On May 27th, Wake Forest University joined the ranks of over 700 colleges and universities that no longer require applicants to submit an SAT or ACT with their application. As Scripps News points out, Wake Forest is the first US News Top 30 University to make standardized test scores optional, making this announcement a bit of a shocker. Or at least more interesting than most general college announcements at the end of May.
While it's become common for small, Northeastern liberal arts colleges to to make the tests optional, Wake Forest is a Southeastern school that doesn't fit the "optional test" model and probably hopes to lead the way for a bigger movement across the country. Their website already has a neat landing page that explains the school's new policy and lauds itself a bit for "Leading the Way."
However, none of the Ivies have taken the plunge into "test optional," nor are they likely to do so in the future. Test scores provide schools like Harvard with another way to tell students "No" as admissions officers attempt sift through 20,000 applicants to find 2,000 students worthy of admission. (To be fair, if you had to eliminate 90% of the awesome applicants that show up on Harvard's doorstep, you'd want as many ways to say "No" as you could find too.) With that fact in mind, it's hard to see a movement sweeping the country that the most prestigious schools don't support.
But back to Wake Forest.
At first glance, I have to congratulate them. The pressure to reward high test scores is enormous and I would personally love to see every school in the country focus on the indicators of success that mean something: High School Grades, Recommendation Letters, and Personal Statements. There's more than enough info in the average application to judge a student; a test score is just another number that masks a student's true abilities. Wake Forest deserves a huge pat on the back for trying to make a difference!
But like so many other test optional schools, Wake Forest may be seeking the test score benefits of optional reporting more than a truly diverse body of students. The factor that determines whether or not a student reports isn't how they feel about testing, it's what score they got. If you scored in the 99th Percentile, I'd bet my bottom dollar you will affix that number to your college application regardless of the optional testing requirements. If you scored poorly, you probably won't send your scores whenever you can get away with it.
That means that optional testing schools tend to see higher test score averages as students who would normally bring down the average simply don't report. Because only students with "good" scores are turning their scores in, Wake Forest gets to lead the way AND raise it's average test score, a number that US News and other organizations use to judge school placement in the all important college rankings. (However, Bruce Feldman at ESPN notes that the NCAA is still requiring Wake Forest's athletes to have ACT/SAT Scores.)
So kudos to Wake Forest for taking a bold stance. Last year, their Average ACT Score was just below a 30 and their US News rank was a 30. If they see higher ACT scores and climb in the US News rankings, it may have a lot more to do with the number of students reporting their scores than any other factor...
April and May can be tough times for even the most diligent high school senior. Despite their great ACT/SAT scores, excellent grades, and numerous extracurriculars, most students find that thin rejection letters are more common than bulky acceptance packages.
Take Navonil Ghosh, for example.
Navonil has perfect ACT and SAT scores and awesome grades. He attends a magnet school that offers him unique challenges. He's swamped with top notch extracurriculars in a variety of fields that emphasize his well-rounded abilities. He's also well supported at home since his father quit his job to help get Navonil to all of his actitivies and events.
Yet he was rejected at 80% or more of the schools to which he applied, including Harvard (his dream school!), MIT, and U of Penn.
Why was he rejected? And what does it tell us about college applications?
It actually tells us quite a bit. You see, Navonil stands as a perfect example of the attitudes that I see in many of my students when they first come to work with me. Here are three things that you can take from his case and use in your own applications:
1) Perfect Scores Aren't Everything - In theory, Navonil is the perfect student. With his dreamy scores, you would imagine that every school would want him. But he actually proves that schools are looking for more than just good stats. Something about Navonil's application didn't meet Harvard's criteria...and it wasn't his grades/scores.
Students don't realize that prestigious schools care less about scores than other schools do. Everyone who applies to Harvard has great scores. Only a very few have the interview, essay, and recommendations that make up a great application. If you want to stand out, perfect scores alone aren't going to cut it!
2) You Have to Diversify - The list of schools that Navonil applied to is top-notch. In fact, it's all too top-notch. It's obvious that he believed that getting into a great school meant applying to a lot of great schools and hoping for the best. I often see students like him filing out dozens of applications hoping for their dream school to admit them.
Unfortunately, that's not the best plan because it spreads your efforts out. There simply isn't enough time to apply to every Ivy League school and have each application be fantastic. Students should pick a few hard schools and focus on them relentlessly while looking for other schools that will give them money and an easy acceptanc letter. If Navonil likes engineering and science, I would have recommended Arizona State, a lower-tier school where his scores would have netted him a $50,000+ scholarship.
3) Get Used to Rejection - Harvard admitted less than 10% of this years applicant pool, the lowest admittance percentage ever! Other Ivies were exactly the same, seeing more qualified applicants than ever before and letting less than 10% in to their colleges. When applying to these schools, every student needs to acknowledge that it's very likely that he or she won't get in to any of them.
I'm not telling you not to apply! Far from it! Apply early and work your tail off to create the best application you can. But ask yourself, "Am I applying to Harvard for the programs or the name? Is there another school I can find that would give me everything I want without making my life miserable?" The answer will probably surprise you.
As for Navonil, don't feel too bad for him. He did manage to get into Rice and CalTech, both great schools that other students would cut off their right arms to be admitted to. The article doesn't highlight that because it would undermine the writer's overall point that this was a truly negative experience. Just remember that even reporters who cover high school students want to push a certain angle on the story regardless of the facts!