Half of Ivy League schools lower their admissions standards

Applying to College
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41

Wow, so outrageous claims here. IMHO, SAT’s are a means to give national standing to test scores. They are valuable because so many high schools inflate grades. Kids with a better education (yes, often from higher SES, but not always) will have a better score. That does not mean ( and never did mean) that kids from low SES cannot compete. How do I know? I was a very low SES kid with decent scores but not enough to get me anywhere great. Thirty years ago, I went to the public library studied the SAT books, raised my score a lot and attended a top Ivy school on a scholarship. It’s much easier today with Khan and all the rest.
Saying that test scores are dependent on SES and race is like saying that no kid from a low SES or of a non-white race is going to do well. There are many kids in these categories who do extremely well. So every time you see a kid who is low SES or from a different race you are going to assume they aren’t as intelligent? That’s ludicrous. I have studied with some stellar people over the years and most of the best were not from high SES or were non-white. They were excellent of their own accord.
If my kids were at MIT and looked around, I seriously doubt they would think the low SES or non-white kid wasn’t qualified. Just as they wouldn’t think that the woman or older student did not belong. Sorting people into categories by anything other than qualifications does not wok. Never has. Never will.

If you sit next to someone in a top college and that kid is not prepared to do the high level work they will either rise to the occasion or they won’t. Sink or swim. Many kids of all backgrounds think they are Ivy league material and have a hard time Freshman year.

Colleges need to have national scores to get through the thousands of applications. Lacking national test scores is a recipe for disaster for both the student and the college. Reading the above posts, I can’t even imagine a kid getting a 3 in an AP course and an A. I guess some folks are satisfied with their kids getting high empty grades and low test scores. I am not and neither are my kids.

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@PurpleTitan I linked that because it shows distribution of test scores across SES which you indicated you would be interested in seeing.

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@izrk02, got it, thanks.

Though I should have been more clear that what I really want to see is SES for the very top test scores (say, top 1%), to see if the distribution is more or less egalitarian than than the student body composition at an Ivy.

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I think that @socaldad2002 is correct. The most important part of TO is that an application will not be rejected as incomplete if it lacks test scores. However, applicants with high tests scores will still have an advantage over applicants without test scores.

That being said, with so many tests being cancelled, the percent of applicants who are not submitting scores will be high enough that, unless a college uses having test scores as an unofficial requirement (which could result in a huge scandal if it got out), colleges will be looking at, and accepting, large numbers of applicants without test scores.

My totally uneducated guess is that the result will be that test scores will be more important for borderline cases. But I really do not know how or when.

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Nobody is saying that non-high SES kids can’t get good scores. What we’re saying is that the overwhelming trend is that high-SES kids get better scores. It’s a pretty well-known fact that the higher your household income, the more likely it is that you’ll do well. That’s just what the data shows. Does that mean that every rich kid gets a 1500+? No. Does that mean that every poor kid gets below a 1000? Also no. It’s just that the trend of test scores shows that SES contributes to scoring outcomes.
Your anecdotal evidence doesn’t outweigh the fact that across the nation low-SES students are more likely to not score as well as high-SES students.
This was part of the reason that the UC system (one of the largest public systems in the world) got rid of the test requirement, because it disadvantaged poor students. In fact, Cecilia Estolano, who sits on the UC board of regents, called the SAT a “racist test”.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/03/05/these-four-charts-show-how-the-sat-favors-the-rich-educated-families/
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-21/uc-drops-sat-and-act-test-requirement-for-admission

46

In a perfect world, yes standardized testing would be equal across all socio-economic groups but that’s not reality. I look at my D’s upper middle class high school and parents paid for expensive ACT/SAT summer classes (instead of working a summer job) and could afford to have their kids take the ACT/SAT several times until they got their the high score they were happy with. We personally paid for a one-on-one private ACT tutor to work with my D20 over the course 9 months. We probably spent north $2,500 and her baseline was around 26 without any prep. She took the ACT three times (31, 32, and finally got her 34). No doubt in my mind that the expensive tutor helped raise her score several points which put her solidly in the middle 50% ACT range for her top 10 college. This is just one example of how having the money to spend on test prep can make a difference.

So, no, the ACT/SAT tests are not 100% fair as families with money can “game the system” to their advantage.

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There are many reasons high SES students tend to get better test scores, it goes way beyond family income level and the ability to get a tutor for the tests. Fundamentally the root of the problem lies with inadequate K-12 public schools, especially in urban, rural, and/or relatively poor areas.

@Happytimes2001 AOs at schools that have been TO for a long time, such as Bowdoin (one of the first schools to go TO, in 1969) would disagree that they need a test score to identify applicants that will succeed there. AOs know which high schools inflate grades in their territories, and can easily see the average GPAs and average AP test scores on the school’s profile, and make decisions accordingly.

