For at least a half century and much to the chagrin of students and parents alike, the college admissions game has witnessed a steady trend among applicants intent on maximizing their chances of acceptance to selective colleges: the increasing chunk of time, energy, and psychological space applicants need to devote to college entrance exams, the notorious SAT and ACT. Driven by an annually growing number of applicants who vie for roughly the same number of freshman spots, more students than ever find themselves having to devise strategies for which exam(s) to take and when based on many individual factors (both the SAT and ACT are offered nationally seven times a year, with some states offering an eighth of one or the other that doubles as their state’s official 11th-grade assessment test) and then to study and practice over a period of weeks, months, and, in a growing number of super-motivated students, even years. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, college entrance exams are a very big deal to millions of college bound students, and the more selective their list of colleges, the bigger the deal. So when three of the nationally scheduled SAT and one of the nationally scheduled ACT dates from March to June, as well as all the state-specific eighth exams scheduled through the end of this year, were cancelled in the name of public safety, a huge number of hard-working juniors’ carefully laid exam strategies and plans were horribly disrupted. The purpose of this post is to help those juniors and their parents think through their best Plan B in the year of COVID-19. There are many factors to consider, which I’ve tried to organize around questions many students and families have been asking.
Given the steadily growing number of colleges that have officially adopted some kind of “test optional”* policy over the last 12 years, and especially given that the number will grow by the largest single year margin for those applying for fall of 2021 admissions, will entrance exams still be as big a deal for this particular class?
If you’re a junior (or parent of a junior) who may have entertained the thought—perhaps because of the buzz in the news and social media about test optional colleges—that the one silver lining in the otherwise dark cloud blown in by the whole Coronacrisis is that you might get a free pass on the whole SAT/ACT grind if all the colleges on your list turn out to be test optional, I don’t blame you. You deserve a free pass given all the extra stress caused by concern about the most important final year grades on your transcript, all the cancelled sports and activities in which you expected to shine, new online AP exams, the four cancelled entrance exams, cancelled college visits and appointments with guidance counselors, and how all this is going to affect your college admissions prospects. But, alas, I’m genuinely sorry to say, it’s not so much a thought grounded in fact as it is wishful thinking.
There’s really only one very small fraction of college applicants who can completely forego prepping for and taking at least one entrance exam and still have a shot at getting into a competitive test-optional college: those who know (or have very good reason to believe) that even with their best effort over time, their scores would still very likely be a barrier to entry to a desired school if they were required. But if they aren’t required, even for just next year, that barrier is removed and such students now have a shot. But based on 30 years of witnessing students across the whole range of academic achievement raise their scores with commitment and steady effort at least to a point where the rest of their applications will actually be read and considered, I’m convinced that’s a very small fraction of applicants. And in most cases where such students apply to selective test-optional schools, it’s really just a shot–in fact, without something else besides scores in their applications to impress admissions officers (which, of course, some applicants will have), whether they ask for it or not, it’s a long shot.
Other than that small group, and the small group of students at the other end of the standardized test spectrum who seem to have been born with brains specially calibrated to the odd form and content of standardized tests and somehow always ace them with very little effort (damn them), the overwhelming number of today’s college applicants still have to buckle down and study hard and long enough to raise their scores at least to the point where they’ll have a realistic chance of getting into the top colleges on their lists. Given all the hours, weeks, months, and the better part of three and a half years college bound students devote to their academic achievement throughout high school, they owe it to themselves not to get lazy about test scores at the eleventh hour, even this year. To give themselves their best shot at getting in even to test optional schools, students should still plan to work as hard as if they were required in the hopes of earning a high enough score that they’d choose to report it, and only if they fall short of that goal should they opt out. There are exceptions, but they’re rare: maybe you simply don’t have the time to prep for entrance exams because you spend half t he year training and competing on the U.S. junior Olympic snow-boarding team, or you’re the president of three major clubs and instead of test prep you spent your time on new initiatives that demonstrate exemplary leadership. As I said, such students exist, but they’re rare. COVID-19 certainly threw a nasty curveball at this year’s juniors, especially at those who for various reasons were counting on this spring’s tests to have their best at bats, but to remain competitive, they’re going to have to find a way to hit the ball anyway. Many of the test-optional schools to which CPE students apply claim around 15% (give or take 10%) of their accepted students over the past few years elected not to submit scores, and, again, many of them had a special x-factor to compensate. And that means, of course, that if 5% to 25% get in without submitting scores, at least several times that percentage get in when they do submit scores.
