Kids do come from different high school backgrounds, and some are more or less prepared for STEM classes at a highly selective colleges. However, looking at SAT score in isolation is is an extraordinarily bad way to determine how well the students are prepared for STEM classes at an “elite” college. Instead such colleges often require all freshman to take a placement test that in no way resembles the SAT, and that placement test score is used to help decide what first STEM course is most appropriate.
For example, Harvard requires that all incoming freshman take a math placement exam to help better understand HS math background and help decide what math starting point is most appropriate. Based on placement exam score, HS course background, AP scores, personal goals, planned major, feedback from placement officer, and other factors; the student decides on which math course to choose. Harvard offers any of the following intro math starting points and sequence options – Math Ma,b; 1a,b; 19a,b; 20; 21a,b; 23a,b; 25a,b; and 55a,b. The lowest level (MA) is a half normal speed calc/pre-calc type class , while Harvard’s website describes math 55 as “probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country”. Very few students attempt to take math 55, and most students who do attempt it drop out to a slower/easier math sequence by the end. However, top math students, such as IMO participants do tend to take it, so other students won’t see IMO level math students in their intro math classes.
I doubt that any of the above will change with Harvard being test optional.
In high school maybe but are you saying that college professors tailor the rigour of their teaching to the abilities of the students in their classes? In my experience it’s the students themselves who determine the composition of classes by self-selecting their courses based on their ability to do well in them. That’s why there is often a distinction between STEM courses designed for those who are majoring in STEM and for those who are not. Inevitably there will be students who are not well matched to the rigour of their classes but rather than the professor adjusting the teaching to their level, they are expected to either rise to the level of the class or fail.
My point was not that “soft skills” are more important in college applications. It was that the entirety of a student application should be considered. Simply saying that a higher SAT score makes a student more deserving or “excellent” or even smarter is simply Something I don’t agree with. Thankfully most of the time kids end up in schools where they are happy as AOs seem to do a good job of finding the right balance.
One likely consequence of testing going out the window is kids having to apply to even more schools than they do now. Currently, kids can use their test ranges to pick a few reach, match, and safety schools. If all that is gone, then kids are likely to apply to many more schools because they will not have a good external standard and because each elite school will become that more selective due to the increased number of applications. Things will become more of a crap shoot than they are now. It will literally come down to whether your application happens to appeal to the one or two AOs who happen to read your application. (Including when they happened to read the application and what mood or hunger state they were in at the time Judges are more lenient after taking a break, study finds | Law | The Guardian)
Why oh why do I let myself read and then get involved in these discussions?
On the point of “excellence”, I get it. One of my kids has competed internationally athletically. Some kids just have special talents (which must be accompanied with tremendous worth ethic or it’s a waste). By competed internationally, I don’t mean I paid to fly him somewhere, I mean he was the US team representative at his weight. Our country only gets to send one and it was him. So I think that qualifies. In no way is that kind of an accomplishment in the same ballpark as getting 36 on a test.
I stand by my 99% number. If 15-16% don’t have GPA/test score matches, I would wager that a large number of those have other issues in the app that also don’t match. The kid with the 4.0 from a poor HS and a 25 ACT probably has an app that is overall more reflective of the 25 than the 4.0. Not in all cases, but in the majority. And some of those are also cases where it already didn’t matter that there was a mismatch. If a kid is working 30 hours a week at McDonalds since he was 14 to help buy the family food, the fact that his ACT score isn’t up to snuff probably means it is because after finishing his math homework at 1:00 a.m. he didn’t take the time to study for the ACT, not because he isn’t smart enough to handle the workload. Those kids were given a pass on the test requirement before, and being TO doesn’t really change his application.
I don’t know the range of test scores/gpa matching up, but it is possible my son’s test score while certainly good by most standards did not match up to his GPA. But he had other accomplishments that they viewed as being more important. He got into his school with a test, so even though he doesn’t “deserve” a spot, TO didn’t affect him (or others like him), they got in anyway before TO.
I feel like this whole thread can be summed up by “I have given my kid a lot of privileges. While accident of birth is the only reason he has those advantages, I nonetheless want him to have an advantage because of it.” Honestly, I get it, I want the best for my kids too. But I’m not going to argue that it isn’t fair if they get treated like everyone else and not like they are special just because of things I did that they have nothing to do with.
“The class is not able to cover the same material at depth.”
The elite profs don’t dumb down a class for the weakest link or two. (And you have no way of knowing how many kids that is.)
Instead, the college’s concern is, can an individual weaker applicant make it, keep up, or will he/she be running to catch up? And possibly not make it, despite various sorts of support. Imo, that’s not fair to the now struggling kid who has dreams and would be better off at a less competitive college where his dreams are feasible. I can only tell you it’s a considered concern, ime. It’s one reason elite adcoms filter for certain attributes.
Sure, at a generally lower bar school, where the bulk of kids aren’t at some higher level, a prof needs to match the students’ abilities. Apples and oranges.
I do not think anyone here is arguing that tests are the only or even the most important part of the application. Of course an international/national level of accomplishment should trump testing. However, testing is one part of the application that allowed for some cross comparisons between students who attended high schools that vary tremendously in the US. As it goes away, other parts of the application become more important and some data is lost. There are real consequence to this. I think people are trying to flesh out what those are.
The other parts of the app have long been very important. Make or break. No kid is stats only, in holistic. Top scores may offer insights, but that’s just part. Think about what it takes to succeed in life.
Considering that elite colleges have a surplus of highly academically qualified applicants who can do the work at the college, screening by “ability to do the work” should not be a major task for the admissions readers at most* elite colleges. Yes, they may be looking for more than just “ability to do the work” or other characteristics beyond that, but the base level “ability to do the work” is not difficult for them to meet (other than perhaps with the academically-weakest of development applicants or some such).
