Yale Admissions Director Favors Submitting Scores

Applying to College
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You need motivation regardless. I know plenty of kids who wasted their parents money and didn’t really get anything from their private tutoring sessions because they didn’t put in the time. Maybe that is the point? If there is one thing top colleges are looking for is motivated students. My son teaches free, synchronous SAT classes to small groups on Schoolhouse.world. The classes are structured, have a curriculum, the kids and tutors get support a feedback. Each session is 4weeks/8 classes and anyone can sign up.

I see the author’s point on counselor recommendations. Kids like mine get the benefit of very thoughtful, well crafted letters. They meet with the CC weekly for months. The counselor has years of thoughtful, paragraphs long, report card comments to draw from.

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I agree that nurture plays an important part.

But when evaluating standardized testing, article after article, imply it’s all about wealth disparity when we know it’s not.

A lot depends on the parents’ education and their focus on education that doesnt always correlate to wealth.

People who work in STEM arent the wealthiest. They may be middle/upper income but most are not multi-millionaires. But a lot of the top SAT scoring kids’ parents have a STEM background.

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It’s not wealth that makes you do better on the SAT it’s the other things the NYT article pointed out.

“By the time rich children take the SAT, researchers speculate, experiences like bedtime reading, museum visits and science summer camps may contribute to their scores: “They’ve gone to better schools, they’ve read more novels, they’ve learned more math,” said Jesse Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley.”

Unfortunately, these things also make you college ready. Some, overcome adversity, have innate abilities and also do well on the SAT. They can show that despite their under resourced school system they can, in fact, get through 50 pages of reading a night. This might not be a necessary skill at the vast majority of colleges, but it is crucial at these tippy top schools. I think this is what Yale , Dartmouth, MIT are getting at when they say there is data that shows there is correlation between SAT scores and success - in aggregate, at the whole country, maybe not, but at this very small subset of highly academic schools, it’s relevant.

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Personally, I am deeply skeptical that fiddling with admissions criteria will provide an easy solution to the advantages that come from high social and financial resources, because of course such people can always adapt.

Like, sure, at the moment we devote a lot more resources to things like private schools which will develop close teacher and counselor relationships, that provide all sorts of niche sports and other activities, that provide advanced classes beyond the AP level, and so on. And while I don’t think we do all that just for college admissions, certainly it is well-known it helps.

OK, now suppose the current holistic admissions system with recruited athletes and counselor recommendations and essays and all that was eliminated, and the most desirable colleges went strictly to using a standardized entrance test. Would we just take that lying down?

Of course not. There would be an enormous reallocation of resources to maximizing scores on that standardized entrance test, very likely starting many years before. Under the current system, we sort of casually assume our kids can do well enough on the SAT/ACT with just the normal things we are doing, may plus some prep and a few rounds of tests (and maybe not even the prep/multiple tests). And that works out well, meaning mostly we get test scores that end up helping the overall admissions case. But if some standardized entrance test became the only admissions factor, I am dead sure we would treat it very differently.

OK, so the way these entrance tests have to work to be usable is they have to be scaled so a certain score equates to a certain percentile. And what I am sure would happen as a result of that massive reallocation of resources is the questions would have to get harder and/or the scaling would have to get stricter in order to maintain the desired percentile distributions.

And I doubt the existing SAT or ACT would really be usable for this purpose. But in SAT terms, as these families devoted all these resources to getting as many 1500+ scores as possible, it would have to get harder to get 1500+ scores.

So what then of people with some natural aptitude but not all those social and economic resources to devote? I am quite sure that fewer of them would get 1500+ scores (or whatever was the percentile equivalent) as the high SES families engaged in this arms race. Sure, a few still would. But I am quite sure that the already existing advantage to being from a high SES family would grow as the questions and scaling had to be modified to counteract that arms race.

