Pretty ironic that Test Optional schools purchase lists of names of students who took the SAT from College Board anyway.
–Steven R. Goodman, a former member of the Undergraduate Admissions Advisory Committee at the University of Pennsylvania, also noted that even test-optional colleges are buying the lists offered by the College Board of the top scorers for recruiting and marketing purposes.
“What an incredible coincidence that these schools are going ahead and saying they’re test-optional and then buying the lists of the top scorers,” he said.
And here is an older article from 2011 that is pretty thorough explaining the irony of the whole process.
–Colleges from Bowdoin in Maine to Pitzer in California dropped the SAT entrance exam as a requirement, saying it favors the affluent, penalizes minorities and doesn’t predict academic success. What they don’t advertise is they find future students by buying names of kids who do well on the test.
Its because the schools know the truth that the SAT is a valuable admissions screening tool when combined with GPA. They just want a fig leaf to admit groups that historically have academically underperformed.
I think they buy them because students with high test scores tend to be higher income. If they can convince those students to apply and attend, they get more full pay students while still being “need blind”.
They are test optional. That doesn’t mean they think the tests are completely invalid. It just means they see more than one way of evaluating students.
College board is a convenient place to get lists of high school students. Who else has such a comprehensive list? Most students take the SAT or ACT even if they choose not to send the scores - and it’s pretty clear colleges don’t limit mailings to only those students in the SAT ranges for the school.
Test-optional doesn’t mean they can’t market to those who take the test. Why should they shut themselves out of competing for this body of students? I fail to see any irony here, just common sense as far as marketing.
^Maybe you’re right. I guess two obscure publications with little influence (The Harvard Crimson and Bloomberg) are completely wrong for pointing out possible irony.
Or maybe they’re just trying to throw shade on the test-optional schools.
Since test-optional means the schools DO accept these tests (just don’t require them), I still fail to see why they should refuse to market to students who took these tests. That doesn’t even equate to an Alanis Morissette mis-definition of irony.
Also, smart marketers look at all possible audiences, so even if a school didn’t accept standardized tests (and there are a few out there) they’d be foolish to ignore what is probably the largest single pool of potential customers. I’m pretty sure Bloomberg doesn’t refuse to ask for votes from people who drink soda. Just saying.
Their point makes no sense. Honestly, I don’t expect Bloomberg to be right this – we KNOW that other than the Chronicall of Higher ED that most news publications get the story wrong (or grossly incomplete) when the subject is higher ed. The Crimson likes to think they can spot irony, but in this case they just appear to be ignorant of the business side of higher ed.
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Sure, some schools that dropped the requirement stopped buying those scores - but they also mentioned that their marketing costs went up as a result. Not sure why it’s good to decrease ROI on marketing dollars. Between 60 and 80 percent of applicants to test-optional schools submit test scores - but the schools should not market based on that? Bad business decision.
In the other article, you can see that the staff writer for the Harvard Crimson is looking to defend the use of standardized testing - while also pointing out that there is still a significant socio-economic component to standardized test scores. That would seem at least as ironic as a school that uses the SAT as one factor in admission targeting students who did well on the SAT.
I’ve followed the Wake Forest admissions blog for years reading about their test-optional policy and how it has not impacted their student GPA or graduation rates. They’re doing a great job of admitting solid students - some who standardized test well, some who don’t. What’s the down side?
