And this, also for class of 2022, getting at the variability issue tamagotchi raised:
Gaps are especially wide in Advanced Placement (AP) course taking: 46% of Asian students have taken at least two AP classes and received at least an average score on the related exams, compared to only 7% of Pacific Islander, Latino, and low-income students, 4% of Black and Native American students, and 2% of EL students. https://www.ppic.org/publication/college-readiness-in-california/
Seems the group of CA FGLI/URMs scoring well on APs is not that large, similar to the SAT/ACT. Maybe there is the exact data you are looking for, proportion of CA students who have taken an AP by the end of 11th, but I haven’t seen it.
I’ll post a generalized “oy vey” to all the posters who are worried that the Yale statement/policy means more stress, more confusion.
Simple solution- DO NOT APPLY TO YALE.
Yale isn’t in the business of improving/fixing the state of mental health in our country, as it applies to HS angst and parental anxiety over college admissions. And Yale isn’t even in the business of determining curricular policy and educational norms across all 50 states.
Yale gets to pick who they want to pick. You don’t want to take the test? Don’t apply to Yale. It’s really not that hard. Your kid doesn’t think he can handle 12 AP courses? Don’t take 12 AP’s.
Why is everyone all of sudden consumed with a lack of agency vis-a-vis their kids education?
I get it- Yale is great. But so are another 99 colleges (all rated by somebody who claims to know something) in the “top 100 colleges”. It is unlikely that all 99 are going to follow Yale’s lead. So relax.
I have long thought it’s a bit of scam for kids to take a bunch of AP courses with zero intention of taking the exam. So if Yale can reduce that scam just a tiny bit- huzzah. And don’t flame me about your kid who had flu, or his wisdom teeth out the day before, or whatever. Always exceptions. But it’s a mini-industry of kids who sign up for “most rigorous” in their coursework knowing that they have no intention of actually having someone validate if they’ve learned the material.
We all know rigor is important. Highly selective schools tend to favor applicants who did everything they could to challenge themselves. The value of the rigor of an AP class comes from challenging yourself by taking the AP exam.
I think it will be a HUGE negative if Yale sees that an applicant took an AP course and didn’t submit an AP exam score.
Chris, I have friends and neighbors whose kids think they “belong” at MIT (my kid graduated a bunch of years ago) and who call me with questions like “My kid loves bio but hate chem. Are the GIR’s a requirement or just a suggestion?” Then they get mad when I explain that NOBODY graduates from MIT without Chem. Nobody. The follow up question is “my kid is a math genius but hates to write. Who do i talk to about getting a waiver on the HASS classes?” and my answer is often- “Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe your kid should find another college where he won’t have to take classes he doesn’t like?” That usually results in a “harumph” that I’m clearly too dumb to recognize genius when I see it. Which is fine by me. MIT takes who they take, they graduate the people who have fulfilled ALL the requirements, and anyone who is miserable about that can find another fine university to attend!
I am thinking I should have been a lot more precise.
The pool that can plausibly apply competitively to Yale, even understanding they do contextual review, is much smaller than the general college-bound population. I am wondering if that pool specifically in California might be more likely to take APs by junior year than a similar group in a state where most kids will be taking the ACT/SAT.
But even saying that, I am realizing you are right that data is unlikely to be available.
An important thing I have learned in this job is that people think of MIT as a sort of stand-in for “the place that wicked smaht people go” (because that is the role it plays in popular media) and not as a specific institution with a defined education that works well for some and not others. It’s the equivalent of a celebrity crush; engaging with the idea of a thing rather than its concrete reality. Most of college admissions is like this — projecting aspirations onto a screen rather than really thinking specifically about an institution. If more people looked at institutions as institutions, and not as stand-ins for something else in society, it would turn the temp down…
True. My point is it might be helpful to California students who have skipped the SAT /ACT because of the California test blind policy. This gives them a chance to submit AP scores in case they want to apply to Yale. I understand it may not matter to underprivileged students who don’t have the AP option
No fooling. I sometimes get blunt even by my own standards (I can be a romantic, I swear), and do things like tell people colleges are just service providers and they should be thinking about picking an available, affordable provider of the services they need. Again, may a bit of hyperbole, but it seems necessary sometimes to correct the attitudes some people have toward certain popular “dream schools” like MIT.
Anyway, one thing that has really interested me is Yale (and others) have started to get increasingly blunt themselves about the fact there are really a whole bunch of applicants these days who should not be applying to Yale. This challenges a common theory that all these colleges want more and more applications so they can drive down their acceptance rates. But at this point, Yale is flat out discouraging some types of people from applying, and I think they simply do not actually want to have to wade through a bunch of pointless applications just to get to one they actually want to seriously consider.
And while I don’t think the main point of this policy is to discourage applications, they seem to be taking this opportunity once again to communicate this idea to the people they think need to hear it.
Like, if you are a domestic potential applicant from a highly disadvantaged school and you can get a 1450, necessarily you must have a really high scores in both Math and EBRW by their standards for such contexts. So if Yale sounds like a great place for you, please apply.
But if you are from a well-resourced school, and you have like a 780 Math but only 670 EBRW, and also no like AP 5s in HASS . . . are you really sure Yale is for you? They were not this concrete, but they have this whole conceptual messaging now about how they see very impressive credentials and sure the applicant will do well somewhere else, but they are not right for Yale. And I kinda think they are hoping these policies might help them communicate that concept a bit better to some such potential applicants.
Might have misheard the podcast, but I think if a student doesn’t check the AP box and only checks the SAT or ACT box, they don’t question why the AP box wasn’t ticked. I think they were alluding to the situation where the AP box is ticked but there were less AP scores submitted than AP courses taken. Then they are giving the student an opportunity to explain, with a legitimate excuse being they did not take the test.
