Join us on March 14th at 8 pm eastern for a casual discussion on all things test prep and college planning. We’ll be presenting a few of our top tips and strategies but will leave most of the session open for your questions. This session is for students and parents.
UC extends the application filing period. Effective beginning with the fall 2023 admissions cycle (applicants filing in 2022), the University of California has changed the application filing period. The new filing period will be October 1 – November 30. Note: the deadline will not change. Allowing students to submit their application as early as October 1 [note: please submit apps early] could ease some of the pressure students normally feel at the end of the year, as well as those worsened by the pandemic.
But also…
Thousands of prospective students may be denied admission to the University of California, Berkeley, after a judge ordered the institution to freeze enrollment amid an ongoing legal dispute with a local community group over the environmental impact of a proposed expansion plan. The order to freeze enrollment at UC Berkeley was handed down in August by an Alameda County Superior Court judge in response to a lawsuit brought by a local group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, which has been organizing around this issue since 2018. The University of California Board of Regents appealed the decision and asked the court to stay the order to freeze enrollment while the appellate process plays out. That request was denied last week. Now regents are appealing to California’s Supreme Court.
Navigating the road to admission: As the landscape changes in admission, some high school seniors wonder how they were denied admission at their local university, which two years ago would have been a “sure thing.” Parents ask how Northeastern University has a lower early acceptance rate than Harvard University. Meanwhile, colleges use enrollment tactics that are not always student-centered. One example is the practice of deferring students’ early applications and then to be a competitive candidate encouraging them to convert to a binding Early Decision plan, only to deny the student admission in the end. Read more about these college admissions truth bombs.
Does calculus matter too much in admissions? We think so.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment to add the College Transparency Act to another bill, which the House then passed. The result will be much more information made available about how colleges perform at educating students.
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Harvard, Yale, and other Ivies report near-record numbers of early-admission applications…and on another planet (New Jersey), Princeton joins a small group of schools not releasing admissions data, citing impact on applicants’ anxiety. Side note: This is not how to solve anxiety around college admissions.
Harvard extended its test-optional policy for four more years. But the main reason Harvard and its counterparts are dropping the test is that it’s in their interest to do so.
A news flash? Binding admission offers do not, in fact, oblige you to attend. If you can’t afford to go at the price that the college has asked you to pay, you can back out.
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Test Optional May Not Apply to Homeschooled Students. Even some colleges that have gone test optional still require homeschooled applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores. Admissions officials say test scores are a valuable metric for homeschooled students, who can be challenging to evaluate.
Twenty education groups are issuing an open letter to college presidents and boards urging them to abandon legacy admissions, which remains popular among private colleges and some public institutions. “As Jerome Karabel details in his book, The Chosen, legacy preferences arose at elite institutions in the 1920s and 1930s as a way to limit the enrollment of Jewish immigrants whose qualifications outstripped those from long-standing well-to-do families that Ivy League colleges preferred to see on campus,” the letter says. To this day, the legacy preference continues to favor wealthy, white families.
Ten Higher Education Stories of 2021
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PSAT scores are back this week. If you’re a high school junior, this moment marks the start of SAT and ACT prep season. (That is, if you haven’t started already!) Read Applerouth’s handy guide to understanding your PSAT scores and what to do next as you prepare for the SAT or ACT.
The Will to Test in a Test-Optional Era. Hundreds of colleges have suspended their ACT and SAT requirements. Many students won’t let them go… (but for good reason…not all TO is created equal).
According to an updated list released by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), more than 1,815 colleges and universities now practice test-optional or test-blind admissions, an all-time high. The list includes nearly all of the nation’s most selective colleges and universities. At least 1,400 institutions have already extended those policies at least through the fall 2023 admissions cycle. Among the schools that will not require ACT or SAT tests from current high school juniors are well-known private institutions, such as Amherst, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, and Tufts. In addition, many public university systems including those in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, and Washington will remain test-optional or test-blind.
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Through mid-November, applications are up, the Common Application finds. For early applicants, there is only a modest increase in submitting test scores.
Ohio State U. Unveils a Plan for All Students to Graduate Debt-Free
Admission to University of California campuses will from now on be done without standardized tests. When the board voted to eliminate SAT and ACT scores from its considerations, it left open the possibility of using another test. But faculty members did not believe such a test existed or could be created.
Schools are starting to release their testing policies for the 2022-2023 admissions season. Stanford is one of the first, going test-optional for a third year in a row.
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10 trends to watch as testing reopens (short version: ACT/SAT tests still matter).
Why January application deadlines are just a bad idea.
Advocates say a comprehensive approach is required to address mental health challenges on college campuses, but more information is needed about what does and doesn’t work. Bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress aims to find that information out.
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The start of junior year is the perfect time to determine your story for applying to college. What majors are you considering? What have you done to explore those majors? Where will you add value in college both inside and outside of the classroom? Is your value add clear on your resume?
It might seem early since you won’t be submitting apps until this time next year, but those apps are much easier to write if you’ve done some work ahead of time.
Juniors, right now you can:
Speaking of essays now would be a great time for juniors to grab a copy of our book, The Complete College Essay Handbook!
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Though more and more colleges are dropping their ACT and SAT requirements, test scores still count in the closely watched college rankings many folks love to hate. But that might not hold true for much longer.
U.S. News & World Report, which published its latest Best Colleges guide on Monday, once again factored incoming students’ average test scores into its measure of “student excellence” at each ranked college despite recent calls for the publication to remove the ACT and SAT from its methodology. This year, standardized test scores were weighted at 5 percent of an institution’s overall ranking, the same as last year (down from 7.75 percent previously).
But U.S. News did change one part of its methodology in an acknowledgment of the growing number of test-optional colleges. It’s known as the 75-percent rule. Previously, the publication reduced the weight of the ACT and SAT by 15 percent for test-optional colleges with fewer than three-quarters of incoming students submitting scores. “The lack of data, for 25 percent of students or more, likely means the ACT or SAT score is not representative of the entire class,” Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News, explained in a 2016 blog post. Some enrollment officials have said the policy — which can lower a college’s ranking — penalizes institutions that don’t require standardized tests.
This year, U.S. News lowered the threshold to 50 percent: Colleges received “full credit for their SAT/ACT performance” if at least half of their incoming students submitted a score. Just 4 percent of nearly 1,500 ranked colleges did not meet that 50-percent threshold. But “many” colleges, Morse wrote in an email, fell somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent, though he and a U.S. News spokeswoman declined to say how many “many” was.
Read the full article here. [Source Th Chronicle of Higher Education]
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Test optional and test blind are two very different things!
Test optional means if students send scores with their application, those scores will be used in the evaluation of their application.
Test blind (or what Cornell calls score free) means students may not submit scores nor will scores be used in the evaluation of files.
Colleges and universities that are currently test blind:
University of California System
California State System
Cal Poly (Pomona and Slo)
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Catholic University
Cornell University (CALS, AAP, Dyson, Hotel)
Dickinson College
Hampshire College
Reed College
San Diego State (SDSU)
Washington State University
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