Season 2: Episode 3 Transcript
Welcome to Senior Fall: It's College Application Season!
Lee Coffin:
From Dartmouth College, this is Lee Coffin. Welcome to the Admission Beat.
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Stu Schmill:
"Even at a place like MIT, where we're going to be requiring tests again, testing has an outsized view in most students minds about how important it actually is."
(Music)
Lee Coffin:
So this week on Admissions Beat, we are going to tackle the question of standardized testing. In every admission cycle I've ever participated in since the 1990s, testing has been probably the most common question I get from students and parents. Do I take the test? Does it count? How does it count? And in the current landscape, there's a lot of different test policies afoot in the fall of 2022 that seniors have to navigate. Some places are requiring standardized testing. Some places have test-optional policies. Some places are now test-blind and some are test-flexible. So lots of different ways to dance this dance, and to help us understand the choreography of that dance, I've invited two of my admission pals to join Admission Beat today and help think about this on your behalf. So from Bates College, we welcome Leigh Weisenburger, who's the Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. And from MIT Stu Schmill is Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services. Hello Leigh and Stu.
Leigh Weisenburger:
Hi there, Lee. Thanks for having us.
Stu Schmill:
Yeah. Hi, Lee. Great to be here.
Lee Coffin:
It's nice to see you both. So just as a quick kind of opening comment, as seniors and parents and counselors start thinking about the role of testing in the 2022-23 admission cycle, what are you seeing as you look around you from your respective seats? Is this a cauldron of confusion or do things seem pretty straightforward in your views?
Leigh Weisenburger:
Well, I'm happy to share, Lee, from my vantage point at Bates. And just to put it out there from the get- go, Bates has been test-optional for nearly 40 years. So for our institution, it seems clear as day. However, I can understand for students, families, counselors, this new era in which we're all navigating, and I say new era as in the last two to three years given the pandemic, the change-up that created in the admission world is rather significant. So we went from pre-pandemic having a few hundred institutions being test-optional or having some shift in their testing policy to nearly 80+ percent at the height of it, having some sort of test shift, testing requirement shift in their policy. And now as we enter this, I think it's still too soon to say post-pandemic world but not quite the peak of COVID, admission offices are shifting their policy with regards to testing. And so some are returning; however it's creating, I think yet again, another layer of confusion or just question marks.
Stu Schmill:
If I can step back, I think one of the great strengths and challenges of our higher education system in the U.S. is how different institutions are. And we find that testing is helpful because we have found that at MIT it's predictive. Maybe that's because when students come to school here, they take tests and that's one of the ways that they get through our curriculum. And so we do find that it's helpful and we want to have confidence in every student we admit. I do think that even at a place like MIT where again we're going to be requiring tests again, that testing has an outsized view in most students' minds about how important it actually is.
Lee Coffin:
So I think some of what fuels the confusion is the point you just made, that there's a perception among students, among parents—perpetuated, I think, in the media quite often—that testing is the gorilla in the admission battery. And so keep going, Stu. I think you're saying it's a supporting piece in this process, not the lead piece.
Stu Schmill:
It's one of the pieces of an application that gives us an indicator as to how well a student is going to do in our curriculum. And once we have confidence that a student is going to do fine and thrive in our curriculum, we don't use the tests to make decisions. So we don't make decisions by test score. So we don't say, hey, this student has a higher test score than that student, therefore we'll admit this student over that student. All of the other things that we might look at about a student's motivation, their interests, those things are how we ultimately make decisions, not based on your tests.
Lee Coffin:
So Leigh, you have the same goal. We all have the same goal. We admit people who can thrive in the curriculum we offer. So at Bates, sometimes a student will include testing as part of her admission application. Often they don't. So how do you do the same thing Stu just described? If you're reading a file at Bates in which testing has not been shared, how do you help understand who can thrive?
Leigh Weisenburger:
For us in some ways it's similar to MIT in that we at Bates, whether a student gives us the testing or not, but in the case that they would give us the testing, it would just be one factor of many that we would consider in what we call our holistic review. When a student chooses not to submit their testing, we're just taking that as a clear signal from them that, look Bates, you have all the material that you need to see to figure out exactly who I am as a learner, who I am as a community member, who I am broadly as a human. You have my writing, you have my transcript, you have the recommendations, you have a sense of my activities, you have everything you need to see, you're good to go. And so it doesn't send up question marks for us at Bates to say, oh, what went wrong that Saturday morning? Or dare I say three.
