Although there has been admissions success for submitters and non-submitters at test optional schools, it seems we are seeing a slight edge going to those who are submitting tests.
Class of 2025 may be the first time we are seeing that the two groups are not being treated equally. Please share admissions results and data that support or refute this assertion.
âNot treated equallyâ is not the right phrasing IMO. Not penalizing for no scores is not the same as not using/seeing value is scores at all. Without scores, AO may have to dig deeper or not have context regarding grade inflation, for example.
TO is not test blind, and one shouldnât expect test to be completely disregarded. The schools are just saying they will give apps full consideration. In fact, many schools kept testing in the âvery importantâ category in the CDS.
If there is no particularly super compelling piece, and letâs face it, most kids donât, of course itâs going to have some sort of impact. Just like skipping an optional video or essay is not the way to go.
Of course a good score trumps TO, unless they are test blind. Why would students go through the trouble of paying to test, studying for a test, spend hours taking a test? Colleges are just not forcing students to test.
Read through the Clemson EA result thread- looks like they deferred more TO applicants than those who submitted scores.
I agree with this.
The other thing that seems different than a few years ago is that fewer schools are directly saying an applicant isnât penalized for not sending test scores (talking about selective schools here.) I do think the vast majority of non or less selective colleges are going to stay test optional/blind.
While some schools that have been test optional for a long time might not penalize applicants with no test scores (example would be Bowdoin and Bates), I expect we havenât seen the last of schools going back to test required (BC? Rice?..maybe another dozen or two?) Some publics might also be at risk of going back to test required for political reasons (example North Carolina). Time will tell.
Last yearâs CDS has lots of stats w/ and w/o test scores for many schools.
I think how much schools prefer scores varies but didnât do any data analysisâŠjust gut from reading them
This isnât really helpful though because those applicants with test scores may have had stronger overall applications (which is often the case.)
I do think you can infer something (if nothing hard) from % admitted w/o scores and various distributionsâŠ
We will never have the real data or what goes on in each AOs mind.
And at highly selective school we know it is very nuanced and based on background/context. (Any AO podcast says thatâŠ)
IMO some, maybe many, people will infer that if the acceptance rate is higher for applicants who submitted test scores that the school prefers test scores. All Iâm saying is that is not necessarily the caseâŠthe test submitters may have just had stronger applications (and of course having a test score could have been a factor that made the application relatively strong.)
They did? Where do we find that? Thanks!
agree it is definitely possible
But w/o knowing distributions I am not seeing a good way of knowingâŠ
Relevant tables (not all fill out of course)
C9. First-time, first-year profile: National standardized test scores (SAT/ACT)
C11. High School Grade Point Ranges (table headings: Percent of students who
submitted scores // Percent of students who did not submit scores //Percent of all enrolled students)
Lots of issues with this as others have pointed out, not least of which it is ENROLLED and not ACCEPTED which skews data tooâŠ
Although I am not in disagreement, I can assure you that is not how colleges have behaved in past years - and certainly not what they are saying now.
Clemson is one of the colleges that has helped me form an opinion on the subject.
I am one of those people who is leaning that way.
I agree. It is interesting to note that the counselor community has developed a group belief (which of course could be wrong) that some schools really do want test scores. Clemson is on that list (CDS says test scores are âimportantâ so people should believe that), as are Northwestern and U Michigan.
BC is also on that list and this year added that test scores are valuable and encouraged: Test-Optional Policy 2024-25 I would not be surprised to see BC go to test required in the next cycle or two.
This has been my assumption from the get-go. I would expect all âsellerâ type colleges will eventually move to requiring tests. The âbuyersâ will stay TO. Clemson is an interesting example because it is becoming more of a seller, so it would make sense for it to now favor applicants submitting tests, as appears evident by the EA results. JMO
So as soon as CDS data from the test optional era started coming out, people started speculatingâwith good reasonâthat at least at the more selective colleges, submitting test scores seemed to be helping at least in some cases.
