Even pre-COVID, I understand the arguments for and against standardized testing; but I have always wondered how highly-ranked schools like the University of Chicago determine who gets accepted without an objective measure like an ACT or SAT score. It seems like there would literally be thousands more applicants with great GPAs and impressive EC’s who would normally not apply, nor be competitive for admission, if ACT/SAT scores were a requirement.
I know very little about admission standards for elite colleges…is it only high school course load, letters of recommendation, and essays that are the distinguishing factors???
Most colleges that do not require test scores still consider them if submitted. Considering how selective schools like Chicago are, submitting excellent test scores will only help. Brandeis and Reed do not require test scores, for instance, but 70% of incoming freshmen submitted SAT scores.
A very small number of colleges - most notably Hampshire - not only do not require test scores, they do not consider scores even if you submit them.
For most schools, yes. For the most selective colleges, extracurricular activities and awards are very important as well.
@ucbalumnus . . . I don’t think there’s anyone anywhere who would believe that Caltech wouldn’t have a class representative of its incredible standards of the past, being that its incoming class of ~ 235 will undergo a thorough examination with respect to their math, science and overall preparedness, as given in your link. They’ll be looking at APs, IBs, and College Credit, teacher recommendations, etc.
Of course, the elephant in the room is UC. How does UC evaluate students without factoring in APs and IBs, and dual-college/high-school enrollment, which it will need to do if its going to put all high schools on the same or more of the same plane? How does UC not invoke something similar to Caltech for its Engineering and Science programs and still be fair to those of under-represented background?
UC will consider all of that (and SAT/ACT for the next two admission cycles, since they are optional, as opposed to not considered for California applicants afterward), but will also consider whether the student’s achievements are being limited by circumstances like lack of offerings at the high school, etc… SAT/ACT will become not considered afterward for admission, but a different type of standardized test may replace it. SAT/ACT scores may also be used for scholarships.
CSU will not consider SAT/ACT scores for the next admission cycle. CSU admissions was done by a simple formula of recalculated HS GPA and SAT/ACT score (CPSLO adds additional factors); now it will probably be done by recalculated HS GPA (plus supplemental factors determined by each campus). This recalculated HS GPA has limited weighting for AP, IB, honors, and college courses taken while in high school.
I’m sure Dr. Michael V. Drake, the newly named UC President, “a national champion for access and equity” would soon draft a roadmap and come out with a better solution.
@ucbalumnus: Thanks for the post. I knew that and my point is that the UC administration’s ultimate goal is to “create and maintain a student body that reflects California’s laudable cultural, racial, geographic and socioeconomic diversity.” And I guess it’s through a more “holistic” approach for admission.
UC Board of Regents unanimously endorses ACA 5, repeal of Prop. 209.
You can read about Chicago’s admission system on their website. They require a transcript + secondary school report, 2 LORs, supplemental essays, in addition to the common application. Optional components that may be submitted include test scores (SAT, AP, etc), research projects, business plans, creative work (writing, theater, art, …), and a video profile.
Like most highly selective colleges, Chicago doesn’t go into great detail about how admission decision are made. However, I expect that they are able to evaluate with distinction on a wide variety of metrics besides just test scores. For example, only a small portion of applicants have out of classroom activities that are truly amazing within a national pool (includes more that just national awards); and a much larger portion of applicants most likely have ECs that are only impressive on a HS level, such as played a HS sport or participated in HS clubs. Similarly only a small portion of applicants have LORs on the level of best in career or best in many years, and a much larger portion of applicants have LORs that seem generic with comments that don’t say much more than being a good student. It’s not just any one component. It’s the combination of many different factors. There is an overlap between these many factors and test scores, so I’d expect you rarely have kids who excel well enough in the other criteria to be admitted, yet bombed the SAT. However, you may have some kids whose SAT was a relatively weak point compared to the other factors.
Chicago only has records for one admission cycle of test optional. The overwhelming majority of admits during that admission cycle submitted test scores. I expect the overwhelming majority of quality applicants also submitted test scores due to a combination of being the first year of test optional, University of Chicago’s applicant pool being a self selected group of kids who tend to have high test scores, and the kids who excel in the other criteria well enough to be admitted tending to be the same ones who do well on the SAT as described above. There was not a huge group of new applicants who would not otherwise have applied. The specific increase in applicants by year is below – the 7% increase in applicants with test optional is slightly below the median from previous years of test required.