OK, so the premise of the argument, that in the current system the standardized tests are less-bad in that they have a large SES advantage, and yet less SES advantage than other factors, would almost surely be destroyed in the event they actually became the sole factor in admissions.

So what’s the solution? I think colleges just have to evaluate applicants in context, and adjust in some way they deem appropriate for different SES family resources.

But wait, NUM, you say, they already do that, and yet they also still skew high SES in their enrolled classes.

Yep, they sure do. But that isn’t because they lack the tools to do something different. That is the choice they are making, meaning they think that balance they are achieving is what is best serving their institutional goals.

And you can force a different set of institutional goals on public colleges. But privates? Not really, not in our sociopolitical system.

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45

Exactly. The problem is K-12 education in terms of getting students college ready, not college admissions…I’m not saying college admissions can’t be improved, but the majority of colleges do accept a majority of applicants. By them time college admissions come around, a significant proportion of HS seniors have already ‘lost’.

And now, I will say ‘NUM’ in my inner voice when reading your posts, that’s easier than the six syllables of your handle lol

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Yes, and generally I think it is better to think more broadly about the different social and economic resources that families might have. Economic resources can matter, but so can things like the parents’ job fields, what other kids the future applicant knows, what similar resources their friends’ families have, and so on.

All that contributes to the “nurture” side of high test scores in a way that family income or net worth alone will not properly measure.

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I mean, you are one to throw stones, Em-Double-You-Fan-One-Nine-Teen-Twen-Tee-Won . . . .

The NUM thing is actually a very old self-deprecating joke. I have what some have suggested is an excessive fondness for incorporating numbers into my online discussions. But it is also a reference to one of my favorite Thomas Hardy passages, and as such actually a different sort of self-deprecating joke. And it is actually from Far from the Madding Crowd, making it uniquely unsuitable for an Internet handle, which again is my sort of joke.

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This is the money quote (from an all around excellent post). We can all link to the nationwide studies that show all sort of validated information about test optional policies and the correlation of test scores to family income…all of which are true and none of which matters if Yale wants to count test scores as a major part of their admission policies.

They get to choose their institutional priorities. And they feel test scores help get them to those priorities.

Yale will always do what is best for Yale, first and foremost. No shade. At the same time - I’m not sure Yale’s institutional priorities say anything about education on a larger scale nor do I think we should necessarily be looking at Yale’s choices vis a vis their institutional priorities as trying to say anything about a more expansive view of education. They hold their highly selective status tightly - their priorities by definition are only about a small group of students and faculty.

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No kidding. I’ve stopped saying this as much as I used to, because I think it comes across as snarky and unsympathetic sometimes, which is the opposite of my intention.

But it is a fundamental truism that elite colleges are elitist. Exactly how they are elitist shifts over time, but they are always elitist in some way.

So it never quite makes sense to me to basically say you really value these elite colleges, except you don’t like all the elitism. Fine, of course, to say you prefer less elitist colleges, or colleges that are elitist but in a different way. But if you like these particular elite colleges, to me you are de facto buying into the way they are elitist.

And my point is definitely not to say you have to buy in. Just the opposite, my point is to try to release people from thinking there is something wrong about just not being that into these colleges. If you are not comfortable with their current brand of elitism, you don’t have to think they are the best in general, and definitely not the best for you.

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I’m not comfortable with their current brand of elitism AND I do wish I had access to the education they offer because I recognize it would be best for my student. My kid is getting a good enough education, but I am not blind. There is an Ivy a short subway ride from his college where the classes in his areas of interest are at a whole other level.

I have no desire to brag about an elite name. My kid has no ambition to go into business consulting or rub elbows with the rich. But he would love access to some of these classes (and I don’t think I’m flattering myself in believing that the professors would appreciate him too.)

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So obviously people disagree on this issue, but I really do not believe that is actually the case. I think by far the biggest determinant in actual educational quality is teacher quality, and I do not think the most elite colleges systematically offer the highest teacher quality.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get a good education at these colleges. But I really do not believe they are the only good bets to get a really good education.

