All the Ivies plus Northwestern, Stanford, Duke, etc. already announced that they will be TO this fall, some of them just yesterday. Heck even Georgetown will be test-flexible this fall (for Georgetown, applicants don’t have to take a test, but as usual for them, all scores are required to be reported).
@Mwfan1921 – I’m sure College Board and ACT have the numbers on how many have a test score and likely have shared it with colleges. I think outside of CC world you’d be surprised how few have a score at all, but I do think many more will get scores in Sept through Oct.
I think the big issue is that too many students are disengaging with education – between this Spring’s remote learning, reduced family income, etc., college is unfort. receding as an option. For example, FAFSA applications are way down nationwide.
For top colleges, going TO may help bring some of these students back to the table. For less selective colleges, TO is a lifeline to get students, period.
I do wonder if for selective colleges, they will ‘expect’ that students from certain zip codes are likely to have taken one or more tests and therefore are more likely to want to see it. This is not good news for my S who didn’t test in the Fall of junior year, but oh well…
My guess is that the number without any score at all is relatively small for kids applying to selective schools. The majority of kids who had not taken it at all are probably targeting schools where their score wouldn’t matter much anyway. Not 100% certainly, but the majority. Most of the kids I know personally without any score at all are headed to the locad directional, and unless they scored unrealistically high to qualify for automatic merit there is no real reason they will ever need a score now. Those are the kids who planned on being one and done with the state mandated test.
I think D21 is pretty typical of students shooting for top schools. She took it once early without prepping adequately, hoping that she would get a good score. Then she was planning on hunkering down and doing the work to fix it when hope wasn’t enough.
I know there are exceptions, but I doubt many kids applying to Williams or Amherst don’t have a score at all. But they may not have one that fairly represents what they are capable of.
Exactly. My guess is that a good chunk of kids have scores, but a large portion of those may not have reached their highest potential score yet, as a matter of timing. Many kids score higher the later they take the test (per Compass Prep).
For some kids, there may be several reasons their GPA doesn’t entirely reflect their potential either. There are plenty of splitters out there with lower gpa and potential for a high score, where the score will be a huge determining factor in admission possibilities. (No clue what happens with these applicants in TO scenario, though clearly they’d be hampered in a test-blind scenario. As an aside, I think this group is a major concern ignored in the trending fervor to completely dump testing.)
“I know there are exceptions, but I doubt many kids applying to Williams or Amherst don’t have a score at all. But they may not have one that fairly represents what they are capable of.”
Exactly. So this takes us back to the original question – in this situation should that student submit this score now that a college is TO?
Of course, this same student may well be able to retake in the next few months and get a better score, but suffice to say they won’t have as many retake possibilities as previous admissions cycles so, in aggregate, we should expect to see lower scores, right? But from an individual student’s perspective they don’t know this, so they may well decide not to submit a score. . . meaning submitted scores will remain high b/c only students with high scores submit. Maybe that’s exactly what top colleges want b/c it keeps their score ranges high?
Anyway, it is what is and I’m not going to sweat it too much b/c my kid is not Ivy bound. But I will say that I think the colleges that went TO first are the ones that my gut tells me are truly less motivated by test scores and were already re-thinking role of tests in their admissions process. For the others who recently joined the TO party, my guess is if a student doesn’t have any hooks and don’t submit a score, they are at a sizable disadvantage. Just my two cents.
Imagine there fictitious twins applying to colleges. All of their classes, grades, and ECs are the same, but twin 1 has a solid test score and twin 2 was sick that day.
Twin 1 has an advantage because their application has one more positive detail. There is no way around this at a TO school. The question is how big of an advantage is the test score.
“I know there are exceptions, but I doubt many kids applying to Williams or Amherst don’t have a score at all. But they may not have one that fairly represents what they are capable of.”
Maybe our family is atypical, but our strategy was to take the standardized tests late spring Junior as a baseline, prep hard over the summer and retake in Sept with an opportunity to retake in Nov if necessary. Both kids were athletic recruits and the coaches for their unofficial prereads prior to summer before senior year were fine with transcripts and PSAT scores. Our view was scores tended to go up with age, summer would be a great time to prep and we felt 2 scores were optimal when a lot of schools in those admissions cycles wanted to see all scores. That strategy would have backfired in this environment.
The Webinar on the changing landscape at highly selective colleges wasn’t that helpful because no one knows how all the newly TO schools will handle this. Here’s a summary:
Normally, schools look first at grades/rigor and scores, those that pass that get to the next level review, where they look at everything else (and for the highly selective schools, they’re looking for ECs that show both initiative and impact, ie, independent research project that student then follows up with publication).
For a student who applies without scores, every other piece will be counted more (they said do send a score that’s within the school’s range).
