College admissions, exam optional

 The WSJ has a report focusing on post-covid, exam optional college admissions:

College Admission Season Is Crazier Than Ever. That Could Change Who Gets In.  By waiving SATs and ACTs, highly selective schools invited an unprecedented wave of applications, upending the traditional decision process.  By Melissa Korn and Douglas Belkin

"Ivy League schools and a host of other highly selective institutions waived SAT and ACT requirements for the class of 2025, resulting in an unprecedented flood of applications and what may prove the most chaotic selection experiment in American higher education since the end of World War II.

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"Harvard University received more than 57,000 freshman applications for next fall’s entering class, a 42% year-over-year jump. Yale, Columbia and Stanford universities were so overwhelmed they also pushed back the date to announce admission decisions. The University of Southern California’s applications pool beat the prior record by 7%. And New York University topped 100,000 applications, up 17% from last year.

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"Testing isn’t the only conundrum admissions officials are confronting. Grade-point averages—normally a key data point—were complicated by last year’s spring semester, when many high schools offered pass-fail options to students who were suddenly finishing junior year online. Sports and other extracurricular activities were canceled in pockets of the country, stripping teens of leadership opportunities to boast about on applications.

"Still, tests are the biggest single X-factor this year. Test administrations for the SAT and ACT across much of the country were canceled because of public-health concerns about crowding teens into auditoriums. More than 1,600 four-year colleges didn’t require that applicants submit standardized test scores this admissions cycle, since so many students couldn’t take the exams as scheduled. The movement behind test-optional policies had gained some high-profile backers over the past decade, but the trickle turned to a tsunami when 600 more joined the roster since last March.

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"With the gates to many more selective schools no longer guarded by standardized tests, tens of thousands of additional students applied. In a year when nothing was certain, anything seemed possible—so what the heck, seniors thought, why not apply to Harvard?

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"Data from the Common App, a standard application used by more than 900 schools, show that applications through March 1 were up 11% nationwide. But the number of applicants rose by just 2.4%, meaning roughly the same number of students are just sending out more applications. The flurry of applications was concentrated at more selective colleges."