So most Ivies are pretty well-rated for teaching, but again that isn’t exclusive to them.

I don’t think people should necessarily treat this as gospel, but the USNews #1 rated university in terms of peer reputation for teaching is Elon:

Georgia State is #2. The next three are Ivy, but then in a tie for #6 you have William & Mary–not an easy admit but not as hard as Ivies (the other college in that tie is Rice, which is not much of a break on the elitism front).

Skipping around a bit, Miami of Ohio is at #11–definitely a great option for some. Arizona State is a mega-university but highly rated in this measure (tied #13), which I find interesting. That #13 tie is with Gonzaga and Santa Clara.

Yale finally makes an appearance at #16, tied with Loyala Marymount and Michigan. #19 is then a tie with Notre Dame and Marquette–the former can be a tough admit, the latter though is a great option again for many.

This sort of mix just continues. Harvard and MIT finally make the list in a big tie at #48, along with Chicago, WUSTL, UVA, George Mason, Gallaudet, Drake, Biola, Brandeis, Chapman, Clemson, TAMU, and UC Santa Cruz, and there are obviously many other colleges that come before.

There is another big tie of 15 colleges at #62, which actually finishes off the whole list, and that is where Penn finally shows up. Columbia didn’t make it at all (although I admit I am not sure if that is related to their funny business with US News).

Anyway, I don’t know about all these colleges, but I know enough about some of them to know it is true those colleges generally have really excellent professors. So again, I personally believe it is quite true the Ivies are not systematically providing a better education than the colleges on that list that I know about.

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Oh, and that is just universities. SLACs can be great places to get a wonderful education. Of course the highest-rated SLACs are also tough admits, but there are a wide variety of SLACs where I think the educational experience can be great.

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Not just that – parents with money can choose residence in places with good public schools, or pay for good private schools. High SES schools also have a much higher percentage of students diagnosed with learning disabilities that allow for extra time accommodations on tests.

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Seems like @fiftyfifty1 may have been referring to the course content, rather than quality of teaching.

Of course, while the course content in those subjects may be better at the more selective college, that may not necessarily be the case for all pairings of colleges being compared in every subject.

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Yes, I would suggest checking out the details of programs of possible interest while determining your college list.

As a general rule of thumb, I think for most majors at decent colleges (assuming it is offered at all), the introductory and core classes are pretty similar. But the available advanced classes, concentrations, interdisciplinary opportunities, study abroad programs, research opportunities, internship programs, and so on can vary a lot. And for a given interest, an Ivy might or might not have the most attractive advanced options.

As a final aside, I will note again I believe that teacher quality continues to be the main driver of actual educational quality. A great teacher can make even a normal-sounding intro class into a fantastic experience that lives with you long after college. And a bad teacher can take the most fascinating-sounding advanced class and turn it into a forgettable bore.

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Clarifying question: did those of you who listened to the episode in full take away that students who apply test optional won’t get past the academic screen under most circumstances? That’s how the conversation here seems to be trending, but based on my listen, it seemed like they were saying the academic threshold for TO candidates would be higher without scores to validate.

Reading between the lines, it seemed like they were saying that if you’re coming from a school that they don’t know well or where the rigor/preparation is questionable based on their past experience, or if your rigor and grades are borderline for what their algorithm requires, test scores will be particularly helpful/important in giving them confidence in a student’s preparation. The flip side of this implication is that a kid from a known school and/or with grades/rigor that meets/exceeds their threshold wouldn’t necessarily need scores to advance.

Really curious if I’m hearing what I want to—I do have a TO kid applying right now, not to Yale but to a similarly selective school, so maybe I was listening selectively….

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So definitely keep in mind this was just Yale.

But just to start off with–it looks to me like in their last CDS, about 80% of Yale enrollees submitted a score (it was 59% SAT, 29% ACT, which is actually 88%, but then I am knocking that down to an approximate 80% due to likely double-submission cases).

