What does test-optional really mean?

In this conversation Nick and a former admissions officer explain that a missing score is not read the same way for every applicant, and that a highly selective college may assume a student from a high-income area who did not submit a score did not do well. Their advice is that a family who can pay for testing and prep should test and submit, and that a score is always read alongside the transcript rather than on its own.

Recorded December 2022. Deadlines and policies change; check the current year's dates.

Read the full answer: Which colleges require the SAT or ACT in 2026

Transcript

There are some unspoken rules. This is one of those secrets, the unspoken rules that go with not using that test or using the test. One of the things about the test that is unfortunate, I won't even say unfair because it reflects the school systems more than anything is that the higher your income level, the more likely you are to score higher on SAT. And that has been proven been proven over and over and over again. Now, I would argue that the reason for that is that the higher your income, the higher your property taxes and therefore the better your school.

So it's not just the money aspect. It's the fact that if you live in Costa Mesa, you're going to have better schools than they do in Compton and therefore you'll have benefits given that aspect and you are a higher income sort of family and you opt not to take the test or not to submit the test. I think most highly selective schools will assume that you have chosen not to submit tests because you didn't do well and you probably should have given your background. Whereas if you are from a lower income area and you chose not submit the test, you probably didn't do well, but maybe it's because you just didn't have the resources to do well on test.

And so even though you don't submit that test, some colleges, especially at the higher selected, are going to make assumptions as to why. What I'm hearing from you is it when you're looking, if you're on the college side and you're looking at a student who's coming from Beverly Hills or Newport Beach, California, and they didn't submit a test score, you might interpret that differently than if the student is from Santa Ana. Right. Right. I might Yes. Exactly. And and by the way, demographic data as far as where you live, how much your house is worth, all those kind of things readily available.

So even even if they've never heard of your tiny community, they can very quickly find out what your tiny community is all about. If you are a student who is from a family that can afford to do test and afford to get help with test prep, I highly recommend you do and that you submit scores. Because it is almost can't say completely, but almost expected of you. But generally speaking, the scores are again they're always going to be looked at in conjunction with the transcript. I never would look at a score and make an admission solely without seeing a transcript.

Next, both of those things go together. And the and the validity of the score is much much higher when you pair it with a transcript than it is if you look at the score. And without a transcript, a test score is gives you some indication, but not very. You pair a transcript with it, then you've got a lot of Yeah. I thought it was interesting that MIT in their recent statement about test scores when they removed the testing component of it during the COVID lockdowns and they didn't have the test scores that they they found it actually really hurt their students who are coming from low-income areas because they wanted that little extra piece of information.

I can tell you that that even if I got low score from a kid from a poorer not so resourced high school that score was still helpful to me to say is there a foundation? Is there something there that I can put my hat on that says okay he may not be in AP Cal now but if I get him here he can we can get him up to speed really quickly. So that that sort of gave me that foundational like no it's not very high but it tells me enough to know we we're we're going somewhere. And so that's so I think that's what MIT found as

More explainers for parents: https://www.prepgurus.com/13secrets (the free 13 Secrets to College Admission guide) and https://highschoolreach.com (look up any high school's college outcomes)