If there is more “competition” perhaps it is because TO means schools are casting a wider net and getting a higher number of qualified applicants. That’s the big plus of going test optional/test blind. Students don’t self-select out of applying to a school X just because their test score is 20 points lower than whatever cutoff they previously imagined was relevant.
In other words, many schools don’t care as much about these test scores as some families insist they should, and getting a larger number of qualified applicants better serves the school’s institutional goals.
That’s basically what I said. Students who historically wouldn’t have applied when scores were required can now apply and it’s increasing the competition. My point was and remains that in an era where 4.0s are ubiquitous, identifying the qualified from the unqualified is harder. And with the emergence of AI to write essays, it will get harder still. But that debate is the whole point of this thread, so I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said repeatedly.
The point that hit home to me is that going test-optional opens the doors for kids who may not have otherwise applied to some schools to apply. More competition means kids focused on the “heavy hitters” may have to open their minds a bit and look into the many other great schools.
At most of the most selective schools, “qualified” is a much larger pool of applicants than those who can be admitted. With a few exceptions (like test-blind Caltech and test-required MIT), there probably are not too many 4.0 HS GPA students who are “unqualified” (as in high likelihood of academically failing out), regardless of SAT score (or SAT score they would have gotten). Indeed, for many of the most selective schools, a large “qualified” pool means that they can hide the hooked admits more effectively.
4.0 grades aren’t exactly ubiquitous, especially if we move below that the tippy top schools. But, more importantly, colleges don’t just consider grades, and even with grades, they aren’t in a vacuum. The schools have rigor, high school reports, location, zip code, class rank, AP scores, activities, honors, etc. So colleges can draw distinctions between students without the test scores, and those distinctions are more meaningful than they are as, say, between a student who scored 1460 and a student who scored 1440. And both those students apply, which is a large part of the value to the colleges.
Colleges are more sophisticated with admissions that parents want to admit, and their educational missions different than parents want to believe. And there is zero support for the notion that they are letting in hordes of students who are academically unqualified, as compared to pre TO.
So why do parents think they should be able to dictate to colleges how colleges choose their classes?
I think HS GPAs of 4.0s are very common and grade inflation is well documented (and articles on the subject back this up). These students are not just applying to tippy-top colleges, but to a range of schools. Of course many are indeed well qualified and as you note, transcripts and high school profiles provide a lot of information. Furthermore, I’m well aware that at any given college, there are a range of “qualified” students and the less-qualified don’t necessarily fail out (they may change major); the more qualified have access to different opportunities because they stand out. I’ve said it multiple times and I’ll say it again: I’m not arguing that SATs are dispositive or that they should be the only consideration when it comes to admission.
I have no doubt that AOs are sophisticated and know what they’re looking for to further the mission of their university. I didn’t say that they are letting in “hordes of students who are academically unqualified.” Again, I don’t want to defend a position I don’t hold because someone is trying to force me into a binary pro or con position.
I said waaaay up thread that I think much of this debate comes down to a lack of agreement regarding what the mission of college (generally) is. Social mobility (imo) is a byproduct of a good education, not the mission itself. That may sound like hairsplitting, but it’s what I believe. I think colleges should focus on educating students in their chose area of study and provide a foundation for the future by teaching critical thinking—tools that will come into play when those students graduate and are working.
Finally, I don’t think this issue rests on the 1440 or 1460. I completely agree that hairsplitting at that level is silly. And I’ve never said otherwise.
I see you feel strongly about this, but I’m not making a radical claim about the value of testing. I’m talking about it in the context of grade inflation, data and other things I’ve read (and I’ve read extensively). My view is nuanced and balanced. You can re-read my posts and see that (or not), but don’t lump me in with parents who want to dictate how colleges choose their classes.
Why shouldn’t colleges (or at least private colleges) get to decide their own educational missions and how to best fulfill them?
As far as social mobility goes I’m not sure I follow. But when a college works with Questbridge, for example, to place a highly qualified kid from a challenging background at a top college, I see this as benefitting the college, the student, and the other students, regardless of whether that kid submitted scores. Do we agree on that?
Yes, I support Questbridge and similar programs. There is nothing contradictory in my position. As a first generation college student, a Pell Grant recipient, and an undistinguished HS student (in both grades and scores), I have a full appreciation for the value of higher education and how it has improved my life outcome. I also know that my middling HS grades and SAT scores accurately indicated that I wasn’t college ready and I was lucky that one of the public universities in my home state took a chance on me (on a probationary basis) and that I was able to improve my study skills, get my grades up, get into the honors program, and transfer. I believe students should have a chance to improve their lot, but I also know, first hand, that being in over your head academically doesn’t serve anyone. Had I started at BU (where I ultimately graduated), I would have been crushed by students who were much better prepared.
As I said, I don’t think tests are the most important variable, but I think they reveal some important information—particularly given grade inflation—about a student’s readiness.
