I am not taking a side. My son is a sophomore and a strong test taker. I am on his side.
Professionally, I have known, personally, the leadership of college board, ETS, ACT, Princeton Review, and Kaplan - and respect their opnions. I have led and viewed (and no longer have access to) 20+ years of proprietary, unpublished data seeing more than 45 thousand inputs and outputs from hundreds of high schools in all 50 states from cities/towns with varied income levels.
Now I support students differently - and help others sometimes through the college process for fun (rich ones and poor ones), and write here for fun, too.
Again, my son is a sophomore and I am on his team.
it is true that all facets of a given studentâs app favors the affluent, starting with good K-12 education.
I just want to note that family responsibilities are an EC (which should be listed in the Activities section), and a good one valued by many institutions.
There must surely be some social justice considerations at work in the move toward TO. However, I see some other effects and, I hope, motivations.
Doing well on the SAT is a product of a certain kind of intelligence focussed on problem-solving, gaming, strategizing, and, in a word, test-taking. Some of this can be taught, some of it comes naturally, but itâs not the whole of the human potential that makes for every sort of higher education. No doubt itâs especially suited for revealing the qualities of a successful STEM student, which is probably why MIT went back to it. And it may be a good reason why someone applying with STEM interests to a TO school should nevertheless submit SAT scores. But my point would be that itâs a big educational universe out there - STEM isnât the whole of it.
Inevitably high SAT scores will be privileged in any school that requires them - theyâre just too handy a measure of educability. I suggest that the TO schools must also be looking for other kinds of students, possibly even the sort that struggle with math but do very well in the arts or have particular passions that arenât so easily measurable in a one-size-fits-all test. A school offering TO tells them that thereâs a place for them at the school. Such students need to show compensatory qualities, of course, and that, one hopes, is what a fine-grained Admissions Office will be alert to discover in a holistic review of their apps.
It would be illuminating to hear what AOâs inside the belly of the beast have to say about how they administer TO admissions regimes.
Totally agree with this. Anecdotal for sure, but I did absolutely horrible on my SAT, but I graduated in the top 15% of my HS back in the early nineties. When I say horrible, I mean horrible. I graduated with a 3.54 with a BS in Chemical Engineering from a flagship state university known for its excellent engineering school. Later, when I applied to MBA programs, I received a near perfect score on my GMAT. I cannot account for why I didnât do well on my SAT (taken multiple times by the way) and suddenly I figure it out for my GMAT, but likely maturity had the most to do with it. Some kids are horrible test takers but actually are quite bright/smart, and figure it out later. Iâm in this category, and I have done quite well for myself. Again, an anecdote.
I personally feel schools should go back to test mandates.
To me this is the one of the weaknesses of the Times analysis. If you are going to gauge the efficacy of standardized tests in predicting student success why focus on schools where nearly every student succeeds? Whether some kids get "B"s at Harvard instead of "A"s isnât that compelling a story. And, as Iâve said before, it isnât as if prior to TO, they werenât already admitting some students with lower test scores (including recruited athletes) and those kids seem to graduate. Iâm not anti-test and have a very high testing child but what is it that they are trying to prove. If they want to use testing to cut down on the number of apps just come out and say it instead of trying to pretend its about making sure kids can cut it - at most of these schools the toughest part is getting in, not succeeding once they are there.
Many schools are sticking with TO because it allows them to get apps from students that meet institutional priorities. Data show that requiring test scores results in fewer of these types of students even applying.
There are other ways to cut down the number of apps, if thatâs a schoolâs goal (havenât heard any school say that is a goalâŠalthough I guess I would say Yale has implied it in their podcast).
I know kids that didnât do well at all in the SAT and went on to American University, Cornell, NYU, and UPENN. They all are thriving with great grades and internships. I had horrible SAT scores but still managed to graduate as salutatorian of my 800 student high school, get accepted with partial scholarship to Columbia, graduate college with a 4.0 average and land a big 6 at the time public accounting job. Some people just donât do well on standardized tests. I honestly do not believe it is indicative of the success they will have in college. This is just my opinion.
