I think there also a lot of kids who only got the chance to take a test once who would have ended up with higher scores if they had the chance to take the test 3, 4 or more times (like in a normal year). For example, my own kid took the ACT last December (as a Jr.) and got a 29 (which she was not happy with). Luckily, a window opened in our part of the country in September and October and she was able to take both the ACT and SAT several times. Her best score ended up being a 1490 which she reported to her ED school. Had that window not opened, she would have been stuck with the 29 and gone TO.
For the Literature majors? 
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First I think MIT has to assume that there will be high schools that donât offer AP calculus or kids that took Calc but didnât get a 5 on the exam. So many kids will still have to take that course, apparently MIT now requires a 5 on the BC and a diagnostic exam before they give credit.
Cal Tech doesnât accept AP credit at least for their core first year and their first year math has a prereq of Calc in high school, and anecdotally any way, the earlier you take Calc, the better your chances.
Obviously, MIT cannot be expecting calculus in 10th grade as you claim they do if not all high schools offer calculus, or not all school systems (or parents) allow students to accelerate math to be able to take calculus in 10th grade.
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I donât think anyone has said this. In fact, most of us have recognized that many, many exceptionally talented kids could not test due to covid. Iâm sure there are a very large number of high-achieving, high stats kids in the TO group who would have gotten a big SAT score if they had had the chance.
At our small high school where the average SAT in a normal year hovers just under 1100, applications to Harvard are up twofold. I donât think that, all of a sudden, twice as many kids scored a 1520+. I can only assume itâs because of TO. And, this is a school that has sent exactly one kid to Harvard in its entire history. And, again, this is from an admittedly tiny sample (our one high school): the kids who are submitting scores are generally the top-ranked, high GPA, high fliers.
Again, the SAT was readily available in our area over many months.
If you live in an area where the SAT wasnât available, youâre probably seeing entirely different trends.
Difficult prepping and stopping too while embarked on the other mammoth project of applying to colleges (while keeping up with a slate of AP/senior courses.) Thereâs a reason the SAT is mostly taken in the Junior year.
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Right, thatâs why they recommend calculus, not require it.
Caltech doesnât give any AP credits for any course (not just their STEM core) regardless of scores. For these schools, what classes you chose to take, when you took them, what other classes you were taking and what other activities you were participating in at the same time, what tests (including STEM competitions) you took, when you took them, how you did on all the classes and tests, etc. all make a difference, in the context of what were available to you. MIT/Caltech donât just look at your entire app holistically. They also look at your academic record holistically.
She/we gave up prepping. We had 5 tests cancelled. I do have to applaud my own D, she was ready, willing and able to go almost anywhere in Northern California to take an SAT. We had tests scheduled in a couple of obscure towns up North and Central California.
Iâm also thankful that one of her ECâs (sports being the other), which sheâs very passionate about and also pertains to her hopeful future college major, continues to be active during Covid, because much of it transitioned fairly well to the online world.
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There is no way to verify whether MITâs statement is accurate because there are too many sections of the application that are correlated with score. Yes, the admit rate is greater for higher SAT score, but I believe MIT when they say that the higher admit rate is primarily due to other sections of the application that are correlated with the score, rather than the score itself, such as their IMO medalist example. If an IMO medalist made 2-3 careless errors and got a 740, I highly doubt that MIT is going to have a problem. How MIT would treat a non-IMO applicant who excelled in everything except for a 740 SAT is a matter of speculation. You can trust the quotes on MITs website about how they use SAT scores, or you can assume that MIT is not being truthful.
Itâs a similar idea with taking calc before 10th grade. I donât doubt that anecdotally these kids have a high acceptance rate. What I doubt is that the year in which they take calc is the driving factor in these acceptances. Instead I expect the acceptances relate to things taking calc very early is correlated with such as success in very high levels of math beyond AP calc, out of classroom achievements in math/science that are impressive among MITâs highly qualified pool of applicants, having a well resourced and supportive HS environment, and generally being extremely strong in math/science (both in and out of clasroom).
MIT does not give credit for just a 5 on the AP exam. Instead at both MIT and Caltech, all freshman must take their math diagnostic test. If a MIT student does not do well on their math placement exam, they must take MITâs single variable calc class, regardless of AP score (or SAT score).
