Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Brown, CalTech, JHU, and UT-Austin to Require Standardized Testing for Admissions

PSAT’s are held during school and are usually at no charge (well not directly) to the student. Only occasionally are there SAT school days programs, but yes qualifying students can get fee waivers (up to 2x for the weekend SATs).

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I go to a school that is primarily middle-upper class- families of 5 that can afford 30k/year college tuition for kids. It’s a hefty expense when they pay 3000 dollars for each kid to take AP tests and apply to college. And they don’t qualify for financial aid or any fee waivers. I’m upper class, but I will fight for my middle/middle-upper class friends that get screwed because they “aren’t poor enough.” And they can’t afford OOS tuition or private. They do not get any federal aid. Everything is merit based. College board makes it harder for everyone except the rich to get into college. Colleges charging application fees are not innocent either.

the accessibility and opportunity issue is not exclusive to FGLI students.

Did you mean to tag me? Not sure why……

Partially responding about the part about fee waivers….but more so a general post.

Part of that was in response to a post which is no longer visible.

Not sure why the college board is blamed for application costs-it has nothing to do with them.

If you want to potentially get college credit for a course ( which is worth something and can save thousands in college tuition), take the AP exam. If you don’t, skip it.

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Let’s get this thread back on topic. Thanks for your understanding.

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This thread has meandered enough. Feel free to start another thread if you want to discuss other schools. Posts hidden. Thanks for your understanding.

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The College Rankings Paradox
Winners, losers, and the race for prestige

(The College Rankings Paradox | The Chronicle of Higher Education – Chronicle Store)

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Article mentions that Yale will accept IB or AP, in lieu of SAT or ACT. Which begs the question: which test? Would a 5 on a heritage language be enough, instead of, say, English Comp and Calc BC? Would the new AP Precalc suffice?

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Have they officially published the policy? Maybe there will be more refined details. It would make sense that they would like to see a STEM and a Humanities AP.

The policy makes sense if the concern is context for the transcript/gpa which seems to be the case.

As for AP PreCalc, I don’t see why not when the SAT only covers through algebra 2. If the goal is two assess if the student has a solid foundation for more advanced courses, a 5 in the exam will suffice.

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Link in top post which has further links to FAQ. There is no minimum number of AP scores required nor specific subjects required, although they recommend sending all scores received. They also recommend having a course corresponding to the AP exam; IOW, they don’t recommend self studying. And they write “contextual” and “holistic” a lot.

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No recommendation/requirement on subjects, but I am sure that will be the conventional wisdom anyway.

I note NYU’s test policy for APs is “one from a Humanities exam, one from a Math or Science exam, and one from an exam of your choice. For Stern and Tandon, one of the exams must be in Math (AP Calculus AB, BC or Statistics).”

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So test scores help them identify students with otherwise unimpressive applications. Doesn’t sound very holistic

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https://admissions.yale.edu/standardized-testing

" * Applicants reporting results from AP or IB exams should include scores from all subject exams completed prior to applying. There is no minimum number of subject-based exam scores required."

The Yale podcast talks about it as well with a meandering analogy about baseball pitchers

Hopefully, they see fewer applications from students trying their luck so the AO’s can spend more time on the qualified applicants

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Thanks for sharing the article.
The main take away is that the SAT MATH score matters to evaluate future STEM majors.
Which makes sense: if you score below 500 on the SAT math test you’re unlikely to have the pre-reqs for Engineering.
Just as it makes sense 700 Math is the benchmark for MIT.

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