Bowdoin may be different because they’re used to TO admission, but most colleges aren’t. The pools of students who are admitted under the new TO procedure and if the college were operating under the previous procedure won’t be identical.
Agreed. Personally, my high school is known to grade inflate, and a girl who has a 5.2 GPA, which is 0.1 lower than mine, has an ACT 10 points lower than mine! I couldn’t tell you how the colleges would decipher our differences seeing our applications next to each other without scores since we both have leadership and accolades in similar ECs.
Test scores simply show which kids have to study 10x harder to achieve similar grades, as well as the ability to adapt to questions that are not regurgitation/planned for. It will be interesting to see the academic performances of students admitted with test scores versus test-optional in 4 years at highly-selective institutions.
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A few schools have reported their percent of the class accepted TO. BC’s ED class is something like 42 percent TO.
I’m not really talking about Bowdoin at all. In my posts above, I’m saying AOs at all schools can use the school profile to sniff out kids with 4.0s where there’s grade inflation and if the profile reports the class’s ACT and SAT averages or ranges that helps too even if a student does not have a score.
School profiles often don’t capture the granularities of the meanings of student grades. Check out the recent CC thread “Is 4.0 a 4.0?”. There’re many variations. There’re also so many schools in the country that college regional reps just can’t understand well or even keep up.
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I think that’s why people like Selingo say kids from known high schools will have an advantage this year.
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I can’t imagine any college thinks it can rely much upon grades this year,the last regular grades were in Dec 2019. Remote/hybrid/pass/credit only since then make 2020 grades meaningless.
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This is why I said that what needs to stand out is essays, quality EC’s and LORs that are not run of the mill. The schools, even with testing get enough kids with high scores and high GPA’s. How do you tell them apart. and most top schools have more than just one essay.
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While people have spoken to test prepping, which is now free, what people have not mentioned in this thread, despite discussion above about accommodations, is the connection between accommodations and income. Or maybe I missed it in this discussion.
As I, and others, have mentioned and cited multiple times, accommodation are far more common among the wealthy than among low SES families and schools. While low SES have maybe 1%-2% of their students with accommodations for testing, the wealthiest high school districts can have as many as 1/3 of their students receiving accommodations for SATs and ACTs.
Of course, there is also the effect of the number of times students can take tests - on average, students in the wealthiest high school district of Chicagoland take ACTs three times, with the maximum number being 13 times. This increases the overall score, both because of the increased practice, and because super-scoring allows another type of accommodation.
Aside from that, standardized testing does not test some of the most important elements of education - true synthesis of knowledge, reasoning skills, and, most importantly, no standardized test can ever test for original and innovative though processes. In fact, standardized tests penalize original thought, and do so brutally.
Standardized testing also does not measure those factors which are most important for success in college and life - perseverance, long term focus, endurance.
Basically, college is a marathon, but standardized testing ranks students by their abilities as sprinters.
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The test in and of itself is not necessarily an indication of ability to do well in college. I had a classmate (we were at an Ivy), and I offered to help her prepare for the GRE, since I’m a great standardized test taker. She was honestly a better student than I was in college, but when I went to help her, I saw how she methodically and laboriously set out to compute each problem on the practice test. I said, “Mary, that’s not how you do these! You look at the answers, throw out the ones that are obviously wrong, look for the quick tricks, and isolate the most likely correct answer.” Her reply? “Oh no, that would be cheating.” I asked her how she’d gotten in. Faculty brat, plus perfect high school record from a reputable suburban high school, so they told her they just tossed out her sub 1000 SAT.
However, I don’t think that this is often the case. Where I do think that the SAT is of value, is to point out the kid who is applying from the type of high school where you get an A for showing up and handing in your work, and so gets <1000 because they really aren’t ready for college, certainly not an elite college. Similarly, it also points out the kid from that environment, who proves he IS ready for an elite school, by virtue of a high test score.
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Then you implying that only kids who score well on a standardized test do well in school. Some kids don’t test well on a long 4-5 hour test. Mine doesn’t. Yet she gets all A’s on many subject tests in school.
And with that logic, I know a kid who did well on her SAT but has a 2.4 GPA. Do you think she would do well? Doubtful.
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Yes, I think the student could do well. I’ve seen this happen a lot in my tenure in higher education. And I’ve also seen kids come in with a perfect test score and high GPA and absolutely flame out of college. Society has put too much emphasis on test scores and grades as a measure of future success.
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There have been many studies and papers reviewing differences in academic results between test submitters and non-submitters at test optional colleges. All such studies I am aware found there was little difference in both rate of drop out and graduating GPA. For example, some stats from the Bates 25 years of test optional report is at https://www.bates.edu/admission/files/2014/01/25th-Year-SAT-report-Stanford-6.3.11-wch.ppt is below.
