I think that is exactly what these schools are getting at, and what MIT said last year.
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âHowever, we have further found a statistically significant difference in average GPA between those who applied with and without test scores.â
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This thread not as active today as I thought it would be.
All the action is here: Dartmouth and Yale to Require Standardized Testing for Admissions - #605 by NiceUnparticularMan
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For submitting APs, Yaleâs policy states:
Applicants reporting results from AP or IB exams should include scores from all subject exams completed prior to applying. There is no minimum number of subject-based exam scores required.
Does âshouldâ mean âmust,â as in, all AP scores are required, or does âshouldâ mean something more like recommended? It seems to me that the answer would be the latter, though the choice of language is disappointingly vague and ambiguous. Or, would âshouldâ mean âmustâ when contrasted with the use of âmayâ in the following sentence about superscoring. What do you all think?
I think it is a polite way of saying âmust.â
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If thatâs the case, then in my opinion, politeness at the expense of clarity was the wrong choice.
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Kinda like âoptional supplemental essayâ
@evergreen5 in the days of SATs subject test, schools tended to adopt the term âtest recommended.â
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Right.
I can already imagine there is some junior hoping to apply to Yale with AP scores rather than SAT/ACT, but not wanting to submit some 2 they got freshman year or something. And theyâre going to come here asking if they submit the 2 because Yale says they âshouldâ although no one here at CC would advise submitting a 2 unless all AP scores are explicitly required in order to apply via AP scores under the policy. What do we tell them? It still seems sufficiently vague and ambiguous that they could reasonably withhold the 2, even though it would later show up on an official score report upon matriculation. Does anyone disagree? Sorry, Iâm just irked by the lack of foresight in the chosen language, unless I missed a clarification somewhere in the website.
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Does the College Board allow for the selective reporting of AP scores or is it an all or nothing affair?
Itâs all or nothing for an official score report. However, my understanding is that for admission, Yale is accepting scores self-reported in the application, which obviously allows for personal choice.
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This is why âjust take the darn SATâ is my position 
I encouraged D25 to get ahead of the digital test because its the devil you know and so do the AOs.
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Yale says they should submit it. If they apply to Yale and submit other AP scores, but not that 2, they are doing something they should not do, per Yale.
This was usually interpreted as being required for applicants in relatively advantaged circumstances, but that they may give applicants from disadvantaged circumstances some slack on omitting them, since there may have been little awareness of them in high schools where students rarely apply to colleges that wanted them.
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You donât think the rationale applies?
Yaleâs new policy seems to be a different angle in being somewhat ambiguous about whether score choice is acceptable for AP or IB scores if the applicant chooses to use AP or IB scores. Presumably, when an applicant chooses to use AP or IB scores, they are not in a âdid not know they existedâ situation.
I am an idealist and wish universities can look at a students body of work in high school, including extracurriculars etc⊠An SAT is very narrow. And the SAT is not a great measure for many disciplines we need in our society.
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More to a point so is the college, unless an AP was self-studied, since the AP or IB class is on the transcript. Unless you explain why it was not possible to take the test, the college can infer you have chosen to not report the score.
I am having trouble keeping up with the posts on both of these threads today.
I think the assumption that one has taken an AP exam for every AP course they have taken is problematic these days, as AP courses are more numerous than ever and more expensive than ever ($94/test).
I will observe that not five seconds ago, it was often said that the AP course grade is far more important than the exam score. And likely still is, though perhaps the exam score has greater importance than believed in recent years.
I suppose that whatever is required or recommended, ultimately that the policy needs to be clear to applicants.
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In the wake of a petition to President Thomas Rosenbaum signed by more than 140 faculty members, the Institute has moved to form a committee for evaluating current admissions standards as predictors of success at Caltech.
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