I guess this question is presumptive and can’t be answered with any certainty, but curious the thoughts of the board. For fall 2021 admission, many kids simply could not take the ACT or SAT, and TO came out of necessity. I can’t speak for the entire country, but in PA this Spring all tests in our area are indeed taking place. Many schools D22 is looking at are test optional. Some say please send scores if you have them, while others say it’s up to you if you think they are representative of your ability etc.
So my question, if an AO gets a stack of applications from the same region, is the assumption that no test score=low test score an accurate one? How can that NOT hurt an applicant compared to those with scores?
Would love to hear your thoughts for this next cycle…
I think it’s still a bit early to draw conclusions, and the decision as to whether or not to submit a score will vary by school.
With that said, Jeff Selingo’s newsletter shared this data last week, clearly test submitters were advantaged at these schools:
"In general, my discussions with deans at about a dozen selective colleges over the last few weeks found that about half of their applicant pools applied without test scores.
- In every case I heard so far, students with test scores got accepted more often. In some cases, the admit rate was twice as high for students with test scores vs. those without.
- Emory: Admit rate 17% (with tests) vs. 8.6% (without tests)
- Colgate: 25% (w/tests) vs. 12% (w/o tests)
- Georgia Tech: 22% (w/tests) vs. 10% (w/o tests)
- Vanderbilt: 7.2% (w/tests) vs. 6% (w/o tests)"
I do know that Northeastern accepted the same proportion of TO applicants as test submitters, so there is one school that really meant it when they said you won’t be disadvantaged if you apply without a score.
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I have a family member who is finishing up her junior year and had multiple opportunities to test in her state. Her GC said not submitting will be a disadvantage next cycle at competitive schools.
Often when general admissions at a college or university is test optional, nursing programs still require (or strongly prefer) test scores. i think that sending test scores is definitely preferable unless your student has a very high GPA and relatively low test scores. Of course, this will vary by school and depends on how selective the nursing program is. My daughter will most likely need to apply test optional, as she tests very poorly in math, but she will not be applying to highly competitive programs.
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I think that newsletter is beyond a paywall. I’m interested to know if his data held other things constant like GPA, academic rigor, etc…
It’s possible that there may have been a bias or suspicion against those who don’t submit their scores.
But, it’s also possible that, In general, students who submitted their scores were stronger applicants beyond their test scores. And/or they were more motivated and took the tests earlier (before the pandemic) or did better in those earlier tests while other students were planning to take it later or take it again, but couldn’t.
As you say, it’s too early to draw conclusions. Maybe we will see all these variables teased out in future analysis.
Many of my kids’ friends applied to out state flagship. Those who applied TO and had the same GPA as those who submitted halfway decent test scores were not admitted. In the fall there were opportunities to test, including at the high school, and many students from out high school apply to this university.
Thanks all for your thoughts. We are in the high GPA, good ECs, low test score situation. She’s taking the ACT again June so we’ll cross our fingers her composite goes up a point or two! Some schools I know she’ll have to go TO, but some may be on the bubble.
I think that you are right to be concerned about this. Enough students didn’t have an option to ever take an SAT/ACT, that test-optional was a given, and the schools had to try not to hold it against those who didn’t submit a score. Meanwhile, since many plan for the SAT/ACT a year or more in advance, schools had to extend test optional to this year, too. But whereas last year schools might suspect that a student was choosing not to submit a low score, this year they can be pretty sure of it, since testing is available on the traditional ‘spring of junior year, fall of senior year’ schedule, plus all through the summer.
If I were you, I’d do some research about how to increase one’s ACT score. Taking the test again without prep will probably not yield the outcome you are seeking. Get a new condition, slightly out of date copy of Official Guide to the ACT. Have her work her way through the sections of the tests, correcting them for herself, and re-studying anything she’s getting wrong.
Five tests plus the practice one on the ACT website will be more than she can manage by June.
This is the one I find really unexpected because Vanderbilt has always seemed very stat oriented and yet there was little difference in acceptance rates.
I thought I read somewhere as well that UPenn accepted 40% of their ED class TO as well. I’ll have to see if I can find the article again.
I doubt it will be explicitly assumed to be a low score. But an application with no SAT compared to an identical application with a 1580 SAT will likely be implicitly assumed to be not as strong.
Similar to one application list specific awards vs. another not listing any.
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