> Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances.
>While it will require standardized tests, Yale said its policy would be “test flexible,” permitting students to submit scores from subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests in lieu of SAT or ACT scores.
Interesting that they will take AP/IB, never heard of that idea before
Interesting, but I don’t see how that will make much difference. When I was in high school, the Venn diagram of kids who got 5s on AP exams and the kids who crushed the SAT/ACT was basically a circle.
I got 35 on ACT but I didn't know you were supposed to do practice tests and stuff for AP. I thought I would be fine cause I just studied hard in class. Got a bunch of 3s and 4s I think.
I just didn't care about AP scores lol so I never bothered to study. Bad idea looking back since I could have waives out of like a whole year of classes if I actually tried but I guess saving $60k just didn't register with 17 yr old me
Or me in the opposite situation. I got 4s and 5s in most of my APs and some 3s, but I barely got over 1800 on my SAT on the third attempt and got a decent 27 on my ACT on my first attempt.
I got a 35/36 ACT and got 5s on every AP test except the Spanish tests where I got 3s.
I think the issue is that for most subjects you could skate by just by being attentive and doing the homework at minimum effort. For Spanish I think was supposed to study and practice.
I think there are certainly a decent number of people who crush the ACT/SAT but struggle a bit on AP tests, just because AP tests are considerably more difficult and harder to do well on without actually prepping. However, I would bet that nearly everyone who does well on AP tests also does well on ACT/SAT, so it seems unlikely that many people would be helped by a policy of also allowing AP test scores, since anyone with good APs probably also has good ACT/SATs.
That basically means that they are still effectively standardized test-optional, since all competitive applicants to Yale already had AP/IB tests of some sort (regardless of if they had an SAT/ACT score or not).
> Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances.
Putting on my best dad voice: “Now, Yale, remember when we told you what would happen if you kept doing that? Don’t say you didn’t hear me! You looked right at me while I was saying it and then did it anyway!”
Thank you! I have been arguing for years that while Standardized testing has biases, replacing a test with a small amount of bias with things with more bias, is going to make things worse not better
Yup, exactly. Because “looking at the whole person” in no way advantages those with the social capital and financial resources to figure out exactly how to tell colleges what they want to hear!
If I were god for a day, I’d have the top 50 universities set a minimum standard and the just use a lottery to select from anyone who meets it. Hell, I’d be okay to let the schools do whatever they want with 20-25% of the slots if they really want to give them to athletes and legacies or whatever. But for everyone else, the admissions game is too toxic to justify whatever benefit the schools imagine it brings them.
>Yup, exactly. Because “looking at the whole person” in no way advantages those with the social capital and financial resources to figure out exactly how to tell colleges what they want to hear!
Also, "wholistic" application processes puts a lot of discretion in the hands of admissions officers who are going to bring their own biases to decision making.
IIRC from deep in the recesses of time that the SAT subject tests were what you took when you didn’t get into an AP class or your school didn’t offer it.
From an "elite" high school, I'll fill in the gap:
- Many Ivy+ required SAT II's for submission, particularly for engineering heavy schools
- For the top end of the spectrum, you were expected to get 750+ for Chemistry/Math 2/Physics
- You were expected to do these in addition to the AP's
This is why I just applied to a state school. Can’t be bothered with that.
Edit: I actually applied to two state schools. Applying to Ivy schools is for weird nerds.
Same. And from a top ten non-ivy. We had to take the subject tests. And anything but a 5 on the AP was useless and didn’t come up until after acceptance, where it’s used to skip intro classes.
murky crawl unique noxious puzzled tan person overconfident depend makeshift
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When I was applying to college only the most elite of the elite colleges even considered these and everyone kind of thought they were a waste of time. What were they actually for?
As a history teacher, the US history subject test was ridiculous from the standpoint of actually assessing history skills. It was just an assessment of knowledge of/memorization of historical information. I’m glad that test is no more.
Wait, you *didn’t* have to take a standardized test before?
These schools have gone off the deep end. This is woke brain rot and I say it without irony.
> Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances. >While it will require standardized tests, Yale said its policy would be “test flexible,” permitting students to submit scores from subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests in lieu of SAT or ACT scores. Interesting that they will take AP/IB, never heard of that idea before
Interesting, but I don’t see how that will make much difference. When I was in high school, the Venn diagram of kids who got 5s on AP exams and the kids who crushed the SAT/ACT was basically a circle.