In addition to requiring freshman to take math placement exam, Caltech offers students the option take advanced standing exams that allow them to place out of first year math and receive credit for the corresponding courses. It does not depend on AP score (or SAT score).
A common theme seems to be requiring more advanced testing than provided by AP exam, and certainly more than the basic algebra/.geometry type questions on the SAT. I doubt that math SAT offers much of any value to schools like MIT/Caltech. It could theoretically flag a kid who applied to MIT/Caltech in spite of not knowing basic HS algebra/geometry well, but I expect that kid would have been flagged in numerous other areas of the application besides just math SAT score.
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^MIT has been gradually tightening its AP credit policy in the last few years. @theloniusmonk was correct that MIT used to (prior to last year) give AP credit for a 5 on AP Calculus BC exam without passing a diagnotic test.
Well colleges base a lot on what has this kid done given his/her resources. A kid attending Exeter might be expected to have âgoldenâ recognitions in STEM areas and to have developed his/her potential. A kid at an inner city under-funded school who helped tutor kids in STEM also gets a boost. Itâs not a matter of having to do AIME or AMC or other other thing ( like Intel or Google Science awards). If you look at many national STEM awards the kids are from the same darn towns. And many are very high SES. AOâs know this.
They are looking for people who are outstanding based on where they are planted. ( I say this as a parent who came from a very low income SES and went to multiple Ivies and now has kids elite private schools.) The expectations are very very different for high income SES kids.
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This was our experience exactly. We are also in the bay area, and my D21 has now had 7 tests cancelled, at various cities in a 200 mile radius. Her small hs did not offer an in-school test (the school building itself has been closed since March). She had studied hard and was ready back in MarchâŠnot sure how well she would do now, but there is no way to know!
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âHow MIT would treat a non-IMO applicant who excelled in everything except for a 740 SATâ
I doubt MIT gets a lot of those, applicants to MIT, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Stanford STEM, CMU stem, etc are self selecting. A 740/33 is not applying without a hook or an IMO type award.
Nobody gets out of Math 1a at Cal Tech, you take the standard 1a if you do well on the diagnostic test, 1a with another course to help with practice if you did ok, and 1a with the practice course and a different instructor if you donât do well. From Cal Techâs website:
âAll Caltech freshman take the same core classes in their first year.â
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MITâs applicant pool is no doubt self selecting and has higher stat ranges than nearly any other school except Caltech. If MIT admitted by purely random lottery without considering the application, theyâd still create an admitted class with as 25/75 scores range higher than many other highly selective colleges.
However, there are still many thousands of applicants below the thresholds you listed. Last year over 20% of the applicants who submitted SAT had a 740 or less on math. An even larger portion who took ACT received a 33 or less on the ACT math section â approximately 30% of applicants. Specific numbers are listed on MITâs website.
Other pages go in to more detail. From Caltechâs website at FAQs for Prospective Undergraduate Math Students | The Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy
âIn the summer before you begin at Caltech, students are offered the opportunity to take the Math 1a, 1b, 1c, 2 and 3 advanced placement tests. They are all voluntary. Students can complete as many or as few as they would like. Based on the results of these exams, students may âplace outâ and be given credit for the courseâ
Similar statements are on several other pages of Caltechâs websites and student documents such as https://cce.caltech.edu/undergraduate/ugrad-admissions
" Based on the results of these exams, you may place out of courses and be granted credit for those courses."
and Diagnostic and Advanced Placement Tests | The Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy
âPlacement out of Math 1a, 1b, 1c, 2 and 3 is only available by successfully completing these tests in the summer.â
In the case of Caltech, diagnostic test is used to see if a student is ready to take the regular Math 1a without additional preparations or practices. The separate placement tests are course specific (and each multi-hours long) and used to see if a student, if s/he intends to skip that required course, has mastered the materials for that course. Few students pass those exams (even IMO medalists are unlikely to have learned those materials in high school at the level required by Caltech). Caltech wants to make sure all its students have learned the same materials so they can form a uniform base for other courses. For example, its âbasicâ social science courses often involve some âadvancedâ math, as appropriate.
