And I am gathering that starting with this cycle, these colleges may be going back to requiring more athletes to submit test scores as part of the pre-read process. So that is why I suspect those percentages may go up in upcoming CDS.
Which would be good in the sense I think it would clarify this issue a bit. Like, say it went from around 20% of the Yale enrolled class to 10% or less that had not submitted. At that point, I think it would be sufficiently clear to applicants that for Yale, the no-test path is an exceptional one. Which they also basically just said, but I think it helps when people see that in the numbers too.
For reasons unknown to me, we donât have data for Yale on SCOIR (which I know is not because people do not apply).
But I looked up Harvard and Princeton. For Harvard, all of our accepted students had high test scores. Princeton was notably different, we had quite a few accepted with not-so-high test scores and in one case no test scores.
No clue what that means. Maybe more hooked admits at Princeton? Or maybe also a different policy? I donât have enough familiarity with those cases to guess.
Reporting scores during the pre-read process does not mean the student-athlete will submit their application with test scores. And if they apply TO (based on direction from admissions via the coach), that wonât show up in the CDS.
It will be interesting to see how this changes things. There is a chance it may not change much, in terms of what we see for data. Even if submitted with a pre read, the athlete can still be advised to apply TO - thatâs what happens at NESCACs and such, and I think the CDS reports what was included with the actual application.
If I remember, 50% of TO athletes reported having scores bellow 1390. I have no idea what admissions considers acceptable, nor how wide a spread they are dealing with.
Yes, although so far what I know from recruited athletes in this cycle is that if they are submitting test scores in pre-reads they are at least mostly submitting them again for admissions. But my familiarity is mostly with kids who at least have pretty good test scores, meaning not radically below the collegeâs normal range.
So I assume there will still be test optional recruited athletes, but (perhaps) a lower percentage than in the most recent CDS. I admit I am just speculating, though, and we will have to see what actually happens.
We will never know what happens beyond any of our experiences that will allow us to move beyond speculation.
Prior to this cycle, I worked with several hundred athletes looking to play their sport in college. There have been plenty of coaches who were requiring scores from potential recruits over the past 4 years.
Having the direct experience of working with these athletes throughout the course of their recruiting, talking often with coaches and AOs, and communicating frequently with others working in this space, I didnât have anything close to complete knowledge of what is happening out there every year.
I have not seen enough evidence to draw this conclusion.
I felt strongly that my S24 needed a very strong SAT score to go along with his excellent gpa to have a chance of admission at highly selective schools. Not because he didnât have rigor or good AP scores, but because he is unhooked and comes from a UMC community. Most kids accepted to Ivies and like schools from our HS have 1500+ SAT scores (and, of course, even with those scores most wonât get in). The only exceptions are recruited athletes. Given that, my impression is that a TO applicant from our school - even one with excellent grades/strong ECs etc - would be at a disadvantage in an already ultra competitive pool. Of course, this can vary depending on your school - very selective private high schools may do better with TO applicants.
Agree with this. After listening to the podcast, at least for Yale and maybe other highly selectives, it is not as simple as submit only if the scores are at or above the median. My take:
If the applicant is attending a school in a resource challenged area where the average test scores are lower, anything above a 1400 (maybe even high 1300âs, ACT 30 is about a 1360) should be submitted, and this would be a âplusâ. There is even a specific example of this in the podcast. I think Quinlan was also signalling how Yale would maintain diversity in light of the SCOTUS decision by âcontextualizingâ certain factors, like test scores.
If the applicant is attending a highly resourced school, absent some other verification of high academic achievement (regional/state/national) level awards/recognition, going to TO puts the applicant at risk of an assumption that this was because the test scores were low. On the other hand, if the school is known for rigor (including grading), maybe high grades will be enough. Going with the submit only if at or above median may not be the best strategy. Maybe anything over the 25th percentile should be submitted, especially if one part is much higher than the other and is consistent with the applicantâs interests. It probably wonât be a negative, although not a positive.
For applicants of the âaverageâ school, the consideration would be the same for the highly resourced school. Maybe a confirming test score will be more useful.
Based on the bifurcated system that Yale nows employ, the name of the game is to pass the first hurdle. This may be similar to when SAT2 tests were ârecommendedâ but not required where not submitting was seen as more risky vs sending an âokâ score for certain student demographics.
At the end of the day though, the odds of getting in to many of these schools is so low, that it is unlikely a single factor, like submitting or not submitting a test score above a certain level, is going to make any difference, yes or no.
I donât think any single factor is going to make a huge difference, but I think for kids from highly resourced schools, the lack of a test score could be a factor that knocks them out early on - absent some other compelling factor.
I just meant we will see in future CDS if the percentage of enrolled students who submitted test scores creeps up at colleges like Yale. I agree even if that happens, attributing that to specific causes will continue to involve speculation.
Yeah, your last point is worth emphasizing. We are talking about getting past the initial academic screen, which is critical. But I think, based on various other information, your chances at that point are still likely only around 10%, possibly a bit less.
And so if you end up in the 90%+, well, kinda didnât matter in the end. Which is fine, I am sure you have other great options.