And then when a student does submit, I know this wasn't fully part of the initial question Lee, but when the student does submit the testing it's oftentimes one of the very last things we'll look at. So it's by no means the driving force. It's not the first thing we glance at to anchor our read. And oftentimes it's just shedding light or I should say confirming what we already know about the student, that they will thrive in our classroom. So there's no concern when it's not there and it's not this big factor when it is present.
Lee Coffin:
I think that's probably surprising a lot of listeners. I would say the same thing. My own experience over the last 30 years at three different colleges has been, I was in a test-optional environment at Connecticut College, test-required at Tufts, mostly required at Dartmouth with this pandemic moment still at play. They are in some cases, I think on the quantitative side it's a good way of understanding the A's that we might see in that part of the transcript. But they're supporting not primary. And I think there's a lot of people that don't believe us when we say that.
Leigh Weisenburger:
And the thing I would add, and this is certainly having done this work at Bates for nearly 20 years, a couple hours of testing is by no means as telling we think—and our data shows—as that persistence and performance over time on the transcript. So I think that's certainly why we at Bates confidently say it's not this driving force even when present because it's that showing up, that doing the work, and doing it consistently over time that the transcript and other elements of the file are going to exhibit to us.
Lee Coffin:
So before we go deeper, let's just for everybody clarify the four options. So there are places that say testing is required to complete your application. MIT would be in that category for this class. There are places that say testing is optional, you choose to include or not based on whatever factor you're using. Bates and Dartmouth for the class of 2027 would be in that category. There are a set of schools, including Cal Tech, that have said, we are test-blind. So what does that mean, Stu?
Stu Schmill:
That means we will not look at your test scores. So you have no mechanism to submit them and we will not look at them.
Lee Coffin:
And then there are places that are test-flexible, which give applicants kind of a menu and they say you can submit any of these in whatever combination you'd like. So they're recommended or required, but we're not asking specifically for this test or that test. So applicants could move through this testing landscape in a couple of different ways and you might have plans to apply to 10 places and have some combination of any and all of those policies as decision points in your near futures. So if you're a senior, high school senior, it's early October, you haven't taken an SAT or an ACT. So first question, are they the same?
Stu Schmill:
The SAT or the ACT?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Do we care which one someone submits if required or optional? If someone chooses one of those, does it matter?
Stu Schmill:
So we don't care which one. And I have never heard of a school that has referenced one over the other.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, agreed.
Leigh Weisenburger:
And same as for Bates.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Is there a difference though, in terms of the content of each of these tests?
Leigh Weisenburger:
Yes. The content's absolutely different. The structure's different. The way in which they're scored is different. And the way the institutions then see those scores also differs based on how the structure of the tests exist. So for example, with the ACT, you would get a composite score at the end that goes up to a 36. And within that there are subject areas, there's reading, there's math, and we as an institution would see the breakdown of that. Whereas the SAT, Stu, do you want to talk through what that math looks like?
Stu Schmill:
Right. So the SAT has two sections, the math section and reading, evidence-based reading and writing.
Lee Coffin:
To parents formally known as the verbal.
Stu Schmill:
The verbal, yes. Which I still do.
Lee Coffin:
I still do.
Leigh Weisenburger:
Same.
Stu Schmill:
The old man gray hair way. So there are differences. We find that they are similarly predictive of student performance. So students shouldn't worry about taking one or the other. I know there are some students who, and some of this is regional, just preferences based on where you are. Some states require certain exams as they're a high school leaving exam. We get these questions all the time. Well should I take both or should I take both four times? All of that. And the only answer to that is, if you love taking standardized exams and that's what you love to do, then go ahead and do it. Otherwise, you really shouldn't and your time would be better spent doing something else. Even playing board games with your family would be better than taking the test another time in most cases.
Lee Coffin:
Again, you're a senior, the test dates are coming in October, November, you haven't done it yet. What's our advice? Should a senior sit for a test to preserve the option of submitting? Or is it safe to say in the current landscape you could probably find 10 to 15 places of note to submit an application and you don't need to worry about this. So Stu, should someone sit for an SAT/ACT at this moment and why?