Given Princeton’s move on SCEA, they expect to see other schools following/changing app deadlines, maybe changes to ED.
They did not think high scoring students would be disadvantaged by TO. Having a high score will still help you (except at test blind schools). This is especially true at schools that prioritize high scores: NU, Vandebilt, WashU. These are also schools where you get a big ED bump.
Re, the other topic on how many kids haven’t had a chance to test, our kids go to a high performing private school. Most kids tested fall or winter of junior year. One of ours got in one SAT and one ACT. The other got in one SAT. We know some kids who got in 2 of each test. We also know of a handful of very high performing kids who, for whatever reason, didn’t test yet.
But, from a small sampling of the public school population, many did not test yet. Though, the ones we know are not kids trying to go to highly selective colleges, who I believe know to test early to see if you need to retest. We have lots of kids signed up for the July ACT. The June ACT was cancelled everywhere here only a couple days before, so we don’t know if the July one will happen.
So, this goes back to why I believe the top privates have gone TO (not UCs, who were already considering it). One, I do think they are concerned about the underprivileged and/or underrepresented kids who may not typically test early. At this point, none of us knows if there will be more tests.
Two, not for the tippy tops, but below that, they know that lots of kids take these tests multiple times to get the high scores the schools like to report. There may be less of those scores this year, and I think they still want to admit these kids, especially who are full pay, who would otherwise be admissible but for the lower test scores (which they don’t want due to USNWR) due to lack of testing opportunities.
I may be cynical, but, to me, the whole situation points out what a money-making scam these tests are and that the colleges are complicit. I’m not saying there’s no value to the tests - with some schools giving everyone high As, how do you differentiate? - but if you know that kids are doing either self-prep or paid prep, and taking the tests multiple times just to get what you’re asking for, how much value is added to a student’s profile?
@havenoidea – thanks so much for reporting back. And I agree with all of your assessments – both the lay of the land around who’s tested so far and how it will impact admissions.
Said this b4, but I think selective colleges will give a bump to students who don’t submit a test score but have high GPAs from schools they often admit from b/c they will feel confident about their ability to be successful.
Thanks, again!
Yeah. I think there’s a difference between a student who studies on their own (or doesn’t study at all) and scores high in one sitting and a student who it tutored up and takes the test multiple times. BUT I’m not convinced that first student is “smarter” in a way that makes them positioned better to do well in college level courses. I know both of the tests well. The math is only up through trig and, even then, very few questions are trig. The writing section on both tests just requires learning a bunch of grammar and punctuation rules that either the kids learned in middle school or need to review. The reading sections require the kids to read really quickly and then the questions are written specifically to make them second guess themselves. How does doing well on these types of questions show the student is “college ready” for any particular school? Are these the kind of skills kids need to succeed in college? All it means when a kid can take these tests and nail it the first time without a tutor is that they are good at these types of tests.
S19 is an intuitive multiple choice taker and a strong math student. He reads fairly quickly with good comprehension. He could get every question correct on a practice ACT if he had ten extra minutes per section (we tried that and that’s what happened). When he had to speed up, his scores dropped. He did not want to learn the tricks to go faster for that test. Was all pissy that any college would think that’s required for him to be accepted. He liked the SAT marginally better because at least he had more time per question. Studied on his own, took it once and was done. So, this student, who couldn’t break 32 on the ACT, was able to study on his own and hit 1540 in one shot. He’s good at multiple choice - decisive, doesn’t overthink it.
D21 is likely a better student in the reading/writing category and, when taking extra time on the ACT in practice, would also hit 35-36 on reading and writing sections. She just could not pick up the pace and ended up with a 33 reading and a 32 writing after two real ACTs. She’s not as advanced in math as S19 who took BC math as a junior. She’s still in honors math, though, and will take AB Calc next year. Could get to 34 on the math section given a little extra time but couldn’t top 30 on the real test. She’s moved onto the SAT but all of her tests have been cancelled. She’s been studying on her own and seems she would top out at a 1450. She’s just won’t get near her brother’s score.
Have any of you ever watched a tutor work with kids on these tests? It’s rarely about content. It’s about how to crack the test, how to identify the tricks that are used to try to mess them up. Where in college or in the real world is that something that needs to be mastered?
This is a very long way to say that both of these kids are very strong students. They’ve taken many of the same classes at our high school and, since they are my kids, I can see their similarities and differences when it comes to how they work and study and perform at school. They are very very similar with the exception of S19’s math progression and D21’s love of writing. But look at their testing. I want to shout from the mountain tops that D21 would be successful at every school that S19 got accepted to…but she might not get in with a lower test score or no score for that matter. She would bring a ton of energy to a campus and she would likely do just as well in her classes as he has.