It sounds like they are still sorting through details and scenarios, but at this point I think the system is meant to be beneficial to students. If you think AP scores will help, check the box. If you think they will hurt, do not check the box. I don’t think not checking the box will hurt you, only if you check the box and leave out scores which might raise questions, especially without explanation.
Right, but if they don’t take the ‘advice’, the applicant shall accept the consequences. (AP courses taken but no scores reported, and no explanation given, raises flags to the AO.)
Yale Admissions podcast 39 (part 2 on standardized test scores):
If you are using AP scores for the test requirement, you should submit all AP exam scores you have taken. Explains the mechanics, that you can add more scores in the Yale-specific questions of Common App if you didn’t put them in the testing section.
Submit scores that stand out in your high school context even if you think they’d be weaker than average among Yale students. Ask teachers or counselor if your scores are among the best in the class.
They use College Board landscape feature (whatever it’s currently called).
Avoid making equivalencies among different types of exams.
Don’t leave conspicuous absences. No leg up for taking more tests just because Yale accepts more types of tests, but (16:30) if you took several AP courses before senior year, Yale may wonder if you don’t submit “any.” Tell them if you didn’t take the exam or if you think some other exam is a better reflection; fewer unanswered questions = better.
They will add to FAQ on website as needed.
19:35, if you are fulfilling testing requirement with AP exam scores, you are required to submit all AP exams taken.
If you are fulfilling testing requirement with something else like SAT/ACT, submitting all AP exam scores is not required, but if your transcript shows you were enrolled in AP courses, submit the AP exam scores or you are begging the question of how you performed on that exam. You have an opportunity to explain if you didn’t take an AP exam for an AP course you took.
No need to devise an AP strategy starting in 9th grade.
Hoping to get confidence from testing that you are well prepared for Yale.
And will Yale provide students with vouchers to pay for all of these exams if the student is unable to afford them or their parents are unwilling to pay for them? If not, then they need to reconsider this view (if they even hold this view, which they may not).
I don’t know if all NYC public schools or just Title 1 schools or just my kids’ public schools, cover AP and IB test fees….but my kids’ public schools did. I wonder how widespread that is.
Just got an email from Quinlan to interviewers. It’s mostly a rehash of interviews he has already given:
Dear ASC Members,
I write to share the news that Yale has announced a new standardized testing policy that will go into effect for the 2024-25 admissions cycle and beyond. Yale will return to requiring scores of all applicants but will expand the list of tests that fulfill the requirement to include AP and IB exams in addition to ACT and SAT. Current applicants will not be affected.
This change is the product of four years of experience with test-optional policies and a robust set of new analyses from Yale’s office of institutional research. Recognizing that all of you have an investment in our first-year selection process, I will share some insights on the new policy and what persuaded us to adopt it. You are also invited to an upcoming webinar to learn more.
Yale’s New Test-Flexible Policy for ASC Members
Wednesday, March 6
8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT Register Here
There will be no change to the role or format of ASC interviews. When you receive questions about admissions policies, we advise you to direct students to the admissions website.
What Test-Flexible Means for Yale
To help our future applicants and counselors understand our test-flexible policy, we have created a new suite of resources:
A three-part series on our podcast, Inside the Yale Admissions Office, covering testing generally, the new policy specifically, and how we got here.
Yale will not prefer one test type over another, and students with more scores will not be advantaged. We are communicating proactively that Yale’s policy should not drive students to take more tests, and that focusing too narrowly on testing is not a wise college preparation strategy.
Why Test-Flexible?
My team’s positive experience with a test-optional policy over the past four years persuaded us that requiring only the SAT or ACT can discourage promising students from considering colleges like Yale. The experience also demonstrated, however, that inviting students to apply without any test scores can, inadvertently, disadvantage students from low-income, first-generation, and rural backgrounds.
Our new policy is designed to help applicants put their best foot forward, and to help admission officers respond to well-prepared students from all contexts. I expect that, for some, strong performance on AP or IB exams will be more meaningful than an ACT or SAT score. For others — including those attending schools that lack access to AP or IB courses — an ACT or SAT score may provide a valuable datapoint that gives the committee confidence in a student’s preparation.
This confidence is founded on evidence: consistent with research from other highly selective colleges, our analyses have found that standardized test scores predict future Yale grades better than any other available datapoint — including high school grades — even after controlling for family income and other demographic variables.
I believe every standardized test is imperfect and incomplete. No single exam can demonstrate every student’s college readiness or perfectly predict future performance. A test can, however, highlight an applicant’s areas of academic strength, reinforce high school grades, fill in gaps in a transcript stemming from extenuating circumstances, and—most importantly—identify students whose performance stands out in their school context.
My hope is that by requiring scores of everyone but providing greater flexibility, we communicate that scores are an important but not determinative component of the application and that students have agency in how they showcase their strengths to colleges.
The Road Ahead
The work of assembling a class composed of dynamic young people with an amazingly diverse range of experiences requires an open mind and a healthy dose of humility about our ability to predict the future. With our standardized testing, we are striving to take the same approach.
I believe this policy is the right approach for Yale, right now. But among the many lessons of the past four years, I have especially learned the value of remaining nimble. I am relieved to finally announce a testing policy not in the form of a one-year extension, but I don’t expect our conversations about standardized testing will end. If you are interested in learning more, I hope you will take the time to explore the resources linked above and to join our webinar on March 6.
Thank you as always for your partnership in our shared goal of bringing the most promising students from the widest collection of backgrounds to Yale College.
Jeremiah Quinlan
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid
