by Abigail Anderson, former admissions officer at Reed College

Sending Standardized Test Scores to Colleges: How and When?

You just hit submit on your last college application and now, the rest is up to everyone else. Your teachers are sending in their recommendations, your parents are working on the financial aid application, and the college counselor is taking care of your transcript and the school report. Time to kick back and watch some Netflix, right?

Wrong.

by Landis Fryer, former admissions officer at Dartmouth College

Admission for international students (non-U.S. citizens or Permanent Residents) to American universities can be challenging to understand for families unfamiliar with the process. If you add to this confusion a few big changes in admissions, many related to the pandemic, the process becomes even more overwhelming. As an educator who has worked with many international families, I have heard countless questions about applying as “international” and concerns about perceived challenges, so let me share some insight into this process.

by Karen Spencer, former admissions officer at Georgetown University

We are often asked how homeschooled applicants are evaluated in the admissions process, and the answer is, per usual (if you read our blog regularly), “It depends.” Some colleges have an admissions officer who reads all homeschooled applicants separately, whereas other colleges have each admissions officer read them alongside the rest of their assigned applicant pool (which is often divided by region of the country). I polled my colleagues who worked at an array of colleges across the U.S.—private and public, selective and not-selective—to understand more of the nuances behind this review process and just what it is admission officers hope to learn from homeschooled applicants.

Those students who do plan to take standardized tests this year have a choice: ACT or SAT. But how do you make that choice if you don’t know what the differences are? ArborBridge CEO and former tutor and curriculum director Megan Stubbendeck shares her insight in our first segment. In Office Hours, we’re answering your college finance and admissions questions.

by Sara Calvert-Kubrom, former admissions officer at Lewis & Clark College

After over a year of evolving changes and news out of California, a legal settlement concluded on Friday, May 14, that the University of California system cannot consider SAT or ACT scores for students applying through spring of 2025. This settlement concludes the 2019 lawsuit filed against the UCs due to concerns about the disproportionate disadvantage of standardized testing for students with disabilities and many low-income, Black, and Latinx students.

by Elizabeth Heaton, former admissions officer at University of Pennsylvania

What a crazy year! Students fully remote or attending high school in-person part-time via a hybrid model. Courses graded pass/fail. Standardized tests unavailable in many locations. Sports and other extracurricular activities postponed or cancelled. This was a difficult school year—and year—by anyone’s standards. For the class of 2021, those difficulties extended further to college admissions.

by Sara Calvert-Kubrom, former admissions officer at Lewis & Clark College

After a year of evolving changes and news out of California, the UC system has announced it will continue its practice of not considering SAT or ACT scores for students applying to fall of 2022. What does this mean? The SAT and ACT will not be used in the admission process nor in the merit scholarship review process for applicants to any UC campus.

When COVID hit in March 2020, it disrupted life for everyone across the globe, including college admissions. Standardized test dates were cancelled, rescheduled, and cancelled again, and ultimately more than 1200 colleges and universities made them an optional part of their admissions process. We’ll update you on test optional policies for the 2021-2022 admissions cycle and share our thoughts on whether or not juniors should still plan to take them. In Office Hours, we’re answering your college admissions and finance questions.

by Emily Toffelmire, former admissions officer at University of Southern California

This is part two in our award series. Check out our previous post and stay tuned for part three.

The 2020-2021 admission cycle has been a beast. It’s caused even more anxiety and stress than would normally be expected, and it’s laid bare inequity of our education system as well as the fragile state of so many of our institutions of higher learning. It’s been hard to identify any slices of good news out there but I do consider the move to test optional and test free admission policies to be a win—a silver lining of a mean and ugly cloud. And there are other silver linings. Despite the enormous pressure and unpredictability of the last year, many admission offices saw 2020 as an opportunity to improve the work they do: to become more accessible to more types of students; to upend years of the same old, same old in their app review process; and to increase transparency when it comes to that process.

by Elizabeth Heaton, former admissions officer at University of Pennsylvania

The news on college applications can feel a little scary this year—applications are up in huge year-over-year numbers at Brown (26%), Oregon State (40%), UC Berkeley (28%), University of Pennsylvania (34%) and Colgate (100%!). How to account for these increases?