Thanks for the thoughtful answers. I’m just trying to get a handle on what it is that makes people (not necessarily you) feel like they ought to be able to dictate this stuff to the colleges, whether it be qualifications or even the actual missions.
I understand that people have differing viewpoints on what colleges ought to do, and am happy that in our system there are lots of options. But that doesn’t seem to be good enough for many. They seem think they should be able to dictate to colleges what a college must value, and lo and behold it always seems lines up with what they think their kids do well.
I was curious about application changes so I compared applications at the 1200 US 4-year colleges that are not open admissions and get 1000+ applications, between the years 2019 and 2022. The overall median was a 8% increase in applications. As one might expect, highly selective colleges tended to see larger increases than less selective colleges. Among <20% admit rate colleges, the median was 19% increase in applications. It didn’t strictly follow newly test optional, but there was a correlation. The 2 colleges with the highest 2019 score range were also the 2 highly selective colleges with the largest application increase.
Among highly selective colleges, the largest increases in applications were:
Caltech – 98% increase (with 2.7% admit rate, lowest admit rate college in 2022)
MIT – 58% increase
Williams – 58% increase
Tufts – 53% increase
Berkeley – 46% increase (40k more applications is larger increase than any other college)
Among highly selective colleges, the largest decreases in applications were:
Tulane – 25% decrease (11k fewer applications is 2nd largest decrease, after Liberty)
Julliard – 23% decrease
Pitzer – 21% decrease
Navy – 21% decrease
Air Force – 19% decrease
What would be interesting to know is if TO policies resulted in more applications from a wider range of schools or was the effect mainly to increase applications from schools that already had a lot of kids applying. Looking at our SCOIR, there hasn’t been much of a change. For most elite schools between 10-20 kids apply in a given year - and that is to the more regional elites - Princeton & Penn, for example, get very few applicants (fewer than 5 per year) - that isn’t a change from before TO. Maybe if you go a tier down that might not be the case.
Here’s a sampling of Midwest universities with top 50 engineering programs that I pulled a few months ago. Okay, so Cornell isn’t Midwest but I wanted an Ivy benchmark. Source is IPEDS. There is only one COVID TO year, but you can see the spike for some of the colleges. I think it supports the idea that students with strong GPAs and lower test scores are rolling the dice on getting admitted to colleges that would otherwise deny them.
I can see that applications to desirable programs have increased since TO - I don’t think that his ever been up for debate. I’m more curious about whether that is a result of kids from more (and different) schools applying or an increase from existing “feeders”. As I mentioned above, the number of kids applying to selective schools from our HS in MA has stayed pretty steady with the same number of kids applying pre-TO and today. If schools like ours haven’t really increased applications to these schools where is the growth coming from?
Building on your points, I think the bigger idea for me is whether TO has lead to an increase of unqualified candidates being accepted. I haven’t seen any indications that is happening, just diffuse panic that it might be happening…to the detriment of those who “really deserve to be there”.
As I quoted Jon Bockenstedt saying when his school went TO, “Test Optional doesn’t mean Achievement Optional”. Bockenstedt’s college did see an increase of weak applications in the 1st year of the switch, denied those applications and their system righted itself once students and high schools realized weak application weren’t being accepted.
They also received, and continue to receive, applications in TO from students who were accepted and went on to graduate college at substantially similar rates as test submitting students whose admission may not have happened if test scores were considered. Basically, by going TO the admissions office was able to find those “Diamonds in the Rough” students so many on this thread have said should get a chance to go to a good school.
By shifting the attention away from test scores, you also encourage kids to fully engage in their high school extracurriculars and become more well-rounded. Once someone goes into the workforce, no one cares about your test score or even your GPA. Also, a student at 23 is much different than a student at 18-19. There is a lot of intellectual maturing that occurs. SAT’s are a measure at the point in time. To try to correlate with university success later is a fool’s game as there are a million variables at play. And what really is university success?
We are in the process of analyzing the impact of TO on student outcomes for students entering in Fall 2021 & 2022. About 30% of enrolled students were test optional those two years. I can’t go into the details, but the short version is overall retention and first year college grades have not declined. Lacking test scores, the university has become much more strict on HS GPA and rigor of high school courses.
But success is an abstract? Is it not? Success needs to be measured from the students perspective. It has been over 30 years since I graduated and classmates of mine who killed themselves to get those A’s university wish they could go back and experience more of what a university is all about.
This is exactly what I was thinking…Like when someone called a 3.8 student a “slacker.” We are living in the CC bubble and none of this is really normal when a broader cross section of the US high school population is considered. A 4.0* is very much still the exception among “normal” high school students.
Is that really true, though? How much time do kids actually put into test prep - my son spent a modest amount of time (a few hours total) preparing for the SAT over the summer. No class, tutor etc. Do most kids spend so much time dedicated to testing that it impacts other aspect of their HS experience? I’m not advocating for testing, but I have a hard time imagining kids who spend so much time prepping that they don’t have time for anything else.
