I read this whole discussion with interest as we had a very hard time deciding whether to submit our 2025 kid’s SAT scores to the full range of small LACs she applied to, even though all are test optional. In the end she did submit them, even though her 1370 SAT is nothing fancy (she took it as part of the required state testing regimen, and refused to take it again, lol). She has always been an excellent, dedicated student with good ECs and supplements, but she attends a tiny charter school with few honors courses and zero AP classes, so her GPA is pretty much capped at a little above 4. Part of the reason we had her submit her scores was to reflect some sort of basic baseline for colleges given her school background. (I personally think test scores should be mandatory in most cases – they are likely artificially inflated now because only those with high scores submit, and for folks from disadvantaged backgrounds, decent scores can make a huge difference. I should know – it’s how I got into Oberlin coming from a very poor family in the rural Midwest. My husband, on the other hand, got into Oberlin with similar scores having gone to prep school on the East Coast. We both did fine.) It will be interesting to see what happens with my kid’s applications – she only applied RD as most of the schools were too far to visit. We’ll visit any acceptances and hope for the best. Luckily she understood right away that the schools she applied to are all a bit similar and she will likely be happy at any them, so she doesn’t have her heart set on one in particular. She’s just looking forward to meeting new people and trying new things after growing up an only child in a tiny town in rural New Hampshire. 
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