*Exceptions being places like Caltech and Harvey Mudd where the base level academics are, at the minimum, like the honors versions at other colleges.
I agree that the soft skills are very important too and they will probably take you farther but they are not mutually exclusive to having the skillset to keep up with the pace of others in the class.
@ucbalumnus, I agree with you more lately, especially on some of the subtleties, than in our mutual past. But doesn’t “ability to do the work” take us right back into the sniff about whether a 4.0 is truly representative of a high level? Or whether adcoms apply too much wishful thinking with lower SES kids (these kids, as described by some CC posters.) Or, this back and forth about the value of scores?
Yes, rigor matters. And the quality and depth of an LoR from, say, a stem teacher for a stem wannabe. But looking for “the attributes” is illustrative of how a kid might proceed.
One of the keys, eg, is looking for the apparent ability to self-advocate. It covers all sorts of energies. It’s not running for office or defending a position. It’s how a kid identifies the need for support and goes for it, works with what’s available. And early enough. That does come through in many LoRs. And it can show in the patterns in the rest- eg, who’s going for challenges and some impact, even small, and succeeding. Versus leaning back and all the rest CC sometimes touts. And more, of course.
I agree that not having a test score is a data point that Is missing. But I don’t think for anyone bemoaning that fact on this thread it is a particularly helpful one.
I think if you have a 4.0 at a HS like the one I attended it is helpful. I was the top of my class of 18. For the average non selective state school that’s always going to be pretty good. But a score is helpful in that case to give context. Even in my daughter’s case it was helpful. She was 1/350, but from a school that doesn’t send many apps to top schools, and the ones we do are primarily Ivies. She applied to Amherst, and she sent her score not because it was great by their standards (33) but because it confirmed she was in the academic ballpark to compete there, since her GPA and class rank were of unknown value.
That’s not the complaints I am seeing. It is the parents of the kids who go to the well known HS, who either took a ACT class at the HS or paid a tutor $5,000, who are unhappy they aren’t getting extra credit for the score. My point is that if you have those circumstances a mid 30s score isn’t a bonus, it is expected. And if you can get it, your app probably already reflects that potential. Conversely, if you aren’t capable of that score, your app probably reflects that too.
Really? Google what happened at Harvey Mudd a few years ago. They loosened up their academic bar in an attempt to achieve another objective. It resulted in a period of protests, even suicides. The school was shut down for a few days and eventually the curriculum was altered to accommodate.
It will be interesting what happens at Caltech after their 2 year test blind policy. The work load and the academic level are indeed as high as advertised. I wonder if there will be some admits who have a great passion for STEM who really cannot do the work.
There is a difference between a “high level” as in academically top-end by college standards and “high enough level to graduate college*” without being in danger of flunking out. There are probably few 4.0 HS GPA students who will not be able to pass the latter criterion, even though a much smaller subset of 4.0 HS GPA students will meet the former criterion. But determining (probabilistically) the latter means finding much more than a high HS GPA and/or high SAT/ACT score.
*Again, this includes elite colleges with typical levels of rigor, not rigor outliers like Caltech and Harvey Mudd, where “high enough level to graduate college” for them is much higher than it is elsewhere, including other elite colleges.
“A LOT of kids with strong apps and high scores have taken the tests multiple times.”
That’s probably anecdotal, I can easily say that there many top scorers who only take it once, because that’s the typical case in the higher performing bay area high schools. In 2019 there were 4M test takers total, between sat and act, and 3.7M high school graduates. Assuming 75% of grads took either, the average is less than 2. Yes there may be some that take it more than 3 or 4 times, but you post like it’s the norm. A lot of people take it 2 or 3 times if they need merit money as well.
“Kudos to your kid- but just pointing out that holistic means holistic, and higher scores IN AND OF THEMSELVES do not necessarily mean a kid can turn a reject into an acceptance.”
Definitely not true, athletes are routinely told they need a particular score to get in and if they don’t get it, they won’t get the offer. Yes it happens, a 32 say, means you now have an acceptance at ivies, top LACs when it was a rejection. Athletes are 15% of the class at places like Stanford, Harvard, maybe higher at LACs, so it’s not some students at the margins.
“The best thing about test optional is the demise of the College Board and ACT.”
Not sure on the ACT, but C/B has done good things around increasing access of their tests and the more selective colleges in general to low and middle income families and in general bringing awareness to programs for low SES students. A GC told me that once the college board puts their name or support behind something involving a program, it gets attention.
But that’s Mudd and I have no idea what the whole story is. (I don’t need to know and think that would take us OT.) In a similar way, Caltech is an unusual environment. And I think most of us know there’s always been some blather or other about grade inflation at Harvard.
Btw, ime, it’s not the Composite, but the subscores. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a 33. It’s not about whether a 33 is too low, in isolation. It matters that the subs show the right alignment of strengths.
1NJParent, if kids would spend more time on the idea of “match,” I believe they could spare themselves of a lot of the out of control spiral. Too many times, I think they see it as facing some tsuname of uncertainty and not knowing where to run. If they do look for match, imo, it focuses on the college matching what the kid wants. A little more focused effort could go a long way. And I don’t mean reading blogs or speculative sources.
I think Caltech will likely continue its TB policy after 2 years. It should be fine because it has little use for test scores anyway. Instead, it looks harder for other signs of academic accomplishments and abilities. Schools like Vandy will be more interesting case studies.
For those of you with high scoring kids who don’t seem to want your kids in class with kids with lower scores, I’m not sure what you’ll want for them after they graduate. No one goes into the world and only associates with people who got a 36 on the ACT. Plus, don’t you want your kids to be meeting kids in college who are different from them, have different strengths?