I do agree that some of the larger schools that are newly TO this year may have difficulties getting thru all of their apps, and make rational decisions.

In a zero sum game, which college admissions is, if an applicant is lacking a positive component of the application (a strong standardized test score), it puts that applicant at a disadvantage as compared to those who have that positive component.

Sure some applicants without the test score have strong other components, enough to overcome the missing test score and be accepted, but they are in a situation where their other components have to be relatively stronger.

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The data shows correlation. First lesson of statistics: Correlation does not imply causation.

The reasons you see a correlation between parental income and children’s test scores are due to underlying causal factors that correlate with income. These include rigor of the school system (higher income parents like to live in areas with strong schools) and intelligence of the parents (intelligent people tend to make a higher income). Couple that with the fact that intelligence is hereditary just like height and athletic ability and you end up with the situation that test scores correlate with income.

Note that what I said applies to groups, not to individuals. You can have very strong kids coming out of low income school systems, and weak kids out of high income systems.

This difference between the group and individuals suggests that the right approach is to partially SES-adjust the test scores. If a kid has an ACT score of 31, that’s a good score. But coming from a school with an average ACT of 27, he or she is an above average but not exceptional student from that school.

On the other hand, if the kid gets a 31 and comes from a school where the average ACT score is 16, that’s huge. The test revealed a great deal of information about how this student can likely handle material beyond what this school provided. And if this kid is from a high school that is not typically on a college’s radar, that test score lets this kid stand out in the admissions process.

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@hebegebe As myself and multiple other people in this thread have said already, we are quite aware of underlying institutional factors that influence score outcomes outside of tutoring, prep, and multiple testing sessions. And again, as I have said, nobody actually thinks that all low-SES students are under-performers, and nobody actually thinks that all high-SES students are good performers on tests. It’s the fact that to sit here and think that SES doesn’t play a role nationally in test score outcome is crazy, as some other posters in this thread appear to do.

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Agree, students coming from a top public/private or BS who have received a very high level of education are held to different standards than someone whose education might have been patchy. For many colleges, specific high schools are a known entity. We have friend who works in Admission for a major U several states away and knew my kids school and said they had people in each state and divided the schools up. She mentioned they even knew of some teachers!! So that was surprising but makes sense.

What some want to do is eliminate national tests scores entirely. Some believe that this will level the playing field. It won’t. No child can make up for a deficit in education except by covering the material. It saddens me that the SAT has actually been made easier over the years. It’s harder to discern the truly exceptional from those who do well. Many more students get a perfect score than years ago.

@socaldad2002 Yes, that is certainly a leg up ( and common for upper middle class/high SES). In our family, both mom and nana skipped a grade. I was offered to but did not. My kids have taken SSAT and scored 99% & 98% with zero test prep. Oldest scored top % on PSAT zero test prep. I am more of the opinion that testing runs in families. Had a conversation with two friends from high school. They were both national merit. So were their kids!! Both thought it was genetic. BTW, not one of those kids prepped. Yes, one can game the test. Yes, there are kids who will naturally do well. Yes, there are kids who will have to fill in holes. Like your kid, the kids from lower SES are going to need to fill in some areas. BTW, that seems like a huge jump.

Then again, I am of the opinion that the test is far too easy and doesn’t identify the truly exceptional. In years past, fewer % got a perfect score. Why? Is it just test prep or did they make the test easier? I bet you would find some correlation between kids and parents as well much as can be seen in IQ tests. Why do top colleges have such high SAT scores? Because they need to ensure that kids can do the work relative to their peers.

I’d like to see the scores over generations. Do kids score similarly to their parents? Who exactly (demographically in every way) is getting 1%? If it is based on test prep make the test harder and have a couple of random hard questions one cannot game. Repeating the same test doesn’t help anyone.

I’m not in favor of high test prep. Neither am I in favor of tossing something out the window because someone believes it is unfair to someone. Tell me one aspect of education in America that isn’t unfair. Well funded public schools, unfair to those who don’t attend, private schools, unfair to those who can’t get in or pay. And so on.

Colleges need some way to discern the baseline of the students’ education so they can make adjustments. The SAT serves that purpose. It should be used as just one of many readings.

GPA ( mostly a joke at many schools), class rank ( also depends on the school). Colleges seem to know all this and make decisions based on the knowns.

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If schools were serious about whether kids can do the work, they would look at AP/A-Levels/IB scores (and in some cases they do).

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However, it is not necessarily the case that the SAT (or ACT) is the best available standardized test, although it has the advantage of being the incumbent one.

