My kids went to an accelerated middle school and was able to take three Regents in 8th grade, so they didn’t have to take any this year. They are still able to get the Advanced Regents Diploma.
I’m so glad we don’t have that! Is this just after junior year or do they have them every year?
Every year…every core subject. It’s exhausting.
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D25 and I have been discussing test scores. She has taken the SAT twice now and has a very solid score but not approaching perfect. At our school’s college night her counselor suggested that any score that starts in 700 should be submitted. Other advice suggests that if a score falls below a school’s 25th percentile, the student should go test optional, which for some of these top schools means anything below 1500 or so. It’s clear to me that if you have a very high score you submit, and a very low score you don’t, but what about those kids with really good scores, but still below the tippy top for their reaches? Is anyone else in this boat? What’s your strategy here?
I think that you submit. There is a big difference between a 1450 and a 1300. A score of 1400+ will not disqualify you, but going TO at these schools might (no matter how they try to sell it). It’s become painfully obvious that these schools prefer scores and that the only reason kids (particularly those from reasonably well resourced areas) don’t send scores is they are low.
If you have a whole bunch of 5 in core APs maybe you can get away without an SAT/ACT score. At the end of the day what they are looking for is some type of confirmation that your A is really an A.
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A good idea is to look up the common data sets and freshman profiles. If the school is saying only 40% submit scores, then I think that’s quite different than 70% and is a different calculation.
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I think a good number of TO students are underselling themselves. They think a very good score is too low and don’t submit. I would submit her scores.
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I think you’re probably right. That said, S25 interviewed at a pretty mid tier Jesuit school recently and the admissions officer told him not to submit his scores unless they were over 1500. The reasoning being that his UW 4.0 and high rigor would give him more merit, than adding in his mid 1300s SAT.
So I think it’s a case by case scenario. Some schools definitely are really wanting scores. I think the Common Data set is a good place to start. And the school admissions officers!
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Thank you all. This helps me wrap my head around the issue a little better. I really like U Chicago’s no harm policy with regards to test scores. I just wish there was a little more transparency all around.
S23 had many acceptances and merit aid offers with his 1400 and much lower GPA, but he wasn’t interested in the more competitive schools. We went through this whole process just two years ago, but D25 is a very different student and this feels like a completely different game!
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I think an important thing to remember is that trying to compare application seasons between boys and girls is truly apples and oranges. Outside some of the most selective schools as well as some technical schools, applications from girls outnumber applications from boys. Trying to extrapolate from a boy’s admission season 2 years ago to a girl’s current admission season isn’t really feasible.
You’ve gotten lots of good advice. Two of my children submitted scores, one went TO. They all had great acceptances, but in many ways I think that came down to a lot of prep work finding schools that really fit each child from the get go…and much less to do with whether they submitted test scores or not.
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Another useful datapoint is score distribution before 2020.
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To me, this is the case of a school that is trying to manipulate the numbers to improve its profile.
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Certainly possible. I do think there’s an argument though for not submitting test scores to some schools because you’d receive more merit without them.
An UW 4.0 puts you in the running for some big scholarships but throw in your 1350 and it diminishes your chances. This is, of course, school dependent and I’m mostly thinking of middle tier colleges.
My D23 received loads of merit (3.7GPA) and was accepted everywhere she applied Test Optional. She is attending a school with a 28% acceptance rate. She has friends who were accepted at Princeton, Notre Dame, NYU, and Pomona, all test optional.
Now, have the winds shifted since 2023? Probably a bit.
Anyway, I’ll stop, we have huge threads on this topic and it’s so school and applicant dependent, it’s hard to know any real answers. The lack of transparency is truly irritating.
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Yes and yes. Lol (I know you know this, but for others wondering…) There are many paths, but a fairly typical one would be taking Regents exams in Algebra I and Earth Science freshman year, Algebra II, Living Environment and Global sophomore year, Geometry, Chemistry, US and ELA junior year. There is a Physics Regents too, which is actually this Monday. Which is terrible because most schools here have recently graduated (ours was last night) and most kids taking Physics are seniors? So odd….
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We’re submitting scores for scholarships. For us, if she can’t get a scholarship the school isn’t an option anyway so might as well submit. If she had a 1200 she just wouldn’t apply to some schools or if the schools only required GPA for scholarships she wouldn’t submit I guess.
We use the score as a way to narrow down the college choices.
Full disclosure her scores are: 1390 (last August paper test), 1470 March and 1500 June with a 1540 superscore. We will only be submitting the last 2 tests if we want to superscore but might just submit the June test.
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Many, probably most schools accept self-reported scores, even for scholarship consideration (common app asks for highest composite score and highest of each of the section scores.)
Double check each school’s website, but don’t spend the money to send official scores if you don’t need to.
Your D will likely need to send the official score to the school she ends up enrolling at.
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Thanks. The 2 schools she applied to already aren’t on the common app. The one wants her scores and I’m fine with sending them as it’s a top contender for her.
Something I’ve been thinking about, would a school give preferential treatment to a kid applying through their website vs the common app? I was thinking of having D25 apply directly through the school since it’s one of her top choices (out of 2 and the other isn’t on common app). Thought maybe it would show that she really wants to go there if the app didn’t come through the common app.
I wondered this as well and asked an admissions rep when my D23 was looking at schools. The answer was that the Common App is perfectly fine and there’s no preference. It’s when kids don’t do the optional essays or interviews that the schools feel like they’re applying a million places and don’t really care.
I know for our kids school the process for recommendations is much easier through the common app.
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S25 has been keeping us updated on his time at Rose-Hulman’s Operation Catapult camp. He is having a wonderful time and said he is “99% sure that I’m going to Rose.” Of course, this might change, but I’m excited that the college he loves right now is a target/likely. In just the short amount of time that he’s been there I can already sense some maturing happening. The Ross Math program is also happening on the Rose campus right now, and S25 said he met and talked with one of the counselors who is a graduate student in math. They talked about his area of research, and I was shocked that S25 was willing to put himself out there to have a conversation. Tomorrow they are meeting with the different departments on campus, and he’s excited to talk with the math department about their program. He’s there until Friday, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about his experience after we pick him up.
Hard to believe that once we pick him up he has just about a month left of summer. I’m sure it will fly by!
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