Comments on Test-Optional College Admissions

Having been the dean of admission at Princeton from 1978 to 1983, I read with interest that Harvard and Yale, along with scores of other colleges and universities, made a decision to adopt a “test optional” policy with respect to those applying for the 2023-24 academic year.  This initiative prompted me to write this brief article about who might benefit and who might be adversely affected by this policy change. Parents and college counselors might find the following thoughts helpful when discussing the options with students:

BENEFICIARIES

• Conscientious students who earn good grades but who do not test as well as their contemporaries will experience a decline in their blood pressure.

• The institutions of higher education that adopt a test-optional policy will likely experience an up-tick in applications. In so doing, the CFOs of those institutions will work with a smile on their faces as the increase in applications that are submitted will also result in an uptick in application fees.

• Students who have done well on previous standardized test and who are applying to colleges that have not traditionally sent many graduates to these colleges might benefit from registering for the SAT or the ACT. If they did well on those tests, that would likely be viewed positively by an admission committee.  Why? Thanks to the grade inflation pandemic that occurred in most schools, the transcripts of many applicants may not be significantly different.  Thus, a school that over the years has sent only one or two applicants to a given college may not be well known by the admissions officers charged with reading and rating credentials of seniors who decide to apply.  If that is the case, the college counselors should encourage those seniors who are interested in one of these institutions of higher education to take the standardized tests.  Applicants who do well on the tests could differentiate themselves even though the admissions officers may not be familiar with the school.

• Applicants who are not confident about their chances of admission because they have good but not stellar transcripts but have significant achievements that would enable them to make a contribution to the undergraduate community might give serious consideration to registering for the SAT or the ACT, but only if they have performed reasonably well on other standardized tests. The college counselors should be able to help such a student to make an informed decision. Also, evidence of successful contributions, be it in the arts, athletics, or community service, would have to be supplied.

NON-BENEFICIARIES

• At the risk of stating the obvious, the Educational Testing Service will experience a decline in its revenue.

• The college counselors will be challenged to function as impartial referees when working with families whose children, contrary to the position of their parents, do not want to take the standardized tests. The opposite also applies when in other families an applicant might be eager to take the standardized tests while the parents, based on how the student has performed in the past, might be skeptical of their child being able to generate scores comparable to the average Verbal and Math scores typically required by the colleges that interest that child.

• The parents of children who intend to apply to the most selective colleges or universities and, as a result, feel the need to take several standardized tests will see their financial resources decline as they pay for the tests and for a test-prep tutor, compensate an outside consultant to advise the student about how to respond to the required essays, and fork over hundreds of dollars in application fees to enable the child to use the Common Application to apply to 15 or more colleges.

• The teachers of students who decide not to take the standardize tests will be pressured by the grade-conscious students who are willing to fight for every incremental uptick in their GPAs. These students may also complicate the lives of their teachers who will be asked to complete a teacher recommendation for every institution to which the student has applied.

• Although many of the highly selective institutions have made a concerted effort to admit first-generation college students, students from modest to poor socio-economic backgrounds may be at a disadvantage if they do not take the standardized tests. If their school does not have a good academic reputation, an “all-A” transcript may not be sufficient.  However, if the “all-A” transcript is supported by SAT scores in the 80^th percentile or better, that might be sufficient to reduce the ambivalence of the admissions officers charged with the responsibility of reviewing and rating the materials submitted by the applicant.

In sum, this is a complex issue that requires college counselors in secondary schools to have the wisdom, patience, and understanding of the benefits and shortcomings of both sides of this issue.

Before founding Wickenden Associates, Jim Wickenden served as the dean of admissions at Princeton University and director of student and alumni affairs at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This article was originally published by Intrepid Ed News and is posted here with permission from Jim Wickenden.

Like most of the pictures on TeensParentsTeachers, the picture posted with this article is courtesy of a free download from Pixabay.com.