To submit or not submit? In this blog, we’re going to give you some tips for what to consider as you make this decision on a school-by-school basis.
The first tip that we have for you if you’re trying to figure out whether or not to go test-optional is to get the right data. Brooke was working with a student who was applying to the University of Miami, and their website had data that seemed super high. Well, the 25th to 75th percentile of SAT scores that it was publishing was for admitted students, not enrolled students, and there’s a big difference. Because the University of Miami is not typically a top 10 or top 20 school, it may fall into the category of backup school for a lot of students that are gunning for other colleges. That means that they are probably admitting a lot of people that may not actually end up going there, which means your test score could still mean something to the University of Miami even if you’re not in that conglomerate of students who are applying but not going.
Our next tip is that sometimes you might want to play the game according to whether the school is letting in a lot of students with no tests (i.e., they really don’t care if you hide them) or whether the school is only really letting in people with test scores. Not all schools are as test-optional as others, and some schools care a lot more about them than some of the other schools (** CORRECTION: Though Notre Dame’s common data set appears to say that 100% of students submitted SAT or ACT scores, the college reports that 30% of Restrictive Early Action admits were admitted without a test score. Apparently the school was counting test score submissions AFTER admission (a requirement of enrollment but not admission), which means this Common Data Set point is likely misleading many, including us before this discrepancy was pointed out to us). And one way you can figure this out is to use the chart in our Best & Worst Bets for Test Optional video, and look at the best bets end of that list. If they’re best bets for test-optional, you should lean towards not submitting. But if they are the worst bets for test-optional, you should consider submitting a score even if it is below average.
The third tip is to consider your context. Context matters a lot, because for example, if you go to one of the best high schools in America, your test score is a 1400 on the SAT, and you’re ranked in the top 1% of your class, colleges aren’t going to be as worried about you being able to make it academically, because they know the rigor at your high school and they know that if you’re pulling off valedictorian status there, you’re going to be fine even without a test score. So, in these cases, the context that you come from will vary the meaning of your test score to colleges. If you’re an international student or are homeschooled or in a similar category, having a test score can help colleges know that you have the academic skills to make it at their college.
Our fourth point is to look at what the schools are saying, and know that schools are out for themselves. For example, even though Notre Dame had that 100% sum of attending students who submitted SAT and/or ACT scores, their website states that they’re test-optional because they want to solicit as many applications as possible into the pool to get a really low admit rate so that they can become super competitive and rise up the rankings. They’re not trying to help you, they’re trying to help themselves. At the same time, there are some colleges and universities that will straight up tell you that they really want your test scores, like Purdue and Yale. Those are not test-optional, and not submitting a test score would be worse than submitting a score that you think is not high enough.
And one last really quick tip is that if you are looking to apply test-optional, the other resource that you can go to is your high school counselor. They will have data on your particular high school through Naviance that can tell you exactly how many students got into which schools, what their SAT or ACT scores were, and may even have test-optional data specific to your high school.
Also, be sure to check out the charts that we have that show percentiles of historical data for before colleges went test-optional because that’s a really good gauge of what “academically prepared” means for these colleges, as well as score ranges from the first cohort that was totally test-optional.
So go out there, see what you can accomplish, and know that wherever you land, you are the most important ingredient in your success!