Mean SAT Score: Submitters: ~620/~620 , Non-Submitters: ~540/~535
Gender: Submitters = 48% Female, Non-submitters =59% Female
Race: Submitters = 3% URM* , Non-submitters = 5% URM*
*Not counting Asian as URM
Mean Graduation Rate: Submitters = 89%, Non-Submitters = 89%
Mean College GPA: Submitters = 3.16, Non-Submitters = 3.12
Natural Science Major: Submitters = 23%, Non-Submitters = 17%
Humanities Major: Submitters = 31%, Non-Submitters = 28%
Career Outcomes:
Submitters overrepresented among doctors, lawyers, writers, and tech
Non-submitters overrepresented among finance, arts, and secondary school teachers
Test submitters and non-submitters averaged an identical graduation rate of 89%.
College GPA was also nearly identical. There a significant difference in rate of submitters between majors, such as 23% natural science among submitters vs 17% among non-submitters. It’s not clear from the report whether that difference is largely due to different rates of non-submitters among applicants (natural science applicants more likely to submit scores than average) or switching major later on. However, the biggest difference between submitters and non-submitters was in long term career outcomes. Test submitters were more likely to pursue grad degrees that depend on future test results. The discrepancy was especially large for MDs.
I’d expect a similar result at high selective colleges that went test optional this year. I expect test submitters and non-submitters will have similar high graduation rates that are largely unchanged from previous years. Extremely few will drop out out for academic reasons, like previous years. I also expect a similar GPA between submitters and non-submitters. There will probably be a significant difference in major distribution between submitters and non-submitters, but I expect much of that difference will be in different rates of applicants submitting test scores among different majors. Upon seeing successful results with test optional, I expect quite a few schools will continue to remain test optional after COVID-19 and difficulty in taking SAT/ACT is no longer a major concern.
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I don’t think AOs struggle to determine if students from top, rigorous high schools with a track record of sending students to their school will do well. It’s all those students at mediocre or awful schools where a test score helps. I went to a high school with a greater than 50% drop out rate. Where less 10% of students matriculated to a 4 year university. Schools would love to find the kid from those disadvantaged backgrounds who can succeed - and a test score helps find them when there isn’t a whole lot being offered by their high school transcript. When people point to great LOR, rigorous curriculum and extraordinary extra-curriculars, I wonder if they realize that does absolutely nothing to level the playing field - it just exacerbates the challenges to those from poor socioeconomic schools. I had great admission success, I imagine if it was 2020, I’d be lucky to get into my local public school and would join the rest of my classmates at the local junior college.
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Yea but to imply a student who doesn’t do well on a standardized test won’t do well in school simply isn’t true. While a student who didn’t do well in courses throughout 4 years of high school may do better in college, they would have to have developed a significant amount of drive and determination to do so.
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Well, if there really is so little correlation, then I expect we will see med schools drop the MCAT
The bulk of highly selective colleges are test optional this year, not test blind. You can still submit your score if you want to (and were able to take a test), and it will be considered. That said, variations of this theory have been posted many times on the forum – if a college goes test optional, it hurts low income students because they need their test results to stand out. While a popular theory, I have not seen any evidence of this occurring. Instead when a college goes test optional, they almost always either increase low income enrollment or have no change in low income enrollment. And low income admits are disproportionately represented among test non-submitter admits.
For example, the report at www.nacacnet,.org/globalassets/documents/publications/research/defining-access-report-2018.pdf looks at income distribution of test submitter and non-submitter kids at 21 test optional colleges. At all 21 of them, the average EFC for test optional attending students was lower than test submitters. The lower income kids seem relatively more likely to be admitted test optional than via submitting scores.
Financial Need of Enrolled Students at 21 Test Optional Colleges
Test Optional Kids – 36% High Need, 25% Moderate Need, 34% No Need
Test Submitter Kids – 28% High Need, 28% Moderate Need, 38% No Need
The admission reports I have seen so far at highly selective colleges suggest a similar pattern – either little change in low income enrollment or an increase in enrollment of low income students. For example, the Dartmouth ED admission report at Dartmouth admits 566 early decision applicants from largest-ever pool | The Dartmouth states, "Coffin added that a record 26% come from low-income families, and 18% of the early decision admits are projected to be eligible for Pell Grants. " Comparing to the previous year.
Dartmouth ED
2024 – ?? low income, 14% Pell eligible
2025 – 26% low income, 18% Pell eligible
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A few years ago My good friends daughter was Valedictorian at our highly competitive Hig h school. The previous decade before her the average ACT score of the Val’s was a 35 and they all ended up at top 10 schools. (there is almost always only one unlike some schools because it’s based on weighted. ) She is not a great standardized test taker and scored a 27. She had outstanding EC’s. But that 27 was a huge impediment. She ended up at a good, ( top 50 school )but definitely talked to her mom about how life changing this years rule would have been for her.
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I disagree. That drive and determination may have always been there, but other factors may have been at play. And just because you test well, or have great memorization skills doesn’t mean you have learned the material and can apply it to real works situations. Either way, test scores are not the sole predictor of future success.
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That’s pretty much what I said but ok
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I doubt we will see MCATS dropped. That is a specialized exam that focuses on specific knowledge you need in order to be successful in medical school. The content isn’t generalized per se.
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