I’ve heard rumors that AOs are dividing the applicants into two groups: scores and no scores. So, kids with scores are competing against other kids with scores; and kids without competing against other kids without. Again, it’s all rumor, hearsay, speculation.
I certainly hope there’s no truth to it because I’ve got to believe that the group with scores is a far stronger group overall as it doesn’t include the kids who scored low and decided to take a chance anyway with TO.
Anyway, I saw yet another person voice this theory this morning. So, I thought I’d throw it out here. True? Not true?
The rumor may have originated with an article on a top school saying they were going to aim to take the same percentage of kids without scores as those with scores. (Was it Duke maybe…can’t recall)
Ok, found it. It was an interview with Duke’s undergrad dean of admissions:
“But is test-optional actually test-optional? Or will this policy just benefit students with resources to submit decent scores during a pandemic? How does an application with an ACT score of 35 not look better than an application without any score?
I asked Guttentag those questions. He said that one way he plans to mitigate the risk of unintentional bias is ensuring that the percentage of accepted students who applied with test scores will roughly equal the percentage of students who applied without.”
It looks like these schools are doing the same as Duke which is to accept roughly the same percentage of TO applicants as the percentage of TO who apply.
BostonU: 12% increase in apps for ED1. 75% test optional. 71% admitted w/o scores.
Tufts up 17% ED1, 57% did not submit test scores, 56% admitted w/o scores.
Middlebury: 17% increase in apps ED1, 56% did not submit scores, ~56% admitted w/o scores.
I’ll admit I haven’t tracked this issue so I could be wrong (and go ahead and correct me if I’m wrong). My gut instinct is that Harvard budgets capacity for total undergrad population (versus graduating class population), and thus that deferrals would only marginally change the totals admitted this year.
Let’s say you separate the group of applicants into “would apply to the school anyway” and additional applicants that “only applied because of test-optional.” I would suggest the acceptance rate of “only applied because of test-optional” is low, and that it only modestly impacts the acceptance rate of the kids that were going to apply anyway.
By analogy, Juliard could say “no auditions this year,” and my non-musical kid could apply thinking that his chances were improved … but he wouldn’t get in, and his application would not at all impact the chances of actual musician kids getting in. The additional denominator is only slightly (IMO) impacting the results of the people that were applying anyway.
By this I mean, a very good soccer player who couldn’t play for the last year, will still end up in a good soccer program. A musician that is qualified (but not accepted) to Juliard, is still going to a very good music program. The great mathematician who couldn’t take the SAT, is still going to a very good math school. etc etc. They will land approximately where they should land.
Conversely the person that is slightly above average, but applied to Harvard because “why not” … is still not getting into Harvard.
Reading this makes me want to cry for this poor kid. She must have worked SO hard in school, and she did SO incredibly well. She would have done well at ANY school she was admitted to. But because she wasn’t lucky enough to have been coached on her application, or diligent enough to have done the internet research that would have told her the special secrets, she got rejected. Some internet research would have told her to make sure that her essay tells the committee who she is, that it SHOWS something special about her, and to make sure that her activities show some strong passion with high achievement, and if that passion was not related to what she intended to study in college, make sure to tell them why, and what drew her towards what she intended to study. So the kid whose parents paid for the professional admissions coach and essay coach to massage her application, but who probably had lower grades and scores, got in, and this incredibly high-achieving kid did not. What was she supposed to have done in high school to demonstrate her interest in pre-med? Doctors’ offices and hospitals don’t want high school volunteers, certainly don’t let them get anywhere near the patients or the medicine that is going on (HIPPAA violation). The fact is that people decide to go to med school even in mid-life, and become excellent doctors. Did they expect her to do one of those expensive “leadership” seminars for “future doctors of America”? To tell some story about how she had shepherded her beloved grandmother with Parkinson’s through her medical care, and now wanted to become a neurologist? I feel so bad for her. McGill’s system is far better. Show us your scores and GPA, and if you’re applying in arts/music, your portfolio, and that’s it. No essays. No subjective BS that can be gamed.
The kid who has decent grades, and interesting extracurricular activities, but whose application would have been shot down by their sub-par SAT/ACT, IS getting into top schools this year. The kid who has performance anxiety, and would have done miserably in the live, in-person audition at Juiliard, but who has access to an incredible recording studio that can shape the quality of his sound, and can do a hundred takes and send the best one, IS getting into Juilliard, rather than the kid who does his best in the living room with the $100 mike he bought over the internet. Yes, everyone will wind up in a school that fits their needs, probably, but some will be helped by test optional/blind or recorded auditions, and some will be hurt by it.