I would go further, @Thorsmom66 , and offer the heretical thought that getting topmost grades in college isnât a sure-fire measure of how successful a college career has been. And that goes for intellectually ambitious students as well as those whose focus lies elsewhere. I well remember a recent discussion with a prof at an ivy-plus school who said that his best students were not the ones who asked him, âWhat do I need to do to get an A in this course?â but the ones who asked, âWhat does this point you were making today mean in relation to ______?â The latter were the students whose interests in the subject matter itself were uppermost and who had exploratory minds, not regurgitative ones. They too hoped to make good grades, but that was a secondary consideration, and no doubt they were less efficient in achieving that secondary result. For similar reasons I highly suspect that the high SAT test-takers map more precisely on those very bright kids who happen to be laser-like focussed on secondary results. In all schools at all levels there are those who relish climbing the greasy pole of academic success and those who are put off by that particular sport.
Having seen S22 venture through 3 semesters of college, I will say he has not taken a test that includes a multiple choice question.
What I have seen are multiple papers needing thought and process to complete. Was he prepared for college in this sense? Maybe, sort of. Even at a rigorous private school, 3-5 page written papers are not the norm for any class other than English.
And maybe this is Caltechâs approach. They are test blind similar to UC, not even TO. It would be interesting to know their approach versus MIT thatâs test required.
Caltech (from what I understand) is looking for math ability well in excess of what is demonstrated through the SAT. The SAT is entirely insufficient to measure the type of aptitude they are looking for so they donât bother with it. The universe of potential applicants to a place like Caltech is pretty self selecting - a kid who couldnât ace the math SAT isnât even going to look there.
Success in much of the real world has a lot to do with personal characteristics that donât have a lot to do with where you went to school let alone what your gpa was. A high college gpa is most helpful to those students looking to continue their studies - grad school, med school, law school etc. It is also a necessary condition to get internships at certain very desirable companies and in some industries like IB (and attending an elite school is often somewhat of a prerequisite). As to high SAT test takers, I donât think it is fair to label them as results focused - to be frank, my son didnât find the SAT particularly challenging and didnât spend a lot of time prepping for it.
Their decision to go the REA route a couple years ago seems to indicate there is indeed quite an overlap. It is essentially a policy change that specifically targeted MIT cross-applicants.
I wouldnât read that much into their decision to forego the tests.
I think it has more to do with state politics than it does with hard data.
And I am saying this as a someone who was even more proud of his kidâs Caltech admission than the MIT one just a few years ago (even though MIT was a clear top choice, Caltech seemed to have the most meritocratic admissions then), but who is happy his younger brother didnât have to apply there in RD this year.
It means they get relatively more apps from low income, first gen and/or URMs when they are test optional. Those types of students are institutional priorities for many selective schools.
Anecdotally, that 3.9 kid from Wyoming with the 1350 â who happens to be a world-class oboe player â would not dare to apply to Ivies+ if she had to submit the 1350.
TO, she is not as intimidated and is, thus, more likely to take application risks. Some of the schools need her because she fills a specific hole in the class, but they never would have had the chance to admit her if they werenât TO.
Aside from artistic and athletic needs, most schools also value different types of diversity. TO brings in apps from a wider range of students, allowing the school to build more demographic diversity. And it accomplishes that without having to show a lower 25/75 test score range and damaging (in the minds of some) the selectivity reputation of the school.
I would think that much like athletes, world class oboe players know that they are gaining admittance, primarily on their athletic or oboe playing prowess and not necessarily on their academics. I always thought that athletes and world class musicians go through tryout or auditions that academically inclined students do not.
I am genuinely curious about why other outreach efforts couldnât replace this. The single most interesting statistic to me in the article was the very impressive diversity statistics at MIT the year after they resumed requiring the SAT.
