What to know: Whether at a College Board and ACT panel or at a session led by Bob Schaeffer, head of FairTest, everyone agreed: test-optional is here to stay. But how are colleges really reviewing test-optional applicants? Which colleges are doing this eagerly, and which are doing it grudgingly? Do test-optional applicants fare the same everywhere? The answer, of course, as with all things college admissions, is a resounding “it depends.” Among selective institutions, there still seems to be some line of demarcation between colleges that were already considering test optional and those who were forced into it by the pandemic. Institutional buy-in—which can include faculty—can play a major role in the implementation of test-optional review behind the scenes.
- Tim Wolfe, Dean of Admission at William & Mary, which had already been considering the switch, pointed to significant institutional buy-in, excellent training of staff, and data that showed that while first-year GPAs for their test-optional admits were marginally lower, first-year retention for their test-optional admits was actually higher. For now, he says, the test-optional policy at William & Mary is “indefinite, but not permanent.”
- At Cornell, on the other hand, former Enrollment Manager Jonathan Burdick shared that some faculty were pushing for a return to testing, many citing a very small data point: 7 more students in one (unnamed) school at Cornell who had gone test-free failed in their first semester than in the previous year.
- Burdick acknowledged that at the test-optional colleges and schools within Cornell, maybe they should have said “test recommended”—and that how resourced a student is does play an important role here (i.e. a student coming from an affluent community may have a higher expectation of submitting scores). Burdick’s advice, at least for Cornell and other “highly rejective” schools? “Submit if you’re in range—confirm you don’t have a red flag score.”
- Some other interesting data tidbits: at the University of Oregon, more than 80% of the applicant pool and admitted students were test optional; at Caltech, they reviewed 7 years’ worth of admissions data and they found no significant correlation between students’ math scores and whether they passed the school’s math and physics core courses, which affirmed their decision to remain test free.
Final thoughts: test optional remains a policy whose implementation can vary widely not only by institution but within institutions by discipline. There is no one-size-fits-all wisdom for applicants since colleges are not all doing the same thing, nor do they have the same priorities. That said, this conference featured louder, more prominent voices calling for more clarity for students about how much individual colleges are relying—or not—on test scores. We couldn’t agree more.