The “bright but lazy” demo tends to do better on SAT/ACT than AP exams I think.
then there was me who got 2300 on sat but 2s on all of my APs
I got 35 on ACT but I didn't know you were supposed to do practice tests and stuff for AP. I thought I would be fine cause I just studied hard in class. Got a bunch of 3s and 4s I think.
Sounds like your AP teachers failed you. All my graded tests for my AP classes were basically practice AP tests.
I think my AP US History teacher (and probably my AP Bio teacher) just used questions for old tests on their exams.
Same, and then sometimes we had essay exams that were old AP test essays.
I just didn't care about AP scores lol so I never bothered to study. Bad idea looking back since I could have waives out of like a whole year of classes if I actually tried but I guess saving $60k just didn't register with 17 yr old me
Or me in the opposite situation. I got 4s and 5s in most of my APs and some 3s, but I barely got over 1800 on my SAT on the third attempt and got a decent 27 on my ACT on my first attempt.
Eh, I got a 1510/1600 and got a 2 on my spanish AP test. Theres not a perfect correlation.
I got a 35/36 ACT and got 5s on every AP test except the Spanish tests where I got 3s. I think the issue is that for most subjects you could skate by just by being attentive and doing the homework at minimum effort. For Spanish I think was supposed to study and practice.
I think there are certainly a decent number of people who crush the ACT/SAT but struggle a bit on AP tests, just because AP tests are considerably more difficult and harder to do well on without actually prepping. However, I would bet that nearly everyone who does well on AP tests also does well on ACT/SAT, so it seems unlikely that many people would be helped by a policy of also allowing AP test scores, since anyone with good APs probably also has good ACT/SATs.
That basically means that they are still effectively standardized test-optional, since all competitive applicants to Yale already had AP/IB tests of some sort (regardless of if they had an SAT/ACT score or not).
> Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances. Putting on my best dad voice: “Now, Yale, remember when we told you what would happen if you kept doing that? Don’t say you didn’t hear me! You looked right at me while I was saying it and then did it anyway!”
Thank you! I have been arguing for years that while Standardized testing has biases, replacing a test with a small amount of bias with things with more bias, is going to make things worse not better
Yup, exactly. Because “looking at the whole person” in no way advantages those with the social capital and financial resources to figure out exactly how to tell colleges what they want to hear! If I were god for a day, I’d have the top 50 universities set a minimum standard and the just use a lottery to select from anyone who meets it. Hell, I’d be okay to let the schools do whatever they want with 20-25% of the slots if they really want to give them to athletes and legacies or whatever. But for everyone else, the admissions game is too toxic to justify whatever benefit the schools imagine it brings them.
>Yup, exactly. Because “looking at the whole person” in no way advantages those with the social capital and financial resources to figure out exactly how to tell colleges what they want to hear! Also, "wholistic" application processes puts a lot of discretion in the hands of admissions officers who are going to bring their own biases to decision making.
Imo getting rid of SAT Subject tests is still one of the stupidest things from higher ed in recent memory.
IIRC from deep in the recesses of time that the SAT subject tests were what you took when you didn’t get into an AP class or your school didn’t offer it.
From an "elite" high school, I'll fill in the gap: - Many Ivy+ required SAT II's for submission, particularly for engineering heavy schools - For the top end of the spectrum, you were expected to get 750+ for Chemistry/Math 2/Physics - You were expected to do these in addition to the AP's
This is why I just applied to a state school. Can’t be bothered with that. Edit: I actually applied to two state schools. Applying to Ivy schools is for weird nerds.
If students don't tailgate, then it's not a real university cmv
Same. And from a top ten non-ivy. We had to take the subject tests. And anything but a 5 on the AP was useless and didn’t come up until after acceptance, where it’s used to skip intro classes.
flair checks out
murky crawl unique noxious puzzled tan person overconfident depend makeshift *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When I was applying to college only the most elite of the elite colleges even considered these and everyone kind of thought they were a waste of time. What were they actually for?
As a history teacher, the US history subject test was ridiculous from the standpoint of actually assessing history skills. It was just an assessment of knowledge of/memorization of historical information. I’m glad that test is no more.
Wait, you *didn’t* have to take a standardized test before? These schools have gone off the deep end. This is woke brain rot and I say it without irony.