Median of Past 8 Test Required Years = 10% Increase in Applicants
2011-12 – 11% increase in applicants
2012-13 – 16% increase in applicants
2013-14 – 16% increase in applicants
2014-15 – 9% decrease in applicants
2015-16 – 9% increase in applicants
2016-17 – 5% increase in applicants
2017-18 – 14% decrease in applicants
2018-19 – 17% increase in applicants
First Test Optional Year = 7% Increase in Applicants
2019-20 --7% increase in applicants
I’m not concerned about the classes entering 2021 and 2022 for the UC campuses. I believe that in any test-optional setting, that students should always take the SAT I and/or ACT, and I think that students will similarly share this feeling.
I happened to look at Brandeis’ Common Data Set with the latest being for 2018-19, and 69% of the students took the SAT and 32% took the ACT for a total, of course, of 101%. Personally, I think that this is probably the more correct way of presenting the total of the two boards, with effectively a one-score, one-student presentation, but most present the two at between 105-130%. But for Brandeis, I’m sure there’s an overlap of taking both tests by a decent number of students.
I would have liked to have seen University of Chicago’s Common Data Set, as a likewise test-optional institution, but apparently, they don’t produce one, the same with Columbia. It would be interesting to see what the total is between both tests for Chicago to see how they add up.
When UC goes to test-blind status in 2023 and 2024 is where I’d be more concerned. I understand that APs, IB, dual enrollment, and honors will be important factors still. I’m just specifically concerned about the specialized admissions of Engineering/Computer Science, and some of the other sciences. Admitting someone to E/CS with a 4.0 but light in weighted courses (not many APs and college courses, etc.) will not predict to success in these majors. And that’s the purpose of eliding the boards to be fair for all of different economic background, but there was never the same threshold of scores for those who attended underperforming high schools anyway. I really don’t know how the UC campuses are going to be able to put all students from all California high schools on the same plane of evaluation. I do think that the SATIIs would be a good replacement, and I think the average student should take about five of them, including her/his planned area of college study. And I think that the boards can be used as an accomplishment on the UC app when the score-reporting part of the app is removed, if say, the E/CS admissions people need to see standardized test-taking ability.
And @CalCUStanford . . . I agree with you that Dr. Drake will be the right person to bring about the things facing UC, including bringing the University through COVID.
"BUT who privately care a lot if the college they have chosen (or their child has chosen) is a high prestige college with a commensurately high ranking. What people say and their actions differ. "
Reminds me of a joke, there are two kinds of people, one who cares about rankings and say they care and the other who cares about rankings and say they don’t care. Once you have a ranking in your mind, it will lead to a lot of biases, most subconscious, so you don’t even know it. I recall a post that where a parent said the tour of the college did not match its ranking.
“That’s why the rankings are money makers.”
For US News, they’re money makers for reasons that go beyond the undergrad rankings. That may only be a small piece of their revenue.
“Please note: Because standardized test results are used for Brandeis’s ongoing research into the relationship between standardized testing and success at Brandeis, all entering first-year students must submit scores over the summer prior to matriculating at Brandeis.”
During the 2018-19 cycle, Brandeis had scores for 100% of students, so they could report the scores of 100% of students in the CDS, choosing to report either SAT or ACT, depending on which reflects most positively on the college.
Given that scores are reported for all students, this can give some clues about how many students from the class were test optional admits with horrible scores. A comparison is below between the full class in 2018-19 and only the test submitters in 2017-18 (changed reporting method… 44% SAT and 44% ACT in 2017-18). There was almost no difference in score ranges between 2017-18 with only test submitters and 2018-19 with test optional admits included.