To use an old logic framework, many factors can be nearly necessary for a standard unhooked applicant, without any of them being sufficient. Which is really how they can get down to a 2% admit rate (approximately, for unhooked applicants these days). They basically have to apply multiple filters to solve that problem.
That sounds about right. To me, a strong test score optimizes your chances as an unhooked applicant from a highly resourced school insofar as it may keep you from being filtered out early on. Itâs far from enough, though, and I think after a certain level itâs not a differentiator.
Iâve started equating elite college admissions to a video game. You have to collect as many coins as possible along the way and hope they will add up enough to make a difference.
This is absolutely the wrong analogy in my opinion.
The âcollecting coinsâ theory ignores the fact that some coins are worth significantly more than others. And the coins most kids think are important-- another 10 points on their fifth attempt at the SAT, another .02 to their GPA, another 50 hours of volunteer time, another DE course which is poorly taught-- really donât add up to a single coin.
Adcomâs are transparent that they donât ârack and stackâ. But nobody believes them. Thatâs why kids think 10 ECâs are âworth moreâ than 3. But Adcomâs consistently show-- every time they reject a valedictorian who was president of everything and captain and NHS and yada yada yada- that it doesnât work that way.
Iâm trying to think of a good game analogy. I feel tempted to go with Pachinko. Each ball bounces along a path. A few paths end up in a winning cup. Most paths end up missing the winning cups and the ball drops into the bottom. But there is more than one winning cup (more than one type of student admitted), and then the path each winning ball follows into a given winning cup can vary.
Given this analogy, failing to pass the initial academic screen is like bouncing early into a region where it is almost impossible to bounce back to a winning cup. A very few might bounce back, but most are on their way to the bottom at that point.
I donât think itâs a game- but whatever works for you.
Most kids go for the âquantity over qualityâ theory which at least for the âhighly rejectiveâ schools is demonstrably false. Many parents go for the âcheck all the boxes and as long as you donât mess up somewhereâ theory which is also demonstrably false. (hint- if you are an award winning cello player with a strong academic track record in rigorous classes and high scores, you do NOT need to add âcommunity serviceâ hours to prove something. And yet parents post here all the time looking for ways to bulk up a kidâs already impressive application).
Personally, I advocate the âfind a few colleges which will love you just the way you are- and love them backâ theory. And then add in a few realistic reaches, and one mega reach if you want to. But I donât play video games so maybe Iâm not seeing something?
I see what you are saying. I donât think I meant it quite as literally. I was thinking of it more broadly⊠maybe like you fit into one of the buckets (coin), you have high test scores (coin), you were involved in your community (coin), high rigor (coin)⊠not so much a coin for each EC. Its just that, despite popular belief, most kids who get in are not on the verge of curing cancer. No individual thing gets you in, but rather a collection of things that check whatever boxes the college has.
FWIW, my own kids are pointy. They are very involved, but in couple of things only. Even academically they clearly favor one area (not by design). Personally, I think that is to their advantage - colleges want a well rounded class, not necessarily a well rounded student.
I concur. Based on a very limited data set (my kidsâ classmates, kids they met on accepted students weekend, kids of friends and acquaintances and kids I interview), applicants that get admitted to a highly selective school, tend to be cross admitted to other highly selective schools. Plenty of kids that get into H and rejected by Y and S, but very likely they will be admitted to a Penn or an Amherst. Also plenty of high test score valedictorians that are shut out except for rack and stack type schools. There are things that are not visible to anybody other than the AOâs that make certain candidates attractive to many schools and make other candidates not so attractive. Problem is an applicant doesnât know which camp they fall into until results come out. That is why submitting EA or rolling admissions applications is so important. There is a chance for some feedback as to overall strength of the application (shoot lower, higher, stay the course) and maybe a chance to adjust the essays or maybe an LoR.
So in the field of decision theory, the term âgameâ has very broad application. It really applies to any sort of interaction among different rational agents.
At this point, I would call it a type of dead metaphor. The very early works on probability theory in the 16th and 17th Centuryâby Cardano, Pascal, Huygens, and so forthâwere specifically about games of chance and strategies for such games. Over the course of the next few centuries, in sort of parallel with the increasing application of the scientific method, people began realizing these concepts had potential application well beyond just games of chance.
John von Neummann then published On the Theory of Games of Strategy in 1928, and later expanded his work in Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944. The latter introduced a very influential theory of âutilityâ that helped dramatically widen the possible applications of what became known as game theory.
Since then, there has been an explosion of work on all sorts of subjects, including several Nobel Prizes. The explored topics include what are called âcooperative gamesâ (where it is assume rational agents are working together in some way), many varieties of ânon-cooperative gamesâ (such as Cold War nuclear strategy), ârepeated gamesâ (which help explore the implications of things like reputation), âevolutionary gamesâ (which ended up being applied in fields like biology as well as decision theory), and on and on.
My point is just the term âgamesâ to help categorize these things has long ago stopped being any sort of attempt trivialize these issues. But for the purposes of helping illuminate various concepts, people do still keep referring to games of chance as analogies, when appropriate. But in modern conversations, it is almost never intended that such an analogy be considered remotely complete, it is usually just supposed to be illustrating some very limited point.