Stu Schmill:
So my advice to students is always to do what you think is best for yourself and not to base your decision on what any specific institution is requiring. I mean certainly if you want to apply to MIT, you need to take the test, but you don't need to apply to MIT. So the answer to that question is going to be different for different students. For students who are interested in applying to schools like MIT, certainly that require the test or where maybe the test might add something to their college application, then it's probably worth taking the test. And why not? Because you can see how you do and if you like how you do and you think it will help your application, then you can include it as part of your application to a lot of places.
If you don't like how you did, you then have another choice. You can either think, oh, I think I could do better. And then hop onto Khan Academy or something else and study a little bit. Take the test again, see how you do. Or you can say, you know what? I'm not going to do this again and I'm just not going to worry about my test. I'm not going to apply to schools that require it. And all those are perfectly great choices for students to make.
Lee Coffin:
So taking the test preserves choice and is one way to think about this. Before we move on though, you mentioned Khan Academy. So for people who may not be familiar with that as a resource, what's Khan Academy?
Stu Schmill:
So Khan Academy is an online educational system with modules of content that actually spans the entire length of K through 12 and even into some introductory college work. And it is a really well-designed resource and it's free and open to anyone around the world.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so Stu's advice is take the test, see what happens. Leigh, would you agree that it's worth sitting for at least one?
Leigh Weisenburger:
I really appreciate everything Stu just shared and I would agree despite being a champion of test optional and knowing that there are a plethora of institutions out there to which a student could apply and not have to have testing in order to apply and be successful in the admission process. I do think the best guidance, and as I've worked with high school counselors over the years, would be to still perhaps take the test at least once and have it in your back pocket should you be absolutely in love with an institution that requires testing.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I agree. So we're three for three. I think it makes sense to sit for at least one test. And just two points of information as we talk about ACT versus SAT. They're interchangeable and most of us have databases programmed to pick whichever one is higher. There's a concordance table. So if you submit an ACT and an SAT, the computer knows this is the better score. That's what we use. And then many of us do something called super scoring where if you took the SAT twice, we select your highest math and highest reading score even if you took one in March and one in November and that becomes your new composite. Many of us, not all of us do the same thing for the ACT, we're super scoring the different subsets, the different sub-scores is possible. So there's reading, there's English, there's math, and then there's a science section too. Stu, is that useful to MIT, the science section which does not exist on the SAT?
Stu Schmill:
We find the math sections of both the ACT and the SAT to be more predictive for us. The English and the reading next in line, the science less so. But with the ACT, you have to take it all as a package so you take them all together. And I also think students, I get this question a lot, which one should I take? I think students probably stress out over this more than they need to because their scores are really not going to be all that different. If they take the SAT or the ACT, they're going to come in at a similar level, especially at the granularity that it actually matters in our process. We're not parsing those tiny little differences all that much. So I just really wouldn't worry about it or take a practice exam at home of each of them and see which one feels better to you and do that.
Lee Coffin:
And you said something that I think will surprise a lot of non-admission officers. And I think a lot of high school seniors add their scores together and introduce themselves as I have a 1250, I have a 1410, I have 1000. When in fact we don't read them as one big lump. We do pay attention to, oh, you're talking about comparative literature and philosophy and you're a humanities-oriented person and your verbal score, your evidence-based reading and writing captures that. Or in your case at MIT, you're saying the math score is an important element of predictor for success in a very quantitative curriculum that you offer at MIT. Different pieces of testing inform us in different ways, and case by case that information will be used individually. And I think that gets lost. It also points me towards the idea that we use testing in context.
Stu Schmill:
We actually read the entire application in context. And it's often easier to explain when talking about a student's curriculum. So if you can think about…imagine two students. One student has all kinds of advanced math and science and English and history and foreign language classes that they've taken through high school, and another student hasn't, doesn't have any of those advanced classes. There's no objective truth out there that says one is more impressive than the other because you have to understand what each of those students had access to and support for.
There are a lot of high schools in this country and around the world that do not offer advanced courses. And so if a student is attending one of those, they're not going to have those on their transcript because they haven't had the choice, the option to be able to take them. And so we have to be able to understand what the opportunities have been for students and evaluate their applications in that light. And testing is the same. Some students have been doing test prep from birth. It's just in the water in their homes and the Baby Einsteins and all of that is test prep all the way through. And other students haven't had those opportunities. And so there are going to be differences in test scores because of that. And so you can't evaluate them without understanding and knowing that context.