2018-19 (includes both submitters and test optional admits)
25/75 ACT range = 29-33
75% Scored 30-36 on ACT (I realize this seems like a contradiction)
23% Scored 23-29 on ACT
1.7% Scored 18-23 on ACT
0% Scored <18
2017-18 (only test submitters)
25/75 ACT range = 29-33
71% Scored 30-36 on ACT
27% Scored 23-29 on ACT
1.9% Scored 18-23 on ACT
0% Scored <18
I think US News is virtually the “abbreviation” for rankings. Rankings on best high schools, best states for retirement, best cars, best hospitals, best law firms, and even the best jobs. The company obviously knows pretty well about human nature.
And I admit it - I do check all sorts of rankings reqularly…just for reference!
As a contrasting example, consider Bowdoin. In the last year (students entering in the fall of 2015) for which Bowdoin reported scores for only part its student body on its CDS, it indicated a middle-range combined-score SAT profile of 1375–1535. In the subsequent year, after Bowdoin began requiring and repording data for all students after admission, its middle-range profile resurfaced as 1290–1510.
Bowdoin doesn’t publish combined M+V SAT. They only list individual scores on the subsections. The sum of 25th percentile M + 25th percentile V is not equivalent to 25th percentile (M+V) since kids with mismatched subscores are more likely to apply test optional than kids with balanced scores. If you instead look at ACT combined score, the ranges are 30-34 for the first year with both submitters and test optional applicants vs 31-34 in the previous year with only test submitters. 30-34 vs 31-34 is a significant difference, but it does not seem as large of a difference as occurs in sum of M+V SAT.
A much larger portion of Bowdoin’s class also enrolls test optional than at Brandeis, which partially relates to the schools’ different test optional policies and histories. Bowdoin was the first US college to go test optional, has been test optional for >50 years, proudly describes being test optional on their website, and is located in Maine (has high rural population). Brandeis might be better described as “test flexible” than test optional, has recently changed their test optional stance on certain groups such as internationals, and is located near Boston.
Re bold, the predominance of the top-tiers do this. For colleges which require the SAT/ACT, the sweet spot is to report ~ 105-115%. This way, they can keep the higher scores, say, over the university’s median, and cull out the scores that are lower. This would reinforce the 75th percentile scores, increase the median and simultaneously negate the 25th – effectively pushing the “natural” lower-reporters below the boundary. Of course, students themselves who are more savvy, will often choose to report just one set of scores (or one score) between the two tests, but I think that colleges won’t penalize the student for having two materially different scores between the SAT and ACT; they’ll just admit based on the one with the higher percentile score.
The University of California, on the other hand, say, taking the tests back to about five years ago, wanted to see effectively all scores from both tests, and they wanted to see improvement over the test sittings. This resulted in, e.g., UCLA reporting nearly 140% between the two tests. If the sweet spot is 105-110%, this could possibly imply that a good 30-35% of the scores that the University recorded were at or below the median. This resulted in artificially lower 25th and 75 medians for UCLA and the other UCs, UCSD, UCD, UCSB who all engaged in this “practice.” In other words, none of them really cared if their scores were perceived as lower. As it stands now, probably because if the increased savvy of its students, UCLA and other UCs report ~ 120-125%, which probably lowers their upper and lower medians at least compared to other colleges. (And, of course, the UCs don’t superscore.)
I believe, though, that the most accurate reporting between the two should be close to 100% as Notre Dame and Duke and a few others report, and now seemingly Brandeis. I think the latter is doing some important research to see if the University can possibly go completely test-blind.
And also, UC wants to try to put all high schools on equal footing, which I don’t think Brandeis or some of the top-tier privates would want or could do.
I think there are 2 different reporting styles – some colleges choose the better (for reporting purposes) of SAT vs ACT when a student submits both, and some colleges report both SAT and ACT when a student submits both. The former leads to percent submitting SAT + percent submitting ACT being approximately 100% if tests are required for nearly all students. The latter results in scores sums being well above 100% if tests required.
Some of the selective colleges in the former group with percent submitting SAT+ACT totals of ~100% in 2018-19 IPEDS include:
Some of the selective colleges in the latter group with percent submitting SAT+ACT totals of well above 100% in 2018-19 IPEDS include. The specific percentages can vary quite a bit between different states due to some states requiring all students to take either the SAT or ACT in HS, and varying SAT/ACT dominance.