The Subtext of the UC Test Optional Decision

May 22, 2020

Dear friends,

I write with some thoughts in response to the University of California’s announcement yesterday to begin to shift away from the SAT and ACT, potentially toward a new UC-developed test. This morning, I discussed some of the winners and losers as a result of this policy with San Francisco’s KRON4-TV. Indeed, the test-optional movement, including temporary test-optional policies due to COVID-19, present an interesting counterweight to the slight reprieve in selectivity, which I discussed with CNBC.com, due to the pandemic. 

In effect, the University of California’s move away from standardized testing will increase the number of applicants and decrease data that admissions officers have to make decisions. Low income, first generation, and historically under-represented students will receive a minor benefit—alongside more competition. Students who are not under-represented will be best served submitting scores; when compared with candidates in your same bucket, say a middle class public high school, excellence on testing can set you apart.

Test Optional increases competition... and rankings.

The 2018 Defining Access study, which dove deeply into longitudinal data behind 28 colleges going test-optional, showed several trends that benefit college rankings:

  • Application numbers go up when test-optional is implemented. More students feel they have a shot at admission. Unfortunately, acceptance rates for students who don’t submit testing average lower than for students who do submit testing. GPAs also average lower.

  • As a result, acceptance rates shrink: the numerator in acceptance rate is held roughly constant while the denominator rises

  • Yield increases: students who are admitted are more grateful, and tend to accept the offer at higher rates, also boosting rankings

  • Average SAT or ACT scores, reported only by students who choose to submit them, rise, also boosting rankings

Case in point: University of Chicago went test optional in 2018. It reports success in raising representation of historically marginalized groups, and also a school-low acceptance rate last year of 6.2%, alongside one of the highest median SAT scores in the country at 1530 (of 1600).

What the UC Decision Means for Students

  • High achievers will still have to test, perhaps taking two different tests:

    • In the Defining Access study, only 23% of applicants to test-optional schools were non-submitters, and acceptance rates among those students were lower.

    • More importantly, high achievers—including our Lakhani Scholar in Berkeley, CA, Fernanda Padilla Colin—often apply to private universities such as Stanford, as well as out of state universities. SATs or ACTs continue to be required at the Ivy Leagues for instance, partly because the additional information is useful in the great calculus of winnowing down 40,000 applicants. If/when UC creates its own test, applicants considering other elite universities may have to take both the UC test and the SAT or ACT.

  • Closer evaluation of character, even without UC accepting letters of recommendation: Character is the key to our philosophy in helping students earn admission to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Berkeley, etc. If you imagine that UCLA is a dinner table with a limited number of seats, and there is one seat left, we must ask, what makes our student the most interesting person to deserve that last spot? What does he or she add to the dinner table conversation?

  • More scrutiny of grades: If you thought going test-optional would reduce stress among high school students, think again.

  • Greater emphasis on course selection: Students will feel even more pressure to load up on APs and Honors subjects. Selectivity is going to get tighter and those who challenge themselves most will stand out.

  • Gaming the system: We will see people looking for an advantage by flocking to what one parent referred to as “the worst school possible." Rather than earn B’s at a supremely rigorous school, there will be some who move to schools with perhaps fewer resources, and as a result, potentially less competition to earn A’s.

It’s worth noting that UC, as well as the vast majority of colleges, was doing a good job previously looking at candidates in context: parent education level and occupation, socioeconomic indicators by school and neighborhood, and in the case of UC, even an optional family income question. As a result, students were evaluated not just on a test score but on numerous factors including socioeconomic context. UC’s decision to remove testing will continue to help underrepresented students be viewed in context, but at the same time, it will create even more competition for those coveted seats on campus.

As always, I’m happy to sit down with any family who has specific questions around this change. 

Warm regards,

Hafeez Lakhani

Resources:

KRON4 SF: UC Drops ACT, SAT Requirements

CNBC.COM: College Acceptance Rates May Go Higher as Schools Start Aggressively Courting Candidates

Hafeez Lakhaniuc test optional, sat/act prep, sat/act tips, college coaching, college admissions, california universities, test optional college, coronavirus, covid19, covid19 response, distance learning, higher education