Leigh Weisenburger:
Just to underscore some of Stu's comments, we often say in admission, context is everything. And so as you said, it's not just with the testing, it's all elements of the application. And one way just for students and families to understand how we determine that context, again it's one way, most if not all transcripts are accompanied by what's called a high school profile. And this is global, not always perfect. They're not uniform by any means. However, they give us insights to the community, they give us insights to the high school, and in this instance they give us insights to the curriculum. And so they'll let us know what are those advanced courses that are or are not offered? How the average student perform at that high school? And in many instances they'll also give us either a median or an average test score so that we have that context.
Should a student submit testing, let's say that is lower than the average applicant at Bates or MIT, but we see in their high school context, they're in fact knocking it out of the park. That ACT 26 or that SAT 1100 is killer for the resources they have and what has been available to them at their high school and how the average student performs. So we take that into account and know that. And that's our job. That's our job to understand the environment from which the student is coming to us. So thanks Stu for introducing the word context. We say it on multiple occasions every day.
Stu Schmill:
And actually I wonder if I can just add something, because this was one of the reasons why we chose to ask for test scores from all of our applicants is because I don't think students fully appreciated this notion of context. And we found that quite a number of students or some number of students who did not submit test scores to us during the pandemic years when they weren't required, they still had test scores that were actually really quite good and would've demonstrated students' readiness to succeed and thrive in our curriculum. But because they were a little bit lower than our averages, they chose not to submit them. Those test scores would've helped those students. And particularly important for students who come from high schools where they don't have access to advanced coursework. I think there were students out there who could have used the tests to demonstrate that readiness, but who chose not to because they weren't aware of the way we were going to review those tests.
Lee Coffin:
And it also is true, I love the point Leigh's making about students from under-resourced schools or schools where many kids don't go to a four-year college, people aren't testing. And a norm there might say this 1100 is remarkable relative to a peer group. The opposite is also true. There are a lot of high-powered suburban high schools where the ceiling effect is happening, where everybody's scores are jammed up at the top of the rainbow. And that's not as informative either. I mean I think that's counterintuitive perhaps where someone will say, I have a 1490. And it's like, everybody did in your class. And again we're not criticizing you, but that's not a differentiator when the norm in your community is testing power. Maybe because it's just a school that has been framed more directly around testing as a thing.
So a lot of our listeners live outside the United States and testing varies widely country-by-country, both access to it but also familiarity with testing in this American context. And you're living in a nation where either the national or the local schools don't ever orient you to standardize tests in this way, or in other places where it's absolutely the norm and you have a lot of high flyers. Any advice to international students who are looking at the US system and saying, required, optional. What do I do? I'm used to just being told, do it. And now I've got this big question and then there's the secondary question around English as a foreign language. But we'll come back to that.
Leigh Weisenburger:
I would start by saying, for many institutions, certainly those present today, I'd imagine there's a portion on our websites that are designated for international students or for non-US citizens. And there you'll find greater detail should the application requirements differ. And then in particular testing results or testing policies, all of that detail will be outlined there. So I would dig into that for each of the institutions you're considering, just to understand how you might be situated as an international student, if that's different at all from the overall applicant pool.
There's also a great resource called fairtest.org. So that gives you sort of a library of institutions and what their testing policies are. Now it's not going to give you the direct guidance in terms of whether or not you should submit, but it will at least let you know what the requirements are there. And then I would say to dig deeper, if there's an institution you're considering closely and you're really trying to understand if testing is a differentiator for you or could be a differentiator for you as an international applicant to contact the individual who oversees international admission or the person who oversees your nation in particular to understand.
So yes, as Lee alluded to it could be different than the way in which you've functioned through your whole schooling in your home nation that you just are told what to do and you do it. But here I think it is an introduction a bit to the American educational system and that you have choice and agency and you can exercise that. So just use those resources. And I would say broadly, when thinking about test optional in the US we're referring to the SAT and the ACT as Lee alluded to. There's then the TOEFL, the IELTS, the English proficiency testing that when we're colloquially just referring to test-optional, most often if not always are not categorized in this test optional zone. That is different and apart from.
Lee Coffin:
Tell us a little bit more, why is that required?
