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Some of the nation’s most highly ranked colleges are not waiting around to declare that they will remain test-optional for the 2021-2022 application year. No matter that students won’t begin applying even early decision for another 10 months (despite COVID vaccinations being expected for everyone within 5 months). Top schools like Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Amherst, Rice, Williams and now Harvard, have all declared that test-optional policies will persist for at least another year. Why the rush? Well, it just might have something to do with the enormous increase in applications that these schools saw this year, the first year of wide-spread test-optional admissions at top schools.
Colleges, especially highly selective ones, want as many applicants as they can get, because it leads to lower admit rates, which is a huge indicator of desirability to college-going students. We expect other colleges to follow - not just because they care for the safety of their future students (we’re sure they do), but because they don’t want to be left out of the application windfalls that come when you don’t require tests. One thing that is curious is that the colleges seem not to want to chalk up their huge application increases to being test optional. When the Harvard Gazette reported on the school’s major increase in early applications this year, the administration explained that the jump seemed to come from the school’s generous financial aid policy. OK.
We believe that as big an increase in application volume as we’ve seen this year, next year will see similar increases, thanks to test-optional policy extensions.
So, what does this mean for parents of high school juniors? Well, it likely means that your students’ admission journey is going to be just as crazy, if not more crazy, than what today’s seniors are going through. We believe that as big an increase in application volume as we’ve seen this year, next year will see similar increases, thanks to test-optional policy extensions. Maybe this year’s applicants didn’t fully believe that students without test scores could get into elite colleges. Maybe they didn’t have enough time to formulate an ED strategy that considered a no-test component. But next year’s applicants will be ready - and that will mean even more applications to top schools.
At Union Hall Advising, we’ll be ready. We had good success this year in the early round getting students without top test scores into top schools without them. We had kids with great GPAs but low test scores crack the Top 10 in ED like they were sitting on 1550’s. Why? Because these applicants created compelling narratives and came across as extremely likeable in their applications - score or no score.
The test-optional world is opening up a whole new set of possibilities to admissions officers who can accept the students they want, without the drag of test scores. It also opens new possibilities to students with good grades and rigorous curriculums even without a great score. If they can craft the right story, test scores are truly not required.