SAT/ACT arenât that useful for schools like Caltech/MIT, but that doesnât mean they arenât useful for many other schools. Some public universities, for example, receive so many applications that itâd be practically impossible for them to look at each applicant as closely without the help of test scores (some would argue that they could use GPAs alone, but thatâs much more problematic than test scores). If these tests are done away with, we may see some colleges and/or states require their own tests or uniform grade-level exams as substitutions.
I donât have a kid with a sky high SAT score so discussions of schools like Caltech vs MIT arenât meaningful in the context of my daughterâs application. Maybe this is really only an issue at the very top.
Like many though my D21 SATs were cancelled multiple times March April June July and Sept. My Ds August SAT location was open. My D also was registered for the May (?) June July ACT which were also cancelled. I learned a lot about selecting sites based on other test cancellations - which I believe contributed to our success in getting a center in August. Our area had opened test centers in September - but I didnât believe the news because all previous administrations had been cancelled so I unfortunately signed up for a distant cancelled center. I spent countless hours signing up, guessing and switching locations, following up with test centers directly, driving to a distance test location. Given all the start and stops my daughter didnât study much for the SAT- maybe 20 hours total over 6 months- as tests were cancelled left and right. My D could have tested in October and November as she was signed up but we decided that her August score was âgood enoughâ for where she wanted to apply. The October was cutting too close we felt for EA. November test date was too late for some.
Thinking about this in retrospect- my daughter had a lot of privilege compared with the average HS grad. Not only did I find the sites for her, but I was also willing to pay those test fees without even thinking for a minute about their costs.
Given our situation which was common over the summer, I donât think colleges could have approached SAT scores any other way except to announce a TO strategy. I know for me it reduced anxiety.
In hindsight though itâs frustrating as anyone who wanted to test in our area could have in September and October. I know both people who applied TO that would have Aced their SAT and others that who specifically went TO to hide their poor scores/ relative to their grades. I know more the latter than the former though.
For my kid who is applying only to state schools, Iâm not sure whether TO helped or hurt. In terms of admission and merit aid,it hasnât yet hurt (3 down/3 to go). My D had an unbalanced score. She ended up with a 1370 overall but there was 150 point difference between the two sections. Does the lower score more than offset the higher one or vice versa? She also goes to a school that has very high SAT averages but her score was ever so slightly above average. Her GPA on the other hand was near the top. Should she have gone TO? Would AOâs assume her scores were better then they were? I donât know- it just adds anxiety.
We ultimately figured that we had the information so we submitted because that was her.
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That is about 80 times as much as I studied for the SAT decades ago. I guess times have changed when 20 hours is now considered âdidnât study much for the SATâ compared to the presumed norm of intensive test preparation now.
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Lol. They certainly have.
My HS didnât even offer the SAT (just ACT), nor a pre-ACT or PSAT, never heard of such a thing as a test prep center, didnât have a test prep book or practice tests. I studied zero for SAT, drove an hour to the test site in another county with a friend (using a paper map), had no idea how to get there, what test would be like or how long it would take. I took it completely cold. Smh what was I thinking.
I think I studied a couple hours for the ACT. I donât think anyone in my HS studied much for the tests. Took SAT and ACT once. Only people who totally bombed first try retook tests.
Did well enough to get a state scholarship and get into the state public ivy. Makes me wonder what I could have scored had I actually prepared and/or taken more than once.
The problem with standardized test is that the test is not standardized. So many people are using accommodations. Your test results donât report accommodations to the colleges. That is why the ACT is becoming more popular lately. It is pretty straight forward test that is a âtime stressedâ test. Most people with enough time can score a perfect score on the reading and science sections. The answers are in the passage. You just need enough time to find the answers.
The cheating that is happening with the SAT and ACT is rampant overseas. This is also occurring over here, with people getting access to the test. I know of a family who bragged about their junior and sophomore children getting perfect scores on the ACT. Apparently they had their scores invalidated. Both kids ended up starting their college careers at community college.
Cheating on a single 3 hour test taken on one day is much easier, than cheating you way over 4 years in HS. Your HS GPA is a much better predictor of college success than a three hour test.