As an aside, I do think that is the better way to put it. When you are talking about a college with a 25%, 10%, 5%, or whatever acceptance rate, the presumptive answer is ânoâ. So if in some cases, submitting a high test score could get the applicant from ânoâ to âyesâ, then that is not so much âpenalizingâ applicants without high test scores as just a high test score helping in such cases.
And this is not just a technical observation. My understanding is if you were looking instead at, say, a college with a 75% acceptance rate, there was likely to be much less evidence of a big gap between test optional and submitting. Meaning going test optional was rarely turning a presumptive âyesâ into a ânoâ, which I think is what it would take to really call it a âpenaltyâ.
Anyway, the problem with this level of analysis is CDS data is simply not cross-tabbed in ways we would need to really understand what was happening. And to my knowledge, the best single source we have gotten to date on this issue is the Dartmouth white paper explaining why they went back to test required:
It is pretty interesting overall, but I think Figure 6 (on Page 14) is really the most useful single thing I have yet seen on this subject:
This may be surprising at first, but it confirms a theory people have long had (and was expressed above), namely that more advantaged applicants typically have a bunch of other ways of showing their academic qualifications to colleges like Dartmouth. This can be a lot of things, but perhaps the simplest example is just going to a highly-resourced, competitive, college-prep high school which Dartmouth and the like are very familiar with, such that they feel like they can trust the transcripts, the grades, the recommenders, and so on to tell them which applicants are truly the sorts of top performing, highly prepared students they are looking for.
So on the one hand, if you were an advantaged applicant and had that other stuff, Dartmouth and the like may not have particularly cared about you being test optional. And on the other, if you were an advantaged applicant and DIDNâT have that other stuff, Dartmouth might not particular care if you submitted a high test score. Because they are really trusting that other stuff to tell them what they want to know.
OK, but what if you were not an advantaged applicant? And to continue the example, what if you did not go to a high school like that?
Well, Dartmouthâs data suggests that somewhere in the 1400s or so, it would start actually being seriously helpful for a relatively disadvantaged applicant to have a test score to submit. Again, it is not so much they are penalizing the kids without that test score. It is that such a high test score is helping those kids who have it, and these particular kids may need that help at colleges like Dartmouth because they donât necessarily have all those other trusted academic indicators the advantaged applicants have.
OK, so that white paper is the best single thing I have seen, but I note Yale, Brown, and others have said in words the same thing that Dartmouth illustrated in these charts. Like here is Brown talking about its latest ED round, and it discusses their decision to go back to test required:
The class of 2029 is the first to apply with the reinstated mandatory test scores policy and the second to apply under the Supreme Courtâs outlaw of race-based affirmative action. Brown reinstated the test requirement in part because âsome students from less advantaged backgrounds are choosing not to submit scores under the test-optional policy, when doing so would actually increase their chances of being admitted,â according to an advisory committee on admissions practices.
With that Dartmouth paper in mind, you can pretty easily imagine what Brown was seeing as well.
OK, so does submitting high test scores help sometimes at test optional colleges? Yes, particularly if you are talking about the most selective colleges.
But at such colleges does submitting high test scores do a lot to help relatively advantaged students who go to well-known college prep high schools? In most cases, probably not.
But at such colleges can it help relatively disadvantaged applicants who may be lacking in a lot of other trusted academic indicators to submit a high test score? Absolutely, it may help them a lot.
And in fact, it may help those particular applicants even if their scores are below the normal CDS range for the college, but still quite high for applicants of their type. Which is why in fact Dartmouth and Brown and so on are going back to test required.
I donât think it will be all, and Iâm not sure the âsellerâ label works here because politics get involved in some of these decisions. Bowdoin isnât going back to test required, nor are the UCs (just to take some examples.) I would say another 25 max colleges go test required over the next few years.
True, I forgot about politics (both sides) in different states influencing the process
