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How Many Students are Submitting Test Scores...and to Which Colleges?

  • lesscollegestress
  • Dec 7, 2020
  • 1 min read

My professional colleague Jeff Selingo found that few schools want to publicly release the numbers of students submitting scores so early in the process, partly out of fear a low number might encourage a wave of applicants who have no shot of getting in.

  • So far, the number of applicants with test scores is lower than what was expected.

Here’s a snapshot of the percentage of students who have submitted scores, with some context for the type of institution based on their acceptance rate.

  • Private research university (<10% acceptance rate): 70%

  • Public research university (<60% acceptance rate): 30%.

  • Public university (<80% acceptance rate): 25%

  • Public research university (<25% acceptance rate): 69%

  • Private research university (<20% acceptance rate): 43%.

A dean of admission at the final school on the list above said: “We’re seeing big gains in diversity. Very pleased about that and it’s something that will make a return to required testing harder to do.“

The most extensive report was from a large public research university with a national footprint (<60% acceptance rate):

  • 59% with test scores, but big differences by residency and major.

  • 56% in-state. 75% out-of-state. 43% international.

  • 75% engineering. 55% business. 35% education, social work, general.

From the dean of admission at this school: “Based on what we heard from in-state privates who were test-optional, we were guessing test-optional would have been 10-15% if we had gone test-optional in a ‘normal year.’ So this is about double what we expected.”


So the upshot is that plenty of students are taking advantage of the test-optional policy, which is in effect for 2021 at some colleges, 3 years at others, and indefinite at many more.

 
 
 

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