Part of the message I was getting from the podcast is that the remaining 20% might at least be mostly special cases of some sort, leaving very little percentage left for more or less “normal” unhooked admits (normal in this context still meaning applicants that are like in the top 1% of all college applicants). As an aside, I heard him basically lamenting that more special cases were not submitting test scores, because he thinks that could help in more cases than they realize even if those test scores seem low by Yale’s normal standards. As another aside, apparently things are in flux with test scores and recruited athletes, so we might see these percentages increase in coming CDS.

Anyway, and not to be alarming, but I think the proposition, “students who apply test optional won’t get past the academic screen under most circumstances,” is probably pretty much accurate, at least as applied to “normal” unhooked applicants. Most is not all, but it seems to me like the statistics plus this podcast together suggest that a large majority of the unhooked applicants who get full review did in fact submit a helpful high test score.

But again, most is not all. And logically the exceptional cases might include the applicants you are describing, people who attended high schools that Yale knows offer courses more challenging than APs, and who got great grades in those courses. Most unhooked applicants to Yale are not going to have that, so it is possible that most unhooked applicants need a high test score to get full consideration, but perhaps those particular applicants are an exception.

Still, I am not sure there was anything in the podcast that affirmatively supported that theory. I would more say it was not necessarily ruled out.

But again, this is just Yale. We know at one “extreme”, MIT formally requires test scores. We know at another “extreme”, Caltech will not consider them. Yale sounds like it might be more toward the MIT end, albeit not quite all the way there. Where other highly-selective colleges might fall on that spectrum, however, is not in my mind answered by that observation.

In fact, I mentioned Yale was 59/29 in the latest CDS in terms of enrolled students submitting the SAT/ACT. Here is Yale in the context of some other colleges, listed in order of highest combined percentage (against my usual preferences this is going to be the current US News T10, minus Caltech, and Duke which apparently has not released a 2022-23, but only to illustrate a point):

MIT 78/32 (note the dual submission confirmation)
Yale 59/29
Princeton 60/25
Harvard 55/28
Brown 54/27
Northwestern 47/31
Stanford 49/23
Penn 48/23
Hopkins 44/15

OK, so, yeah, looks like Yale out of all these colleges is closest to the MIT end of the spectrum. It may well mean something that Princeton and Harvard are next, but then Stanford is not. Of course that likely is related to the Cal system being test blind, but still, good to know. And then I think other schools on that list are quite likely just making different choices from HYP about the role test scores play in their process.

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A typically thoughtful response. Thank you.

My kid’s school is Brown, right there in the middle. Looking at their historical/pre-covid test submission data, they have about 15% SAT/ACT overlap, so their actual rate last year was probably closer to 70%.

My kid’s (large, public) HS tends to have a few kids get into Brown every year (including in the last few years two who held the same school-wide leadership position as my kid does). On the other hand, I’m not sure the school’s reputation is super-rigorous overall. So who knows? At this point, the ED app is in, and all we can do is wait, knowing that there are a bunch of other schools where the kid would be happy if Brown doesn’t work out. :slight_smile:

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Princeton’s survey shows that within athletes, ~50% did not submit, while only 8% of none athletes were TO, so it’s likely that 20% you are looking at is highly driven by athletic recruitment.

This is probably true, but it might also me something that they expect from a student from such a school. Have you looked at Scoir/Naviance? For example, (discounting recruits) if I look at our school’s data, no one gets in to Penn or Hopkins with a test score below 1500. Brown and Yale accept the ocasional student with “ok” scores (I assume they were all TO). I think AP scores, though truly optional, can help close the gap here.

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I mean honestly, test scores or no, all the well-qualified but unhooked applicants to these colleges are in the same boat, right? So while it may be good for future applicants to know which of these colleges are more interested in seeing high test scores than others, that is just one thing to consider. And the real thing you can control is what you did–just have a variety of great options.

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