Furthermore, more students than not will likely consider at least one school that will still require an SAT or ACT score next year. While champions of the test-optional trend are excited to announce that 1130 U.S. colleges have a test optional policy in place for fall 2021 admissions—the largest number since test optional became a thing in 2008—it still represents only a fraction of the total (statistics vary between 10% and 25% of four-year undergraduate institutions depending on how the total number of colleges are counted, given that so many universities have multiple colleges in multiple locations with different application requirements). That means no matter how you count it, the vast majority of colleges still require one or the other, and a solid score will still go far in a test optional school. And that will remain true next year, even though several dozen colleges (with more likely to follow) that have historically required an entrance exam, have already announced they’re waiving the requirement for next year’s applicants in response to the cancellations this spring. Even if the current number of these temporarily test optional schools doubles or triples by next season’s application deadlines, a significant majority 0f U.S. colleges will still require a score. And while different admissions committees may weight them differently, as a general rule an applicant’s scores are second only to cumulative GPA and course of studies in overall importance to final admissions decisions.
Does the steady growth in test optional schools for 12 consecutive years indicate that U.S. admissions committees have lost faith in the value of entrance exams as an admissions criterion, or are deemphasizing them in general?
Many students, parents, and educators jump to this seemingly reasonable conclusion. But, alas, it is a false conclusion in almost every case. Schools that HAVE lost faith in the SAT and ACT as a predictor of success in college aren’t test optional, they’re “test blind.” That means they won’t consider test scores even if students self-report them or have official score reports sent. Such schools represent fewer than 1% of U.S. colleges, notably Hampshire College, one of my favorites. Likewise, consider this paradox: most test optional schools still use entrance exams scores as a factor in determining merit-based financial aid packages, which are very important to many families, and in some cases are the deterring factor in where students end up. These schools are basically saying to applicants, you don’t have to have a certain SAT or ACT score to convince us you meet all our academic standards and are a strong enough candidate to warrant an offer of admissions, but if you want to convince us you’re strong enough to warrant an offer of merit-based money, then you need to take a test. Fact: Students who submit scores are much more likely to get scholarships than those who don’t. Even the wealthiest schools with more endowment money than some small countries don’t play fast and loose with their budgets. This alone suggests to me that most colleges, including the test optional set, still see significant value in the scores.
Personally and professionally, I am not delighted to be the bearer of this reality check. From the perspectives of a career classroom educator and standardized test prep coach, I know that working through Hamlet or analyzing the graphs of quadratics or putting together a substantial research paper or project are far richer and more rewarding educational experiences than mastering the strategies and content material of one or a few idiosyncratic multiple-choice tests. I applaud any admissions effort toward a holistic approach to assessing candidates where all different kinds of passions, talents, perspectives, and intelligences are rewarded with as much weight as high scores on mostly verbal-linguistic and mathematical/logical entrance exams have been in the past. Admissions committees have been struggling for years to find new, more effective ways to fully assess and compare a growing pool of applicants, and perhaps one day they will achieve their goal. Meanwhile, a high score on the SAT or ACT always indicates at least a certain kind of academic intelligence that resonates with the long history of institutions of higher learning. Plenty of brilliant students don’t have a high score to submit to show for it, but applicants who do have tests scores good enough to submit (i.e., in the top half) justifiably make admissions officers feel more comfortable about accepting them.
So why, then, have more colleges joined the test optional parade every year for more than a decade?
