These days, every time I finish a string of back-to-back meetings I open my email to find out that another school has shifted to a test-optional policy for the Class of 2021. Today, there were four: Haverford, Tulane, Colgate, Middlebury - these are good schools! They join a group of institutions ranging from small liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst and Williams, to the entire University of California system.
So what does this mean? I have had so many questions about this over the last week. Kids with good scores are concerned that they won’t matter, and kids without good scores are already packing their bags for UCLA. Not so fast!
let’s talk about the difference between Test-Optional and Test-Blind. This is really important.
Test-Blind:
The school will not consider tests at all when considering an applicant’s candidacy.
At a test-blind school, your amazing test score is about as important as that amazing chocolate cake you just baked for dessert tonight. It’s really awesome that you baked it and I’m sure your family enjoyed it, but it has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not you will be admitted to a given college. Zero.
MIT just shifted to a test-blind policy for subject tests and this is how their website explains the policy in their Frequently Asked Questions section:
I took the subject tests. Can I submit my scores for your consideration?
No: in fairness to all applicants, we won’t consider them for anyone. We think it would be unfair to consider scores only from those who have scored well and therefore choose to send them to us. They are neither recommended nor optional; they are simply not a part of our process anymore.
Just like chocolate cakes are not part of the admissions process!
Test-Optional:
The school will consider any test scores sent as part of the admissions process (usually a major part), but will not hold it against an applicant for applying without test scores. Basically, it serves as another data point; if the score is high, it will only help an applicant.
And what does that mean for the other applicants?
Let’s pretend you’re buying a house, and you think about the factors you need: however many bedrooms, bathrooms, maybe you want newer construction and a big yard. Great! So you are looking at a bunch of McCraftsmen that all more or less look the same and then all of a sudden a Redfin alert pops up on your phone. A house that meets every single one of your criteria hit the market - but this one also has an incredible pool with the most amazing hardscaping you’ve ever seen! All of a sudden your mind goes to entertaining around the fire pit during the summer and, wow, it’s the same exact price as the other houses down the street that also had everything you wanted.
You certainly didn’t need a house with a pool; in fact, you would have called yourself a “pool-optional” buyer. But now that you have five great options and one just happens to have this mini resort in the backyard - is this really a question?
Obviously you’re going to take the house with a pool.
And obviously, if two applicants are exactly the same, and it’s a highly competitive institution, the applicant with the high test score is going to be admitted over the applicant without test scores. No question.
Nearly all of these COVID-19 changes are about schools becoming test-optional, not test-blind.
So, it’s not time to buy the UCLA sweatshirt yet…that being said, it’s not all doom and gloom.
First of all, not all institutions are highly competitive.
There are many that are moderately selective - ones where good kids with lower test scores can have a huge advantage applying as test-optional candidates, particularly when paired with an ED or ED II app and the ability to pay in full. (The ability to pay doesn’t really matter for the highly competitive schools, because there are plenty of qualified applicants willing to pay for a certain sub-set of schools.)
This type of situation is where the right strategy is going to be critical.
Second, not all applicants are exactly the same.
Not even close!
This is important to consider and it’s why students cannot write about “How experiencing COVID-19 changed my life” for their college essays. Truly, they aren’t the same - they come from a variety of different backgrounds, with different goals for the future, and different personal stories.
You might have a kid who is just all-around amazing with an incredibly compelling essay, outstanding recommendations, etc - now that student may very well be admitted test-optional to a highly competitive school over the one who has high test scores but is “not sparkly enough,” as a Duke admissions officer once described a straight-A student to me in a counselor advocacy call (true story!).
SO HERE’S MY ADVICE:
Control what you can control - I have said it before and I will say it again: you can’t waste time being upset over what happened this year. It’s just out of your control. And if you don’t have a high test score, the reality is that you may not have the opportunity to retake the SAT or ACT in time… but you also might. We just don’t know yet. So don’t worry too much about this.
STUDY!!! If I was in this situation and wanted to go to a highly competitive school, I would study, study, and study some more for your test of choice over the next couple of months and hope for the best. David Coleman announced earlier this week that the College Board is attempting to roll out an at-home version of the SAT. And if that doesn’t work out, a deferred student could theoretically take a standardized test well into their senior year - even the February ACT will be back early enough that a college might give it some consideration during RD, particularly for a class that has been impacted so heavily. The good news is that very few students in the Class of 2021 are going to end up with high test scores, so the ones that do have them will really stand apart.
Differentiate the heck out of yourself - You have to make up for that lost data point. Blending in with the other upper-middle class suburban applicants with good grades and the same set of activities is not going to be enough here. You need a compelling personal story and a niche. An amazing essay, killer recommendations, you get the idea.
Earn the best grades and AP scores possible - They are literally all you have at this point in terms of data, so make them as high as you can. This is probably obvious, but just in case!
Consider early decision and be very strategic about your choice - If your grades are not 100% perfect and you were not able to differentiate yourself in some incredible way, consider a private school that’s very competitive but not a no-brainer over a substantially less expensive top-tier option like UVA. Those are the schools that may be the ones to choose. For example, Boston University, Tulane, and so forth.
Remember: you have a lot of time on your hands to work on this stuff!