I note my sense also is that this is a very lively debate, meaning specifically blaming TO is not what every professor with concerns about recent student preparation has been doing (and indeed, it is a good point they really typically would not know enough to reliably blame TO).
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I found these quotes to be pretty interesting:
“Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed,” Quinlan said.
and
“When students attending these high schools include a score with their application — even a score below Yale’s median range — they give the committee greater confidence that they are likely to achieve academic success in college,” Quinlan said.
Taken together, it seems the experiment with no test scores didn’t go as planned
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It doesn’t seem to make much sense to allow AP scores in place of SAT/ACT, because a person would have to have done well on AP English Lang and at least AP Stats or Calc BC, in 11th grade, to use those scores. How many hidden URM/rural poor/FGLI students have access to those classes in 11th, much less are able to score 5s on those exams in 11th? And IB scores are mostly not out until too late for the college app process.
Seems as if access to SAT/ACT is much more universal.
I agree that kids are coming in less prepared - that is probably for many reasons. A poor test score, relative to a student’s HS performance, could indicate a lower level of preparation - particularly in math. I just think it is a leap for professors to assign all the under-prepared students to the TO cohort if they don’t actually know who came in TO. Unfortunately, widespread TO came in at a time when there has been significant learning loss due to covid - so, it is hard separate the two. Schools with long-term TO policies show little evidence of difference in outcomes between test optional students and test submitters. Because the more recent data comes to us in the wake of covid, it is hard to really judge the effect of TO at institutions that have only had TO policies for a few years.
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The professors might not know but many schools claim to have been tracking performance of test optional students, at least according to Selingo.
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Dartmouth’s methods for coming to this conclusion were attacked on this board. Will the same happen to Yale?
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Well, that is sort of the nature of a real experiment, no? To actually learn things you do not already know.
But this specific subject is covered at great length in Podcast Episode 40, just released. They go into how they saw the nature of the experiment, what their data and analysis showed about the academic performance of recent admits, what happened to applications and who chose to submit test scores, and so on. Quinlan is the guest on that Episode, and he repeats those basic findings, but there is much, much more conversation on the subject.
Not surprisingly, the emphasis is really similar to what Dartmouth came out with, as we discussed above. The correlation between test scores–including apparently APs–and grades is relevant background, but the real problem they are trying to solve is underreporting of scores that would actually help specific applicants. Indeed, Quinlan explains for most of their applicants/admits, they were actually happy with the recent results. But there are specific groups they thought they were underadmitting relative to highly-resourced students, because they were not submitting what would have been helpful scores (SAT/ACT and AP), and they are now convinced they cannot communicate the right message to those people within a test optional policy.
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They have seen huge application increases, but obviously not because of TO policies. I think there’s a lot more shotgunning. You’re right that it’s on an entirely different scale in the Ivies, though.
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Yes, including Yale and Dartmouth.
But what those colleges are saying is not consistent with the claim TO specifically has caused a crisis in student preparation.
So the issue is that some people believe the colleges are not telling us the truth, and the real truth is only coming out of anonymous professor complaints.
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But this argument ignores Covid related grade inflation. I know the schools that remained fully remote for over a year near me basically gave everyone As. Whereas the schools that were in person (mostly parochial or independent in this area) maintained normal grading standards. That’s going to make relying on gpa alone really problematic and was not an issue pre covid (although grade inflation has been, and is most prevalent at affluent schools).
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I just can not imagine any school would come out and publicly announce a particular subset of their students were underperforming to a problematic degree. So I read nothing into their choice not to do so.
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They again specifically address this issue, and their reasoning is that being test flexible combined with being contextual combined with the emergence of online tests is going to give disadvantaged (and international) students sufficient access.
But I agree this doesn’t really answer whether following that path will create a truly level playing field with applicants from highly resourced secondary schools with lots of trusted advanced courses, APs, or IBs. Honestly, I am not sure they are really promising they will be able to achieve that, as opposed to making the field a little less tilted.
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Grade inflation is far from new and definitely preceded TO policies by years. And, ironically, it is rampant at the college level (including at the Ivies).
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Some students take their IB exams in junior years as well. So they don’t need to take a gap year. I know students who have taken English, math, and physics by junior year.
Yes, that’s why I said ‘most’.
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So their options in such cases would include remaining silent, as opposed to lying about what their data was showing.
But again, if some people here want to choose to believe that is the dynamic, that these colleges are not just keeping some things confidential, but actually deliberately lying to the public to cover up those things–that is their business and not something we can likely debate at length productively.
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I’m not familiar with the Podcast you reference.
So, what happened to the students that didn’t submit test scores vs. those that did?
One can infer based on the change in policy, but wondering if Quinlan gave any specific color.
My quotes were pulled from a Bloomberg article discussing the change of heart.
Yes I acknowledged that in my other post, but covid also dramatically ramped up grade inflation at some schools.
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I don’t think they are lying, both explicitly said that test scores were the most predicative factor for college academic performance.
Yes, there were few interesting posts taking shots at Dartmouth. I’m curious… where are they now?
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