Clearly, I’m not a fan of these tests. If colleges didn’t have so many kids applying, they could take more time to understand an applicant’s GPA and where they stand in their class. They could take more time to understand each high school and what they offer. I blame the Common App. Kids apply to too many schools!
Everyone is going to have to make their own decisions about whether to send scores and whether to prep for fall tests. Some of this will become clearer as we see if July ACT and Aug SAT happen. Heck, I’m not convinced that Oct SAT can happen. If I’m wrong and those tests are go, then I guess it’s just another sucky thing happening for juniors who might now get one shot at a good score. I almost feel like colleges should ask the kids this year to describe their testing situation. Maybe ask for all tests? At least then, they could see the student who took a test in Dec and that ended up being their only shot. Or they could see the one test was in Oct of junior year. Some context. Or maybe not require all scores but at least be able to see the date they were taken. My understanding is that colleges do not see that info, just the score.
Yeah, I think if you look at Naviance and X selective school admits someone only every few years it’s going to be tougher with out scores, but if that selective school accepts 8-10 a year form your HS it’s a different story.
@homerdog My D and I attended a virtual Tulane session the other day and I was surprised to learn that the school knows if you send in multiple scores for a super score. I thought maybe someone in an admin capacity just forwarded the superscored score on to admissions. They made a point of mentioning a one time high score as being impressive (though, if you don’t have to send in all scores, how do they know that person didn’t take it before?).
Re, self-study vs paid tutor, I believe there’s a difference. Our experiment with S21 “self-studying” (he took a few practice SATs) vs our S18 and D 21 who took a popular private tutor course in our area, ended up with all 3 getting just about the same scores, but S18 and D21 started out way lower! S21 didn’t go up. (In fact, he went down on psat, where’s the other 2 went up quite a bit). From this, I surmise good paid tutoring is extremely beneficial and some kids are naturally better test takers. S21 is not “smarter” than the other 2 kids. They’re all so different, though.
I am hoping that ‘test optional’ really means ‘test optional’. My rising senior has already had 2 SAT registrations cancelled (March and June). She’s trying again in Sept, but who knows what will happen by then. I think there are many like her who have not had a chance yet. Her older sister did not take the test until March of jr year as well and ended up at a top 15 LAC. For those of us who do not live in the land of overprepping and retaking for “perfect scores”, Spring of junior year is right on schedule for a first SAT. Let’s hope that colleges understand that.
Add to all of this the disruption in prepping consistently while trying to navigate the end of a school year going online, test dates being pulled after a student has already done the big “test prep” push months before say the April or June tests, be it solo or tutored, having test dates pulled at the last minute, and finally taking the test at some point over the next 6 months (date still not assured) in a much less than ideal, anxiety boosting, Walking Dead environment requiring distancing, “masks” and the like, one ends up with a very inhospitable testing experience all around. Definitely not a set up for success. Certainly in the hot states and cities, Covid 19 has an enormous impact on the testing evironment and the psyche of students (and parents). And it’s not just having a test available on some outside date X in mid summer or fall that is a cure all or really a fair or viable alternative that will suddenly put students on parity with other test takers in years past. This is the wild wild west.
agree with ALL of that.
I did the same thing as your daughter. Took the SAT in October last year and was planning to retake it in May of this year. Although my score was good I’m applying to a couple of Ivy’s that I could’ve used the extra points for
I believe that test-optional means test-optional. Ivy League schools and others have said that test scores are not required, and they mean it.
In this environment, I do not see how any school can ask for scores for students seeking merit aid, either. But I would check.
This is about equal access. It’s the right thing to do. For some schools, it it temporary. Who knows but maybe some of them will continue along with the many other excellent schools that have been test-optional for a long time now.
I think colleges will lean on their regional admissions reps and enrollment management staff.
They know the schools in their territory and I am sure that there is some longitudinal data regarding demographics (which will not radically change). There will be data that tells them, that if students are accepted from high school “A’, what is the retention and graduation rate for those students.
I think that schools who have built relationships with colleges and have delivered students will have an easier time of assessing and advocating for their students.
This may also carry over to programs like Posse, QuestBridge and college access programs like SEO, TFI, bottom Line, College Map, etc.
I am in NYC and they had SAT school day on March 4 where the city paid for all public school juniors to take the SAT and for Sophomores to take the PSAT. Hopefully students will have a baseline. The PSAT scores can be used for College Now (seniors who participate junior and senior year will, be able to submit their college transcripts along with their HS transcripts).
I also think that the more selective schools will ask for a graded research paper along with comments. Students may have to write an abstract. Schools will also be able to look at writing and rigor,
That’s a great point. Schools can ask for additional things like a graded paper.