the unknown ones. For all colleges and universities: Factor VI=3 I=2 C=1 NC=0 Unk Avg HS course rigor 52.10% 15.60% 8.70% 7.30% 16.10% 2.34 HS GPA 63.00% 11.80% 4.30% 1.00% 19.70% 2.70 Standardized tests 47.50% 19.50% 13.10% 3.80% 15.80% 2.31 Class rank 16.30% 19.90% 21.40% 24.10% 18.10% 1.34 Recommendations 14.20% 23.30% 29.10% 16.80% 16.40% 1.41 Essay 15.40% 22.20% 24.10% 21.30% 16.90% 1.38 Interview 6.10% 13.10% 31.70% 31.90% 17.00% 0.91 Level of interest 6.00% 10.50% 27.80% 31.80% 23.70% 0.…

Obviously, some individual colleges’ Common Data Sets may include erroneous or misleading information compared to their actual admission practices, but the overall percentages should give some idea of what “colleges in general” consider.

Also, private non-profit colleges use non-stat aspects more than public colleges, and USNWR top colleges use and more heavily weigh non-stat aspects than other colleges generally. Should not be a surprise…

But also note that since public colleges tend to be larger than private non-profit colleges, the percentage of undergraduate students in colleges that have stats-only or stats-mostly admissions is greater than what may appear from the percentage of colleges that have stats-only or stats-mostly admissions.