Even though colleges could point to a significant body of both quantitative and qualitative scholarly research literature that suggests entrance exams are not good predictors of success in college and beyond, most rarely do. Instead, there seem to be three major forces driving the trend, two of which we hear about all the time, and one of which is, well, a dirty little secret. Most colleges that have adopted some kind of test optional policy often claim a social justice argument, pointing to their efforts to level the socioeconomic playing field in college admissions because SAT and ACT data collected for many years conclusively shows a strong correlation between scores and family income. The wealthier a student’s parents, the higher his or her scores tend to be. While no one objects to greater fairness and justice in college admissions, this correlation doesn’t necessarily mean the exams themselves are skewed to offer some kind of advantage to socioeconomically privileged students. The tests are much more likely a symptom rather than a cause of institutionalized privilege. For example, wealthier families can afford better professional preparation for exams over longer periods of time than less wealthy families (the very issue Kahn Academy is attempting to mitigate with its impressive library of free online tools that put many previously marginalized students at least in the ballpark, though they still can’t compete with live tutors and test prep teachers in helping students reach their full potential and highest score) and they tend to live in areas with higher taxes to support better schools systems and more resources. Both of these would obviously result in higher test scores and have little to do with the assumed biases of the actual test.
A second reason committees offer for going test-optional, one I find more compelling, is that they want to move away from a quantitative approach to admissions, which they claim reduces applicants to a set of numbers (e.g., the two most important criteria for most schools’ admissions decisions for many years have been GPA and test scores, both of which are numbers). Instead, they want to shift toward a holistic approach whereby students who excel on tests are welcome to include them in their applications, and students who don’t are welcome not to include them and focus on other aspects of their high school success and dreams for college.
The dirty little secret we rarely hear about is that the first, immediate, and irrefutable consequence of a college’s adoption of a test optional policy is their average entrance exam score, as well as the 25th to 75th percentiles often seen in college profiles, leaps significantly higher. Only students with relatively high scores will choose to submit them, while those with relatively low scores, which historically drove down the school’s average, won’t. I’m not going to be so cynical or crass as to accuse any college of adopting a test-optional policy primarily for that reason, but I will say that average entrance exam scores weigh heavily in the formula to determine the annual U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings. It’s right up there with faculty to student ratio and average class size. Many colleges tend see those ranking as a kind of annual report card and even set explicit goals to achieve a certain rank improvement within a given time frame. Perhaps even more important is that the higher the college ranking, the more attention potential applicants tend to give it, and that ultimately translates to more applications, which in turn leads to both a more impressive student body and, at $40-$90 per application, a fatter bottom line.
So which SAT and ACT dates have been officially cancelled, and what options remain for students applying to college next year?
The March 14, May 2, and, as of yesterday, June 6 SAT have been officially cancelled, as has the April 4 ACT. Students who already registered for one or more of them can either request a refund or transfer their registration to a later exam date. Assuming there aren’t any further cancellations (which, of course, there may be), the next ACT date is June 13, followed by another ACT on July 18. The next SAT date is August 29. In the fall, ACTs are scheduled for September, October, and December, and SATs are scheduled for September (which is new addition for this coming year as result of the three spring cancellations), October, November, and December. And all of them but the December exams can count toward early applications in most cases, even if the application deadline is before the November exam. Because of the cancelled tests, many more students will choose to take one or more of the remaining tests, so I’m guessing that test centers will fill up faster than usual, especially the June ACT and the August SAT. Consequently, once you decide on a given test and date, register sooner rather than later—and by that I mean as soon as possible if you care about where you take your test (many students do, and many students don’t; moms and dads who have to drive them almost always do ;-)).
GOOD NEWS UPDATE on this point: On 4/16, the day after this post was published, the CollegeBoard tweeted that it’s taking measures to accommodate the expected surge of test takers for the remaining five exams dates this calendar year: “For each administration [one a month Aug-Dec], we’re preparing to significantly expand our capacity for students to take the SAT once schools reopen. We’re calling on our member schools and colleges, as well as local communities, to provide additional test center capacity so every student who wants to take the SAT can do so.” Let’s hope so, but still, register early ;-). Historically, it’s not been uncommon for CPE students to find themselves shut out of several of the large popular test centers in Greater Hartford even without a surge.
If I’m submitting scores, do colleges care mostly about the composite score (the average of the four ACT sections and the total of the two SAT sections) or do they look carefully at the individual sections, too? And if I’m trying to raise my overall score, does it always make sense to focus on my weakest ACT section(s) or weaker SAT section?
