College Board Announces End to SAT Subject Tests and Optional Essay
Dear friends,
We’re thrilled to be in the last leg of admissions season for a variety of applicants, be they to boarding school, college or graduate school. Congrats to our students who’ve already been admitted to such elite places as Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn State, ASU Honors, Indiana Kelley, University of Pittsburgh, and Rice, alongside MBA acceptances to Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, Berkeley Haas, and Yale School of Management, among other superb places. To those still waiting to hear back, rest assured that your hard work will soon pay off!
Of course so many of our students are in no place to be resting just yet. Juniors are in the thick of SATs and ACTs, with spring AP and IB exams just around the corner. Sophomores and Freshman are working hard to cultivate their character stories, and to establish rock solid academics. Our current college students are toughing things out in challenging courses, as well as in recruiting cycles for jobs and internships. Graduate school candidates are working hard on GRE, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT requirements. We’ve detailed below advice for students at various stages, including summer planning in all respects. One silver lining from the pandemic: college students interested in transferring this year have a unique opportunity. Each story is unique—feel free to contact us to schedule a more personalized discussion.
Elite students are rightfully wondering about repercussions of the College Board’s Tuesday announcement, about which I commented to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The changes are 3-fold:
SAT Subject Tests are no more, with mixed impact on students
The inconsistently scored SAT essay is gone (good riddance)
College Board will continue to try to improve socioeconomic accessibility (previously by a flawed adversity index), including availability of online testing to avoid COVID risks.
Most relevant for high performing students is the change in Subject Tests: while these have been “recommended but not required” for years now, the removal of this option puts direct pressure on grades and AP or IB scores. This is a loss for students who attend hyper-competitive schools, where it is more difficult to earn an “A”, and Subject Tests were otherwise an effective compensator, and for students who attend independent schools where APs are not offered, or only offered in short supply. I expect these elite students will turn to more often “self-studying” for an AP exam to be competitive with other applicants who will submit AP scores. Indeed, we know from recent evidence and longer term research that submitting excellence in testing helps chances of admission. This change especially affects current juniors who are interested in the most selective colleges. Contact us to discuss further.
We're excited to share that Lakhani Scholars, our 501c3 non-profit organization, now has its own website. We tripled our impact by awarding 3 scholarships in 2020 and look forward to serving more high achieving low income students each year. Applications for the Class of 2023 will open on March 1, 2021.
Finally it was a pleasure to record a MarketWatch segment on the Biden administration’s priorities around student loan forgiveness. I also spoke with CNBC on key takeaways from Early college admissions, i.e. declining acceptance rates due to shrinking numbers of admits, with spots held for COVID gap year students, and a ballooning number of applicants given top colleges went test-optional this year. Strangely, declining acceptance rates at top schools don’t help the enrollment crisis across higher education.
We’ve also included a standardized testing problem of the month below. Happy solving!
Hafeez Lakhani
Juniors: 2021 is Your Year
My advice for high school juniors right now is to work backward from November, about 9 months away. Do you plan to apply Early Decision or Early Action (typically Nov 1 deadlines). If so, when will you have SAT/ACT complete? Will you be taking AP exams? When do you plan to “excavate” the beautiful gems that you’ll shape into your college essays? Have you set out a plan for impactful college visits?
Whew. Rather than let these questions create anxiety, our students are empowered by a customized timeline, to separate responsibilities as much as possible. If you don’t yet have a timeline in place, feel free to contact us to set up a meeting.
SAT/ACT progress: Most of our students take the SAT/ACT three times to reach their goal scores. Skills growth on these tests is not so different than improvement at a musical instrument. If I train for several months in the violin, I’ll value three opportunities to play in concert to hit my personal best. That said, there are only five SAT national sittings between now and early applications. If you are not yet finding traction in your improvement, it may be time for more high-powered help. Contact us to learn more.
