I think this is the sort of logical step that @MITChris expresses concern about, in posts like this one,
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I think not enough people draw this distinction, and it could matter.
Yale, for example, said it found high SAT Math subscores relevant to persistence in its STEM majors. It did not say a high SAT Math subscore was relevant to persistence in all majors or the college in general. But it is pretty plausible MIT might be different from Yale as to this very specific issue.
OK, so Yale ended test optional, but unlike MIT, it did not specifically require the SAT or ACT. Indeed, under their “test-flexible” policy, you could potentially submit AP or IB scores that include no Math scores.
Now, would that be a good idea if you said you were interested in a math-intensive major at Yale? Maybe not, and indeed they say:
Advice on Selecting Scores to Include
When considering which scores to include with your application, consider the following questions:
- Do the scores indicate my preparation for college-level coursework?
- Do the scores reflect areas of academic strength?
- Do the scores help showcase my academic range?
- Do the scores supplement the courses and grades on my high school transcript?
- Do the scores stand out as especially notable in my secondary school?
- Am I proud of the scores as a reflection of the effort I put into preparing for the test(s)?
It seems pretty plausible that if you claimed academic strength and good preparation for a Math-intensive major in your application, you’d at least ideally want to have a Math score of some kind. But, maybe not, if you had sufficient markers due to extremely high level classwork, awards, or so on in Math.
But MIT, among other things, apparently wants a Math score and a Reading/Writing score from everyone, hence the less flexible policy. And I actually do think that makes some sense given the different natures of these colleges. To be frank, pretty much everyone at MIT is expected to have outlier math ability. At Yale, some people will have that ability, but others will just be normally good at math.
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Most colleges are more at the Bowdoin level of general education academic rigor. Only a few may be considered outliers. Caltech is probably the biggest outlier on the high end, followed by Harvey Mudd, followed by MIT in the math/science side (although all also have substantial humanities and social science requirements). Chicago, Columbia, and St. John’s College are probably outliers on the humanities side. The military service academies also have high general education academic rigor but also high rigor in other aspects. There are also some subdivisions of colleges, like UCSD Revelle, that have higher than typical general education academic rigor.
At the opposite end of general education academic rigor would be the open curriculum colleges and others approaching open curriculum in terms of minimal general education requirements. These range from highly selective colleges like Brown and Amherst to less selective colleges like The Evergreen State College.
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I’m trying to find out why college “A” benefits from requiring SAT scores while college “B” finds no such utility.
So personally, I am not quite sure I would put it that way for admissions purposes.
On the one hand, I think they see a relatively open curriculum as allowing people to explore interests more freely at a flexible level of depth. On the other, I think they certainly hope their admits take them up on exploring a diversity of things, and indeed I know the advisors tend to strongly encourage that.
So I don’t actually think Brown, Amherst, and so on want applicants who come across as, say, Math-phobic. I actually think they largely want the same sorts of people that distributional colleges like Dartmouth want.
And for a little proof, you can see that in reported score ranges. Going back to the 2018-19 CDS (to get before the COVID stuff), Dartmouth had a reported SAT Math 25/75 range of 720-790. Brown was . . . 720-790.
Anyway, I am just noting this because I get the feeling Brown and others are sometimes a bit frustrated by this. They really do not want kids to get the idea an open curriculum is for students who are unusually weak (for top students) in some core area. They want the same sort of solid strength across the board so those students can make the best use of their open curriculums as they see it.
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While they may not want math-phobic (or other-subject-phobic) students, their lack of general education requirements does mean that “need to be capable of completing the general education requirements” is not a constraint that admissions needs to consider like at MIT.
Interestingly, Bowdoin and Wesleyan are two of the few schools I’ve seen that accepted no one in the past five years from our school with below a 1500, according to our Scoir data.
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I am not sure whether “rigor level” is the right place to look for an answer.
Benefits of using scores in the admission process might appear at almost any any level of selectivity (short of 100% admission) and rigor; I don’t think this is limited at all to high-rigor schools. For example,
- At a high-selectivity high-rigor school, scores might help to demonstrate readiness for a specific high rigor curriculum, as people have been talking about.