Leigh Weisenburger:
So we are wanting to make sure that when you're arriving in our classrooms, which are English based in learning that you are prepared and able to be a part of the dialogue fully for your benefit as much as for your classmates' benefit. So it's not a bar over which we're trying to get you to jump, but really we just want to set you up for success so that you have that English ability to really be a part of the dialogue and contribute.
Lee Coffin:
So two final questions for the two of you. As you think over the many years you've been admission officers and deans, what do you think would be most surprising to a student or parent about the role of testing in our work?
Stu Schmill:
Well, I'll just say something that I mentioned earlier: that I think most students and parents have an outsized view of the role that testing plays in our process. They just put too much emphasis as make or break. And it's just one piece of many. And I mean testing is really a lot like so much of the rest of the application. It'd be great for students to just not stress out over it. Do the best you can, see how it goes, and know that there is a college out there for you. The same advice for testing is the same advice for every other part of the whole college process and your high school career.
Lee Coffin:
Leigh?
Leigh Weisenburger:
Again, I'm coming from a test-optional institution, but it still just is not the be-all and end-all. It can be a factor, but it's not a driving force. And I would spend your time and energy and resources on the other parts of the application that fully create and tell your whole story.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, my interesting kind of "aha" came several years ago. I was at a college board conference. They had some practice tests in the lobby and I thought, it's been so long since I took one of these. I grabbed one, went up to my hotel room and I took a timed. I just did the verbal section because I thought it's been too long since I was in a high school math class. I didn't want to embarrass myself. But I did work my way through the verbal section. And what I was struck by as I answered the questions were two things. One was how much I was using my college-level Italian class to dissect words I wasn't familiar with and look for the Latin root and then make an educated guess as to what the correct answer was. And thought, I did not know how to do that when I was a high school senior at my public high school in Connecticut.
But the bigger "aha" was there were reading passages that I'd read and then had to answer the questions. And when the reading passage was about literature or politics or something social studies oriented, I got everything right. When the reading passage was about oceanography, I started getting questions wrong because I was not as interested in the topic. And I thought that is so interesting because it's my verbal score, but hiding inside it was my relative lack of interest in science as an academic subject personally. And I thought I just didn't really appreciate that until I took the practice this way. That was my "aha." So let me-
Stu Schmill:
Can I make one more comment about testing?
Lee Coffin:
... Yes, go. Sure.
Stu Schmill:
And that is something that I really hope students take away is that your test score is not a referendum on you as an individual or even a student or your potential. It's just a point in time in how you might do in your first year or in your college courses upcoming now. But it does not say anything about your potential, your life outcomes, certainly your worth as a human or a person. And I think too often students get wrapped up in, oh, I'm really smart, I have a high test score. Or I'm not that smart, I don't have a high test score. And so much of it is about preparation, your opportunities, and it is not determinative of what your life outcomes are going to be.
Lee Coffin:
Right. Okay, last question is the speed round. True or false. Okay? I'm going to ask you a few things. You can opine if you must, but true or false. Okay, true or false? Optional is a trick command.
Leigh Weisenburger:
False.
Stu Schmill:
False.
Lee Coffin:
I agree. False. Optional is not a trick word. It really truly is your choice. True or false? My score is low. It will always be a, no.
Leigh Weisenburger:
False.
Stu Schmill:
False.
Lee Coffin:
False. 800 is a guaranteed ticket to the next round.
Leigh Weisenburger:
False.
Stu Schmill:
Very false.
Lee Coffin:
Very false. But see, that's surprising. People think, wow, I got a perfect score. And it's all relative. It's all one point in the process.
Test optional makes it easier to get in.
Leigh Weisenburger:
False.
Stu Schmill:
False.
Lee Coffin:
False. Testing is valuable in the holistic admission process.
Stu Schmill:
True.
Leigh Weisenburger:
I would say false.
Lee Coffin:
I did that on purpose. I set Leigh up for like, she's going to say, maybe.
Leigh Weisenburger:
I'm going to own it and say, false.
Lee Coffin:
That's right. Because you've got a holistic review where that, yeah…
Leigh Weisenburger:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Perfect. Well, Stu and Leigh, always fun to see you and have a conversation like this one.
Leigh Weisenburger:
Same.
Lee Coffin:
And I hope for our listeners, you come away from this pod with some confidence in the way testing will fit into your admission process or not, as the deadlines zoom into clearer focus for you. So until next week, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.