I’ve posted before about some of the schools my daughter’s classmates were accepted to test optional last year. Small Catholic school, 50 graduates in her class. Notre Dame, USC, Pomona, Boston U, Princeton, UCLA (test blind of course), and NYU. All white and asian upper to middle income kids (we live in the PNW in a low diversity area). Princeton was a recruited athlete, everyone else were just standard applicants. It’s not a plethora of ivies but these are excellent schools.
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UT Austin is a perfect example of a school with an entire curriculum designed for enrolled students who are ‘behind’ in terms of academics. Other schools might address the issue with summer starts and/or guaranteed transfer plans.
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But graduate doesn’t mean thrive. While it’s true that 25% of the students will by definition be in the bottom quartile of the class, I would discourage students from choosing a college where that’s likely, except for affordability reasons.
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How does one define thrive?
Quite a few of those schools have reported average GPAs in the 3.7-3.8 range for the entire school.
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One might question whether public funds are used effectively to provide remedial education at the university level which could have been provided at the high school level far more cheaply. There are disadvantages to having colleges in the remediation business.
It is not necessarily in anyone’s interest to have students enroll ( and often fail) at schools for which they are unprepared, usually at great cost. Most US students do not graduate despite enrollment, and it isn’t always due to financial issues. Poor performance plays a role too.
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The item that jumped out to me here was gpa losing its predictiveness and test scores now being more predictive than gpa due to inflated gpas being so common. I had read about test scores plus gpa being more predictive than gpa alone, but this is the first I read of test scores being more predictive than gpa. I wonder if that pattern holds when accounting for HHI and ethnicity.
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So, who benefits from test optional?
The article seems to point to upper middle class students (with less than competitive standardized test scores) attending prestigious high schools that have a track record among top tier college admissions offices for producing highly capable candidates.
These kids have parents capable of financing all the application related items (athletics, music, volunteering, tutors, essay “polishers,” college consultants, etc.) that pad applications, but sometimes no matter how much money you have, you can’t turn a 1300 SAT kid into a 1550 SAT kid.
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Yes - and do these kids then actually thrive at the school if they really are a 1300 SAT kid? Versus going to a school that may truly be a better fit.
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But how many unhooked kids with that background are actually getting accepted to highly selective (rejective) schools? I’d suggest not that many. I say this as a parent whose kid got a 1580 on the SAT (no tutor or prep class - just modest self study) so I’m not coming at the issue defensively. Before TO elite schools were already admitting some students (often athletes or donor kids) with SAT scores that are much lower than the norm (from our school a couple of athletes have been admitted to Brown with SAT scores in the 1200 range) - so far as I can tell these kids still graduate successfully.
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Honestly, since athletes and other “hooked” students seem to graduate with no problem from these schools (after, sometimes, coming in with lower grades/SATs than the norm) I doubt a 1300 kid will really struggle. Often the most difficult aspect of getting into a hyper competitive school is being admitted.
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Hmm, D22 and D24 were not told this at either of their very selective and wealthy private schools While my daughters did submit, both schools advised many of their classmates not to submit. I don’t know the exact cut off and I imagine it varied from student to student and depending where they were applying, but I think that in general kids with under about 1500 or so did not submit.
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It’s never been clear to me why they aren’t fair, and I disagree that they disadvantage the already disadvantaged. My friends who work in admissions, along with pretty much all data that has been reported along with articles, make clear that the schools (appropriately, in my point of view) allow disadvantaged kids to have significantly lower scores. In my book, allowing who they presume to be disadvantaged, to get scores that are approximately 200 points or more lower than kids they presume to be advantaged, already levels the playing field. So the beauty of the tests is that they allow the colleges to differentiate among the advantaged kids who might all have educated parents and access to various things, but still the kids who aren’t as bright will never get the same scores as the incredibly bright kids. And similarly in the schools where kids have fewer advantages, the scores allow the kids who are bright lights to stand out from their peers, even if their scores are still 200 points lower than those from elite schools, they can still say that Kid A is way stronger than Kid B. It all seems very fair to me . Getting rid of the tests seems horrible for those bright light kids who can no longer differentiate from their peers….
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I kind of disagree. To an extent, I’d say if anyone gets extra time, sure , let it be unlimited time for everyone. However, as an employer, I absolutely disagree that speed is irrelevant. There certainly is a connection between speed and some types of intelligence, and there a million percent is a connection between speed and who I want to hire to perform work! People who are bright and get things really quickly are the people I want to hire. People who can eventually figure things out after a tremendous amount of time are not the people I want to hire. I know, who you want to hire is not the same as who we want in the “academy” necessarily, but I think it’s silly to dismiss quickness as a very integral part of intelligence.
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That is not the same thing as being able to take a SAT/ACT test under time pressure.
I can’t help you beyond what I’ve already posted above. A google search will bring up plenty of studies and such.
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If, as the author says, there is a close correlation between SAT score and college “success”, that is more of an indictment of what is being taught in college than it is a validation of the SAT’s value. Why is a test of narrow, convergent thinking a predictor of college success when most real-world problems require divergent thinking?
IMO, TO may not be the best solution, but it is a step in the right direction, as it will facilitate progression away from the SAT. Perhaps the SAT could be paired with a test of creative thinking to get a better handle on the potential for a student. Or, as the author below suggests, a portfolio created over a period of time.
“Imagine if starting from the very first day of high school, all students started building a college portfolio that allowed them, on their own terms, to display what they are intellectually and creatively capable of achieving given time and opportunity?”
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LOL I don’t need your help. I’ve read a ton on this topic and feel incredibly well informed. Thanks!!
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Nearly 80%.of Harvard grades in 2020-2021 and Yale grades in 2022 were in the A range.
At those schools, you basically need to be 1 standard deviation below the mean on a grading curve to earn a B level grade or lower instead of As
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/yale-grade-inflation.html
Graduates at these 2 schools with transcripts full of Bs probably do very well compared to their counterparts from other institutions.
I don’t think there is any proof that needing extra time on this test is predictive value of not being able to process fast or normal for a work situation. I also don’t any employers that want to know what someone’s Sat score is. Usually they are evaluated by what they do in college like clubs /activities /internships /research.
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I agree this is an absolute shame, particularly to the rock star thinkers and performers among them. How awful to be at the cream of the crop, and yet not be able to demonstrate that through grades, when basically everyone is getting at least a B plus.
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