Summer: If a student has followed our timeline carefully, she’ll likely be done with testing by summer and have time to focus on two important responsibilities:
Investing wholeheartedly in one’s primary character pursuit
Dedicating several weeks to the early drafts of one’s college essays. Hemingway famously said, every writer should burn his first novel. The same applies for first drafts of college essays—that act of “purging” opens doors to amazing second and third drafts. We advise our rising seniors to “excavate” for college essays during summer, before school competes for your attention. Our most ambitious students get college essays to 90% before school starts, leaving the early fall for seeking feedback, adding finishing touches, and finalizing ED or EA choices.
Resources:
NASDAQ: The Two Reasons Why College Enrollment Is Down & How It Affects Next Year's Class
Digital Journal: Making the Best University Application During the COVID Era
High School Sophomores: This Summer is Crunch Time
A smart split of summer is advisable for rising juniors, too, allocating time to:
Summer intensive SAT/ACT: back to the violin analogy. Will it be easy to pour tons of energy into improvement on the violin while I am juggling 5 AP courses junior year? Our students face this dilemma every year, and overwhelmingly benefit from focused ground work the summer before junior year. Summer Intensive coaching has been a definitive pillar in helping our students achieve SAT improvements as large as 600 points, and ACT improvements as large as 12 points. Such gains don’t happen overnight—our most successful students book 50 to 100 hours for summer. Lakhani Coaching Senior and Lead Instructors get fully booked early; contact us to reserve time.
Sincere investigation of character pursuits: Among your character interests, how will you shift from breadth to depth this summer? This can be in the form of a summer program, or even better, an independent project. Are you interested in policy? Why not find a way to contribute over summer to state or local elections? Interested in programming? Code something wildly useful for society and get it out into the world. Not sure which interests are worth furthering? Or not sure how to craft something independent? Contact us for customized guidance.
Resources:
Seventeen: Here's Exactly How to Slay the SAT and ACT
Parents.com: Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Kid Into College
CNBC.com: To Get Into a Top College, Your Character Matters, Too
Graduate School Planning
2021 admission: There are still two months before final deadlines for selected programs—a way to start graduate school relatively soon—but such a tight application timeline is never easy: testing, be it GRE, GMAT, or LSAT, winds up needing careful focus. Once that is complete, personal statements, procuring recommendations and other requirements are a priority. If you are still considering an application to begin graduate school in fall 2021, contact us to get moving immediately.
2022 admission: Planning is well underway for 2022 admissions candidates, with AMCAS opening in May 2021 for medical school applicants, Round 1 MBA applications due as early as late August, and law school applications opening in September. If you haven’t already done so, form a timeline: Is there an early round where chances of acceptance are higher? How close are you to goal scores on your GMAT, MCAT, LSAT or GRE, which often require 3+ months of work? Do you have time set aside to “excavate” personal statements, procure recommendations, and complete other application requirements? With some of those deadlines in just seven months, it is wise to get moving right from now. Contact us to discuss your plans in more detail.
Resources:
Current College Students
Some obvious advice for you: your GPA matters. While it may be some time before you decide your after-college plans, be mindful that your GPA will almost certainly be a factor in seeking out your aspirations, including selective internships, graduate school, and career recruiting—so be sure to put that extra effort in. In cases where you are stuck, feel free to contact us for specialized coaching. We’ve guided students in Econometrics, Organic Chemistry, Studio Art, and Comparative Politics to name a few subjects. Tough problem sets? We have MD/PhD candidates to help you reach clarity. Editing a 30-page paper? We have former Stanford Law students to help you identify improvement areas. Building your portfolio toward graduate Art School—meet with our Senior Art Advisor, a Yale MFA, to take your work to the next level.
Transfers: Thinking about transferring? Let’s talk and make sure it’s the right route for you. If indeed it is, deadlines range from 2/1 to 3/15, and this year, due to COVID enrollment declines, presents a rare opportunity of higher demand for transfers. Schedule a meeting with our Director of Admissions Coaching to set out a plan.
