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Thank you for pointing this out. I’d add that in fact that very highly motivated kids can and do complete this in 4 years.
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IBs and consulting firms still ask for SATs for summer internships. I was so surprised.
And systems issues have been a problem too. Last year the system went dow for a few minutes near the end of S24’s AP Spanish exam. Fortunately, they did rectify it but it nearly resulted in cancelled scores.
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Our district has Chromebooks (not computers) and they are able to load bluebook on school Chromebooks. The juniors used them for the PSAT this fall, and will be using them in March for the school-day SAT (a graduation requirement.).
Now personal Chromebooks you’re unable to load bluebook on. But CB somehow facilitates loading bluebook on school Chromebooks.
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I know a VP of Corporate Strategy at a Fortune 500. He asks for SAT scores for everyone he hires. Of course, he pretty much only hires people with a STEM Bachelors from top schools and an M7 MBA.
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Sorry to be slow to get back to you.
You said: “They also will select the one statistic that seems to support their argument, misrepresent what that statistic actually means, and equate correlation with causation.”
I interpreted that sentence to mean: "…your contention is that Dartmouth is manipulating data in order to present something that doesn’t exist? "
And I put a question mark indicating I was asking because that’s how I interpreted this comment. What do you mean by this in the context of Dartmouth publishing a study showing how they have found SAT scores to be predictive in academic success? You seem to be discounting their analysis. What is the correct interpretation?
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And this sentence you say:
“SAT supporters also like creating graphs that remove most of the variance in the graphs, in order to create a visual illusion that the correlations between SAT scores and first year GPA is stronger than it actually is.”
It certainly seems you are suggesting Dartmouth has done this. Why make this comment here unless you think Dartmouth is “creating a visual illusion”.
Please help me understand. I’m really confused here.
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I wonder, for those on those counselor group pages handwringing about CA, which owed to being test blind for its schools does not have the sort of robust, everyone-takes-the-test sort of practices found in say eastern MA, how many and which schools going test-mandatory would change that?
I get that counselors for under resourced schools may largely just take Dartmouth off the table. But what if Yale and others join the party on top of MIT, Georgetown, the FL schools, etc? At a certain point it veers toward malpractice to ignore the list of test-required schools no?
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It would also be nice for the school to provide some notice of the test. Our school provides a free PSAT to every junior every Fall and a free ACT to every junior each Spring. However, they fail to provide notice. Generally, the ACT is the April test date, but this year they moved the free date to February (and it is in the middle of the week during school). My daughter, who is one of the kids at school who are more aware of these types of events was unaware of this date change until last night when I mentioned it to her. And I only found out last night because of happenstance that I was meeting with the principal on a completely unrelated matter.
So, while the kids get a free test opportunity, they don’t really know about it until the last minute and cannot prepare. For what it is worth, our school’s avg ACT score is 16.9 and the state’s is 19.3.
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I don’t really know the answer, but as I am the one who posted some about this, here are some thoughts:
Just for context, for Class of 2022 (most recent data), 21% of California seniors took the SAT. https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/2022-california-sat-suite-of-assessments-annual-report.pdf
California also has a high proportion of low income students…nearly 60% qualify for free or reduced lunch (52% is US average), so the majority of those students’ best options are likely in-state, with the exception of high stat students who could be admitted to a meet full need school. I believe many students should be encouraged to test, but all the other headwinds come into play here (some not unique to CA):
- Some CA counselors report it’s still hard to find seats to take tests
- High student:counselor ratio in CA. This source says 509:1, which comes from this member only NACAC report
- Many counselors are overloaded with social emotional counseling, with little time for college counseling
- Priority is getting students to graduate from HS
- Some counselors aren’t trained in college counseling
- There is anti-testing sentiment in some communities, especially among URMs
So, no easy answers. But, for many CA counselors, none/few of their students will ever go out-of-state for college, or in-state to a private school, and/or have the stats to apply to meet full need schools. Should some students be encouraged to test…of course, IMO. But I appreciate what those counselors days really look like, so no judgment from me.
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It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I think there is a narrow window for additional schools to announce a return to test required for next year – especially as we get closer to the end of the school year. What I do think is that schools that are considering this move will look closely at what happens with Dartmouth next year - will applications drop back to TO levels, will they get significantly fewer applications from kids from underserved communities etc.
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I agree the window to announce a change for class of 2025 is getting tight…some counselors feel Dartmouth announced too late. Lots of spring testing sites for both ACT and SAT are sold out.
It will be interesting to see what Dartmouth reports about that cycle, and the application details they share (if any beyond the usual, like number of apps/acceptances, test score range, etc).
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I think there is also a bunch of schools that made the call “through 25 or even 26” I read somewhere that Columbia made the change permanently?
Yes, Columbia announced they are permanently TO although I don’t really see that word permanent written anywhere but in multiple non-Columbia media outlets. Here’s what Columbia said last spring:
Based on an internal study encompassing multiple years of performance data, we found that test-optional admissions—which we provisionally introduced in 2020-2021 due to the pandemic—did not lead to a diminishment of the academic performance of our admitted classes or the academic success of our enrolled students. Thus, as we design our application and its requirements to afford the greatest possible opportunity and flexibility for students to represent themselves fully and showcase their academic talents, interests and goals, standardized testing remains an optional component of our application.
https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/columbia-test-optional
This is the most complete and up-to-date list of test optional policies that I am aware of:
I don’t think they will necessarily make it public, public but they may share with peers.
Personally, I feel like most of these schools will settle on the “test preferred” or “test recommended” they adopted for the SAT Subject Tests. I also see a scenario where they require tests for certain majors (CS/Engineering).
TO should have some kind of justification, like Purdue allows a statement if someone did not have access to tests. Maybe this could be a standard piece of the GC report.
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OTOH, other colleges announcing only would’ve made this situation worse 
Unless more test centers come online or HS themselves add more dates, it’s just super tight in some areas. In “everyone tests” eastern MA we had to drive over an hour and stay the night before at a motel to get seats.