Here is the article:
http://www.thehoya.com/class-of-2021-application-rate-increases-to-all-time-high/
What Dean Deacon is actually saying is simply that the new SAT scores are higher than the old (CR and Math) and he is attributing that to a higher likelihood of acceptance. Two things: 1) It’s a totally different test with a different scale, so comparisons to the old test would really be irrelevant based on score. You need percentiles and a concordance table to make that happen accurately. 2) Dean Deacon knows this, although I agree he does seem to have a preference for the SAT, which seems a bit odd nowadays Such is G-Town which also hasn’t updated it’s application process or insistence on ALL SCORES LOL. (Full disclosure - my son is applying this year but took the SAT. Whew!). Finally, 3) Dean Deacon was not the only admissions dean last year to crow about “higher SAT scores” . . UChicago’s Dean Nondorf pulled the same at my daughter’s admissions event. Interesting to note that a majority of students admitted to UChicago that year took the ACT and, IIRC, that range didn’t seem to change at all. Admissions deans are marketing geniuses so this doesn’t surprise me - although unless they meant that the scores represented higher percentiles, it’s simply not accurate to compare old scores to new ones.
The class of 2021 were really the first to utilize the new SAT and many skipped the SAT altogether, opting for the ACT, simply because it was a new and unknown commodity. That alone might have disadvantaged the applicants because a side-by-side comparison might have showed, for instance, that who should have taken the SAT (because it would have been more “their test”) opted for the ACT. He mentioned that the number of ACT tests submitted was quite high compared to other years, but not sure whether the range was somehow lower than in other years. As mentioned earlier, there is no noticable difference between scores based on the current concordance.
It’s important to remember, despite Dean Deacon’s comments, that schools continue to increase in popularity and selectivity due to real phenomena, not due to scaled scoring or admissions trickery. Must admit, however, that @SlimJim005’s observations seem to be correct: regardless of the purpose, G-Town did let it slip that they preferred the SAT. This article below indicates that as well.
@collegemomjam I’ve read the same thing as your SAT tutor has said. However, in my son’s case the SAT was WAY PREFERABLE over the ACT which he found to be uncomfortably time-pressured. My oldest strongly preferred the straightforward ACT over the old SAT, but her sister preferred latter and also hated the time pressure. My middle kid liked both ACT and new SAT and scored equivalently on both. So perhaps there is something for everyone on these tests. It’s great to have a choice.