I didn’t go back to confirm this just now, but I believe I read when looking at the study a few days ago that a college receives, from College Board AFTER the conclusion of the admission season, the scores for everyone who applied (even if they didn’t submit).
ETA: Entirely likely I’m not remembering all the details of what I saw - could have been a composite group score reporting related to CB Landscape rather than individual data.
Begs the question. Why would they be allowed to share data of those who purposefully chose not to submit? That doesn’t seem right and seems to violate privacy.
CB can’t give individual student scores to colleges unless the applicant gives permission. This is supported by the behaviors of the test optional schools that require official test scores from all matriculants, even if they applied TO…the student has to send those, the school can’t get them directly from CB (or ACT).
This is what we know from the report Dartmouth released, but there are still questions. People far above my pay grade and level of influence have requested some missing bits of info/data…it’s not clear to anyone how D got test scores for non-admitted students who applied test optional. Maybe some HS six/seven semester transcripts sent with the application had test scores on them, but that is uncommon. And of course D wouldn’t have a final eight semester transcript from a non-admitted applicant.
From the report, we know D has test scores from a set of students who applied with tests, and then later contacted D and asked to NOT have their scores considered.
From page 6:
Figure 6 reinforces this conclusion, drawing on a specialized subsample of applicants in the
test-optional cohorts who initially submitted scores but then asked Admissions not to consider
them in the admissions decision.6
We don’t know how large that sample is… Here’s figure 6.
Do colleges/universities have access to PSAT scores?
Colleges do not have access to PSAT scores.
They can infer they are good for students who have any type of National Merit award.
Colleges can buy data based on PSAT scores. I used to recruit NM Scholars at U of Houston and we could target communication to students above certain indexes by state. Those cutoffs represented historical cutoffs for NMSF.
This has changed, though, with the misguided lawsuits against the College Board. You can’t buy names anymore.
Have people considered that the SAT is too easy and just not granular enough at the top end to be used effectively at the most competitive colleges?
I understand the College Board repeatedly offered to improve the rigor of the test but colleges objected.
That may be true. They may not truly believe.
There have been a couple tests created that show how the 750-800 crowd ranges significantly from well prepped and slightly above average to the smartest people you will ever know in your life. Essentially, there is a 200-800 within those 50 points.
The current compression gives colleges a lot of cover for their discretion in “forming a class”.
But if a college’s mission isn’t actually to admit the academically best and brightest and are only concerned with “good enough” would they care to have that degree of granularity?
I would agree, but that does not seem inline with what some people are implying regarding stem and top tier schools.
No. The mission of any public college is to educate any person in the state who is able to receive that education. The kid who has a 4.0 and an SAT of 1600 is no more worthy of getting an education in a state school than a kid with a 3.5 and an SAT of 1300. Both are state residents and both have parents who pay their state taxes.
States usually decide that certain colleges are for the kids who are academically more accomplished. That college, usually the flagship, is there to teach the academically most accomplished students of the state. That is only a part of what they do, and not the majority either.
Other state colleges have the purpose to teach a wider range of academic achievement.
There are hundreds of colleges out there, and the great majority of them accept the majority of students who apply. Around 80% of all four year accredited non-profit colleges accept more than 50% of their applicants. Almost half accept more than 70% of their applicants.
These are not looking for “best and brightest”. They are looking for “any student who wants to attend college and has the basic capability to do so”. These are also the vast majority of colleges in the USA.
People are so focussed here on the 11% of colleges with admission rates of below 30% that they lose sight of the fact that these are only a very small proportion of the colleges in the USA.
From my own experience as a student years ago and those of my kids, I’ve seen so many kids who contribute to making college a great experience for everyone in the 1200 range than the 1500 SAT range. I’ve worked with brilliantly creative people who likely would self-destruct when taking an SAT.
“The decision comes after officials found that the scores were the single best predictor of students’ academic performance and that not considering them could be a disadvantage for those who have already faced daunting challenges”
Not only that, but test scores predicted students’ grades at Yale better than anything else on their applications, school officials said.
“First, we found that test scores have continued to predict academic performance in Yale College. Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed.”
Rereading the thread with this in mind could be a fun exercise.
Proud of MIT for being the first of its peers to do the right thing.
Finally wading into this with a little personal experience. For us the SAT and ACT may be the only way to show a school that he can do the work.
We go to a very small school in Appalachia. I had no idea how much this would negatively affect him until we started the application process. Many of the issues wouldn’t necessarily show up on a school report. For example, our school requires taking chemistry before you are allowed to take AP chem. Same for other AP classes. This means he lost 3 chances to take more advanced sciences as he has duplicates of the same courses. We have a very limited AP selection as well, some are offered every other year or more. We did DE to fill some gaps, but sadly learned that despite making 100’s in all these classes, they showed up as 95’s on the transcripts since this college has eliminated the A+. Not to mention the lack of college prep and access to clubs, etc. Given all this, I find it even more impressive that he made a perfect act and near perfect sat on his first try.
Schools say they take all this into account, but I don’t know if they really can. For us, I hoped the sat/act would be a way to show schools that he is competitive with peers from better schools.
Just our 2 cents on this issue.