So does anyone think my daughter with a 34 act and 98 gpa with lots of rigor shouldn’t submit scores in the regular round because the test optional group might be less competitive? Maybe she should for a few schools? What a year this is.
The life of a professional musician is performance based. It doesn’t matter how expensive your equipment is-- Julliard’s mission is to train the next generation of musicians, and apart from Covid and Yo-Yo Ma recording from his living room to honor first responders, that means performing.
A kid whose performance anxiety would have made him “do miserably” in an audition is a kid who has not been part of a youth orchestra, has not been part of the summer programs, intensives, traveling musical opportunities. I don’t know any serious musician who can reach the age of 18 or 19 without a resume full of performances. And this applies to affluent kids who have had the best teachers since they were 5, and non-affluent kids (even more so since it’s their performances which often put them on the radar of the top teachers and programs). Who gets into Julliard without performing- at a high level- in front of actual human beings???
My kid has stats nearly identical to your daughter’s. 98 uw gpa and 1580 SAT. Isn’t it sad that not submitting this SAT score should even be in question?
It’s absolutely crazy to think that by submitting your scores you are putting yourself into a more competitive group. It’s really quite unfair.
Well said !!!
It’s not even playing field, when parents paid for coaches to help or even wrote essays for applications. Also the test optional is not fair for kids, who took and submitted test scores vs. kids who took the tests but not sent them in.
I don’t see how you get two groups out of that slim comment at the end. It’s possible to look at scores/no scores at the end, in committee, to shape the class. It’s much the same as making sure you have enough kids aiming for English or classics or gals in physics. It doesn’t mean reviewed as separate piles.
If the two groups (one submitted test scores and the other didn’t) aren’t reviewed separately, there has to be a step at the end to “true-up” in order to ensure the two groups have roughly the same acceptance rates. This final “true-up” process would necessarily reject some applicants in one group or the other, who would otherwise be admitted.
But, the numbers reported thus far seem to be telling that story. See the poster above who provided some pretty good stats.
At schools where 75% of the applicants were test optional, it seems that approximately 75% of the admitted students were also test optional. That essentially means you’re competing in either the TO group or the Test-Submitted group. Each of the two groups has the same percentage ultimately accepted.
My cousin went to a Julliard-like school, and she had been winning music awards since elementary school. (I thought myself good at music as a kid, but when I saw her play, I realized she was exceptional and I was not). I think there is enough data from pre-Covid music awards, performances, and conductor letters of recommendation that approximately the right kids get into Julliard, absent a live audition.
I don’t believe the “kid with performance anxiety” is today leapfrogging into Julliard - since public, live performance is what Julliard does. But even if they managed to rig their way into Julliard, either the school fixed their performance anxiety (a great outcome) or they’re bombing out. And the good performer that they bumped to the 3rd best school, is now a star there. Life has all sorts of ups and downs, but I think people basically end up where they should in the long run.
I think the same story for the elite soccer player or mathematician or chess player or basket weaver or whatever. It takes years and years to get exceptional at things, and it is already evident from pre-Covid times who is exceptional at what.
I don’t remember my SAT score, no one ever asks, and no one cares. I do agree the SAT has some importance, but I think it will only add a small to moderate number of errors in the acceptance process.
Why does this thread keep turning back to who gets test prep and a conviction it’s, lol, everyone else? Or every affluent kid. Imo, all the finger-pointing is easy. But it takes you further from: what makes a great app?
As for just submitting stats, that’s not holistic. Plenty of other colleges decide based on stats, if that’s what you see as a level playing field.
When you want a tippy top, they’re judging you on a variety of qualities and experiences. You probably want, say, a Harvard or Duke for the intellectual (and social) climate, as much as classes. Why not view this from that perspective, as well? Not just the simplistic ranking of stats?
Try to understand tippy tops have the luxury of building communities of engaged kids. Thinkers. Doers.
The very process of selecting (in committee) would necessarily reject some applicants in one group or the other, who would otherwise be admitted. It’s long been about balance. And a limited number of seats. No way every great kid gets in.
And one can’t state who would be “otherwise admitted.” You may know great kids. You may see high stats. But that’s simply not the “all.”
Other than in majors and by gender, geo diversity plays, too. It means some get in from an area and some don’t.
Try looking at it not as stats being the one thing that distinguishes.
Speaking of finger pointing, there’re opposing views:
Parents who themselves or their kids receive high test scores tend to think high test scores are one of the best indicators of academic preparedness and should be an important component of any admission evaluation. Those who don’t tend to think high scores are just reflections of better testing skills, or excessive preparations, or both, and have little to do with qualifications.
There’s some truth in each, but the full truth is always somewhere in-between.