Test Optional Shifts

Every admissions cycle is unique, and the admissions landscape is constantly changing. Those who have followed this page for a while have read posts about test optional policies. Also, I’m assuming that most of you reading this are aware that quite a few uber selective schools are under fire from the government. These two factors are going to make for an extra interesting admissions cycle.

Judi Robinovitz of Score at the Top recently hosted a webinar about recent trends in admissions. Her graphics are great! Quite a few of the Ivies and Ivy Plus schools (as well as plenty of public universities) have gone back to requiring SAT or ACT scores for admission. For the extremely selective schools that have remained test optional, many experts are predicting that students who do submit scores this year will be accepted at a higher rate due to heightened scrutiny by the government. The prediction is that schools are going to want the data to support why certain students were admitted.

Another factor that is going to be very interesting to see is what happens to the mid-range SAT/ACT scores of students admitted. Due to test optional policies, the midrange scores have gotten very inflated since only students with the highest scores are submitting them. There is plenty of talk this cycle that students might want to consider submitting scores that are a bit below the midrange since the midrange might be going down a bit closer to pre-pandemic numbers this year.

To help navigate the increasingly gray area of test optional admissions, remember that you can refer to section C9 of the common data set for any school. You will see the percentage of students who submitted SAT and ACT scores as well as the middle 50% of scores. Keep in mind that some students submit both tests, so the percentages might be a bit misleading. It still gives a good idea.

There are some very selective schools with low test submission rates such as NYU (38%), Northeastern (31%), and Babson (25%). There are also some very selective schools with high test submission rates like Duke (78% ), University of Chicago (76%), and Northwestern (70%). The entire University of California system is test blind. People should not think that “good” schools require scores and “bad” schools don’t. Schools just view standardized tests in very different ways.

Finally, there are the public schools in Florida and Georgia that never went test optional. The scores required for admission continue to increase every year for these schools. I will describe these schools in more detail next week.