- At a public school with a simple application that doesn’t include essays and other holistic material (I’m looking at you, CSUs…
), scores might add a data point that would help to distinguish otherwise similar applications, or might help the school identify candidates to invite to apply for honors programs or merit scholarships.
The problem is simply that if you require scores, students who don’t have a score can’t apply, and you can’t recruit them or admit them. And some desirable students may also be deterred from applying because they think their scores are too low. These issues are going to depend on the group of students you want to admit. How likely is it that students in this particular group would be lacking scores (or have lower scores)? How important is it for your admission process to be sure not to exclude any of these students because they lack scores (or have lower scores)?
So it’s really just, for schools A, B, C, D… do the benefits of requiring scores outweigh the problems of requiring scores?
It would seem to me that the answer depends on a lot more things than just rigor or selectivity.
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Not entirely. In the case of Wesleyan University, it is because its website includes separate test ranges for accepted students and enrolled students and people get the two mixed up.
My take is that some colleges are trying to increase the pool of applicants and believe that they can still make a good decision on non-test submitters based on other factors. They believe that they can pick up desirable students that are deterred from applying to academic peers because of test requirements. Other schools feel that scores are a useful data point and may be less concerned about the gross number of applicants.
with the benefit of increased application revenues, lower admit rates, and potentially greater claims of exclusivity and higher rankings.
That doesn’t mean its correct.
If I was the Dean of Cal Engineering, I would appreciate seeing math scores of 650+. That said, the powers that be made the decision for me.
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“Anyway, I am just noting this because I get the feeling Brown and others are sometimes a bit frustrated by this. They really do not want kids to get the idea an open curriculum is for students who are unusually weak (for top students) in some core area. They want the same sort of solid strength across the board so those students can make the best use of their open curriculums as they see it.”
I can’t speak for the entire university, but speaking as a long time alumna interviewer- the U was not frustrated at ALL by this. It’s a handy screener (screening out the kids who think that not taking math junior and senior year won’t matter at Brown; screening out the kids who walk into an interview declaring “I hate reading books and can’t wait to get to Brown so I never need to take another literature course again”.
Not a frustration. It’s quite helpful. Why waste resources on a kid who does not understand what the open curriculum is and is not?
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With the low admit rate in UCB COE they may very well be admitting many students that already have scores in AP Calc, IB exams, or strong grades in challenging math classes at a high school that is a known quantity to admissions. I would guess that relatively few of these particular admitted students lack any verifiable math credential. But that is just my guess!
I wonder more about the CSUs that admit based on a formula.
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I know of so many 800 math students who feel they are below average at Cal COE. Its probably a safe assumption that not many in the “below 650 level” are getting admitted, and if they do end up there there are unlikely to withstand the weeders and the brutal upper divs all the way to graduation.
But how many do you think were admitted without any verifiable math credential, such as a high score in an AP calc exam, or strong performance at a known rigorous HS? That’s my question. I think sometimes posters forget that students can submit AP scores on their UC app… so UCs are not completely test free.
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I am saying not many are likely getting in from the “below 650 group” and if we could survey SAT scores the # is likely to be 700+ just based on graudation rates and average GPAs within the COE majors. Everyone feels like ■■■■ in these classes even if they end up getting an A at the end.
CPSLO’s formula has bonus points for courses completed beyond the CSU minimum, with by far the most bonus points for advanced math (precalculus and calculus).
SJSU adds math GPA points to their basic formula for admission to engineering majors.
CPP also has an unspecified bonus relating to math course work for admission to engineering majors.
However, non-impacted CSUs appear to depend on students self-selecting in terms of math skill with respect to engineering majors. With sufficient capacity, they basically take the view that “you are welcome to try, although it is hard enough that not everyone completes” (although the same thing applies with respect to less selective colleges in general).
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There may be some whose highest math credential is an A in algebra 2 and enrollment in precalculus in 12th grade. since the UCB engineering major schedule templates start with Math 1A (first semester single variable calculus), although students with AP credit may start in a more advanced course.
I wonder how many are starting in 1A and are not repeating calculus. Anecdotally my kid does not know anyone in COE who started in 1A but he may just not have met any.
I think the templates are probably required to start with 1A instead of assuming students have more background than that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean many COE students do start there. I just don’t know.
Enrollment numbers in 1A don’t say much about that, since lots of other majors and programs require it.