Some colleges have found that more directly achievement based standardized tests (AP/IB for advanced material, SAT subject for regular high school material) are better predictors of college performance than the SAT (or ACT).

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Here’s the thing, there are many many students who are exceptional students, but just don’t perform well on a timed, stress-heavy test. There are thousands of students across the country who have IEPs or 504 plans because of this.
There’s a video of a student at a Town Hall in Florida where she was tearfully describing how she always does well in school and is praised by her teachers, but scores badly on the FCAT because of the timing and stress it puts on her.
The SAT and ACT would be great standards of educational achievement if every student learned the same way, but they don’t.
If a school insists on testing as a part of admissions, I personally like what NYU does, where they allow you to submit SAT/ACT, SAT subject tests, AP scores, or IB scores.

GPA is recalculated at many schools, so the GPA on a transcript might be a joke, but the GPA used to judge an applicant isn’t. Also, many high schools are getting rid of rank, or colleges don’t weigh rank heavily. As I have previously mentioned, counselors have to send a school report that includes the GPA percentiles for the ranked class and how GPAs are calculated. If an applicant with a 4.0UW is applying from a school where the 50th percentile is a 3.8UW, you can tell that the school inflates grades. As opposed to that applicant having a 4.0UW but the 50th percentile is a 3.4, with the school likely not inflating grades.

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^The problem with grade inflated schools is not differentiating the 4.0 from the 3.8. It is differentiating the top 1-5% from the top 10% if 10% of the students are 4.0’s (or close to it). @hebegebe is absolutely correct in post #47, and AO’s of selective colleges are already internally adjusting standardized test scores in a holistic process.

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@PurpleTitan I don’t think I would use Oxbridge as a shining example.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/education-46470838

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Sure. And there are tens of thousands of strong students that come from high schools that are overall weak, and therefore don’t appear on the radar of many colleges, because they have no idea how to determine if a particular kid is strong or not. High test scores allow students from there to shine as I explained in my earlier example. I was one such kid and my test scores were critical to me getting merit scholarships that allowed me to afford college.

In contrast, both my kids are going to elite colleges. Yes, they both have excellent test scores. But even if you removed those, they would still shine because of their activities, some of which would be unaffordable to low income families.

After adjusting for SES, test scores help the strong students from poorer schools much more than they help strong students from wealthier schools.

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@izrk02 Not true. Looking at my son’s school profile. They do not show any GPA percentiles. That would violate their no rank policy.

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@Eeyore123, if you read, I mentioned that Oxbridge is far from egalitarian. Yet the holistic Ivies are as or even less egalitarian. In which case, there’s not much lost when it comes to giving opportunities to low-SES kids by switching to an admissions scheme that is much more academically focused.

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@Eeyore123 Sorry, I didn’t clarify, most schools include GPA percentiles on their school profile. However, all schools must report their grading standards and policies.

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If you think taking an SAT or ACT is stressful than you should try taking a final exam in a class of 100 top scholars at a top 10 University. The myth of the highly intelligent student who tests badly is just that, a myth. Accommodations for standardized tests have risen rapidly. Sometimes they are also used to gain an advantage( so sad). I know of exactly one kid from decades ago who had trouble testing and was a real genius. More likely is, the parents think they are geniuses and they can’t compete on the national level. This also happens in sports, in EC’s etc. I have overheard many a parent making excuses for their child while comparing them to others.

So why does the genius kid who is able to get an A in every subject at podunk high can’t get a decent SAT/ACT score on something that is based on common info and analysis? Hmm. Maybe it’s because he’s a genius in that high school only and can’t compete elsewhere against others who are actually smarter.

GPA’s are silly stupid. At some schools, only the very top students 5% have an A average. At other schools 60/70% of kids have the same average. Colleges know the difference. Our local top high school allows kids to retake exams or do extra work if they have a poor grade on a test. My kids’ private schools would never allow that. At one of the schools, one of my kid attend, the average grade is a B-. The school accepts less than 20% of applicants. So the starting point is much higher. When 5-10% of kids in an honors/AP or regular course is getting an A that is a very different education than a school handing out an A as the average grade.

I’m all for taking/using AP’s. As long as there is some national standard.

As for ranking. While some schools and many private schools don’t rank, they often include the quartile if the kid is applying to tippity top schools. If the kid is in the top decile the college will learn of it. The GC also has to have some way to pinpoint in recommendations the good student from the outstanding one. Many have a specialized category on the recommendation forms ( one of the best students I have ever had or similar).

I agree with @hebegebe. SAT’s/ACTS allow schools to note outstanding candidates based on national scores from schools that aren’t outstanding. This offers them a place in college admissions.