Great questions, glad you asked. My saucy answer to the first question is, yes. What I mean is either a strong composite score or strong individual section scores can capture the attention of admissions officers, and students can use either or both to their advantage. If your other application materials paint a picture of a generally intellectually curious student who excels across the curriculum, a high composite score corroborates that picture for committee members. However, a strong section score can corroborate strength and interest in a specific area that you may choose to purse in college. Say you’ve always wanted to be some kind of scientist; you’ve dreamed of wearing a white lab coat to work since you were a little kid, and you already know you’re going to major in Psychobiology or Neurochemistry. You take the ACT and come out with a disappointing composite score that may even be below the minimal threshold of a favorite college on your list. But you aced the science section. You submit that ACT and call attention to your science score. Or say you want to major in journalism or English literature or some discipline that requires lots of reading and writing. You took the SAT and are worried about submitting a subpar composite score because you like math about as much as COVID-19 and tanked that section. But you got 750 on Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and actually enjoyed taking those sections. Submit it and put all your apples in your reading and writing basket. And these examples suggest my counter-intuitive response to the second question. Most people who have lopsided scores, e.g., they’re in the 600s on one SAT section and the 500s in the other, or have 3 ACT scores in the high 20s and one in the low 20s, will focus on raising their lower or lowest score, the rationale being that you strengthen a chain at its weakest link. But if your transcript or choice of summer activities indicate excellence in one or two areas and less than excellence in the others, you may actually be better served to work on your higher SAT score or highest ACT score to ratchet it up even higher to make a more compelling case for your passion for that subject and plans to pursue it in college.
Given that most of the remaining exams will take place in the fall, the semester that many graduating seniors will tell you was the most hectic and stressful of all eight semesters in high school, does that favor prepping for the SAT, ACT, or does it not favor one over the other?
Another good question, and you might be surprised to learn that for students who don’t have a strong preference for one or the other based on results from prior exams or practice tests, I would favor one over the other, and this is new advice for next year’s applicants and beyond, and it has nothing to do with the Coronavirus. Last fall, the ACT announced that starting with their September 2020 exam, they will allow students for the first time in either exam’s history to take an individual section (or several sections) of the exam, rather than making them take and report another entire exam (i.e., all four required sections, five with the optional Essay). Now some students prefer the SAT and always get better scores on it than on the ACT. I’m not talking to them right now; they obviously should stick with the SAT. But some students get comparable scores on the two exams and can choose to focus on whichever they prefer or whichever is offered on the best date given their calendars. I would advise these students to take either or both of the complete ACTs in June and/or July, and use one or more of the fall dates to work on raising their superscore, or, as suggested above, ratcheting up their highest score in a favorite subject to make their strongest case as a potential college major in that subject.
On the other hand, if you’re worried that the summer and fall exams currently scheduled might suffer the same fate as this spring’s exams, know that the CollegeBoard is promising to offer an online version of the SAT that students can take from home on all five dates. The ACT has not made such a promise (at least not yet).
Despite the length of this post (sorry) where I’ve tried to cast a wide net to be helpful to as many students as possible, individual cases may warrant different strategies. Feel free to reach out if you have specific questions about your situation that I didn’t address. I’m always happy to chat on the phone or email/text with students who want to make a college dream come true. Given the continuing overall importance of test scores in today’s college admissions game and every applicant’s opportunity to use scores or individual section scores to make their most compelling case to admissions officers, it might even make sense to schedule an hour consultation, preferably with mom and/or dad, too (some students are surprised to learn how helpful they can be in the whole process ;-)). And during this time of social distancing, no matter how long it lasts, know that consultations are just as effective via Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom as they are in person..
Finally, once you commit to a given exam on a give date, remember we’re here to help. Private and semi-private tutoring can be arranged with Dr. Yo or one of our CPE-certified tutors, and we offer four different prep classes targeting each SAT and ACT exam date to satisfy as many student needs and goals as we can, no mater how many times COVID-19 forces us to reschedule and redo the registration page on our site ;-).
*In general, “test optional” refers to schools that do not require applicants to submit an SAT or ACT score. But there many different variations of test optional policies: some schools require a minimum GPA before applicants can opt out; others, referred to as “test flexible,” require some combination of other standardized tests (like AP exams and SAT Subject Tests) if applicants don’t want to submit an entrance exam score; still others offer an option to submit a video or portfolio in lieu of an ACT or SAT. Each college is at liberty to set its own application requirements, so be sure to look carefully at each test optional school’s policy posted on its website’s admissions pages.