So this sounds like an AP problem. I won’t pretend to know every IB program in the country, but my lasting impression of the curriculum and the philosophy behind it is standardization of material. My experience here in Seattle is that when a school wants to sponsor an IB program, it’s a bit of a big deal. You have to hire coordinators (our HS had two, each of whom were paid six figure salaries) and the school needs to bring in quality teachers to commit to the program. It’s really a “thing” and not something a high school can just half-### its way through.
I recall on the recruiting/admissions trail that many admissions people expressed a lot of approval for IB.
Of course, there is always going to be some teacher who teaches a given IB course more leniently than another. But in my rather broad experience with it, if you show me a kid who got through an IBD program with high grades and several HL level courses, I’m going to be confident that kid is academically prepared to be in college. It’s hard to just play to your strengths with IB, and it’s also hard to do well in that coursework w/o a very solid grasp of what you’re doing.
Like I said before, AP is so far back now that I remember little of it other than my kid taking a bunch of them and then preparing for the tests.
A little while ago there was a teaching issue at my kids school where a first year physics teacher (former professor) didn’t teach part of the AP Physics material to her class. Kids with straight 5s or 4s and 5s suddenly have a 2 or 3 in their mix of 10/12 high scores.
As I understand it, the AP teacher submits a course design, and the College Board approves it. And that is really the last thing they do before the tests. Obviously school and district administrators can do more to monitor along the way if they choose. But for the College Board, the tests are really the only check of what actually happened in the class.
As I understand their policy, Yale would accept that as a reason for not considering those scores. Accordingly, they see no harm in you reporting that score along with the explanation, and you actually benefit by not leaving unanswered why you took the class but reported no score.
But you would still need some other test(s) they could use.
We really don’t have our own set of practices. We follow the rules that are put in front of us. There are very few SAT/ACT testing sites here in Marin County/Northern California (1-2)… Same goes with the rest of the Bay Area… The very few testing sites that are offered in the Bay Area fill up in minutes and it’s incredibly difficult to find a testing site that isn’t hundreds of miles away. So sure, some will take their 17 yr old and grab a hotel in some random city on a Friday night so their kid can take the exam the next morning. Does not make for great testing conditions, not to mention how inconvenient and expensive it is to do this. Every county here in California is different and works differently with College Board…(the true winner in all of this)…And kids here in California do in fact take AP exams. We all pay the $100 per exam just like everyone else in the country. I am sure this varies differently at the different high schools across the state, of course. There are so many false narratives on here around TO kids not able to handle college level work . Please. I can’t recall any of the kids from our public high school who go to Cal, UCLA, and the ivies flunking out of school because they did not submit scores. If you don’t think Yale has some underlying agenda in all of this, then you need to keep doing the research. They are giving all of us a false narrative and keeping their reasons to going back to tests close to the vest. Cheers!
MidwestPack: “In their podcast they explicitly say you must submit all of your AP scores, with the implication being that if you don’t, then your application will be rejected or considered incomplete. Further, if you submit sat or act scores as your qualifier for this criterion, AND your transcript shows that you took AP or IB courses then they expect to see those scores as well. If you don’t provide those AP or IB scores (even though you submitted a sat or act score), they may (probably likely) draw a negative inference about those non-provided scores.”
The above (from a different thread) caught my eye because Yale seems to be endorsing the high-stakes test approach that exists here in the UK (but which many on CC dislike).
If this is indeed the case, I think US students will have it worse than UK students applying to Yale because UK applicants will be submitting only their A-level test scores (which are their academic transcripts) but US students will have to submit both IB/AP scores and academic transcripts (i.e., they can’t get away with not doing well on homework assignments/quizzes/etc they way UK students can).
Just to add to this… my D has several friends who are FGLI. According to her, what almost kept them from applying had nothing to do with test scores, but the fact that they didn’t realize that they would be able to afford it. It wasn’t until they happened to meet an alum or got involved with some type of community outreach that they learned how generous FA at these schools can be.
Just for clarity, I’m not sure that UK students will be able to submit A-Levels to Yale to satisfy this requirement. A-Levels are not on the list of approved tests, and they also don’t seem likely to have actual scores available at the time of applying.
But I agree in general this means Yale is requiring more of applicants than UK universities require of their applicants (adding to a big pile of other ways in which that is already true).
That doesn’t surprise me. Many students are unaware of how generous these schools can be - they tend to focus on published cost (which is very high). It will certainly be interesting to see how things go next year in terms of how FGLI students approach the testing issue. Because Yale and Dartmouth are standing alone here, many could simply decide to apply to one of the many other elite schools that don’t require tests.
I expect many elite colleges will follow Yale’s decision. Parents can demand their public schools offer standardized testing if they wish. Affluent communities which do not offer testing have made an affirmative decision not to do so; if that is not the community’s priority, parents can and should change that.
Some of the poorest states in the country provide free testing for all students in public schools. It can be done.
Wow, that’s interesting! I completely understand that many students are not aware of the generosity of these schools. The tuition fees are really high, but as you say, the actual costs can be much lower.
IMHO this is something where private/public partnerships could do a world of good. There is no good reason not to offer more enriched material, and more testing, at more places. We’ve seen that when budget windfalls (or policy changes) permit universal testing (compared to recommendations from teachers or parents), URM/FGLI/ESL students accessing advanced courses dramatically increases.
I think some will - others will not. I think it is getting very, very late for schools to announce for next year given the testing schedule. There are 3 SAT dates left this cycle and typically the May and June dates are not offered in as many locations as the March date (which is most likely full at this point). Also, I think some of the schools that would be inclined to reintroduce testing are going to wait and see what happens at Yale and Dartmouth before finalizing their decision (i.e. does it result in significant drop in FGLI/Pell applicants/admits).
Agreed, but it would seem the objection to universal testing is mostly on philosophical grounds from affluent districts without severe resource constraints.
West Virginia manages to pay for it for all kids. California could but chooses not to.
There is quite a bit of anti-testing sentiment among HS counselors (seems relatively more among those working with disadvantaged students)…something that @hebegebe has also mentioned on these threads. Is there any way MIT is trying to address that? (Not that its your responsibility!)
There is also a not insignificant level of negative perceptions of CollegeBoard among counselors…for many reasons. I have seen the estimates of the number of hours that counselors spend on testing administration, and it can be quite a bit per year. For many it is technically part of their jobs, yet, they are stretched thin with their social emotional counseling responsibilities.