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Opting Out of the SAT: This year's WFU freshmen are first class without requirement
Journal Photo Illustration by Nicholas Weir
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Published: October 2, 2009
Updated: 10/01/2009 01:02 am
Chandalae Nyswonger wanted to present herself in the best possible light last year as she went through the admissions process at Wake Forest University.
To accomplish that, she chose not to submit her SAT scores. The SAT is a standardized test that has become a key component in the college-admissions process.
"How I do one Saturday for four hours can't explain what I did in high school," said Nyswonger, who received a score of 1,340. "I didn't feel as if it was representative of me."
Wake Forest does not release average SAT scores.
But out of a possible score of 1,600, about 50 percent of students scored between 1,220 and 1,380, Cheryl Walker, a spokeswoman for the university, said.
Last year, Wake Forest made national news when it decided to give applicants the option of submitting their SAT scores. Of the 2,600 accredited institutions that grant bachelor degrees, 840 are test-optional, according to Fair Test, a nationwide group that studies the accuracy of test taking and scores.
Most of the colleges are small, liberal-arts colleges; however, a few bigger schools are becoming part of the trend.
For example, American University is not requiring applicants to submit test scores if they apply for early decision. Wake Forest is the first school ranked among U.S. News and World Report's top 30 schools to drop the SAT requirement.
This year's freshmen were the first to be given a choice.
The majority kept with tradition and submitted scores. Of the 1,201 enrolled freshmen, 312 students, or 26 percent, did not send in their scores, according to Martha Allman, the school's director of admissions.
Overall, 2,955, or 28 percent, of the 10,555 applicants did not submit scores, she said.
Nyswonger, a graduate of Parkland's international baccalaureate program, decided not to include her scores because she scored a bit lower on the writing portion of the SAT than the average Wake Forest freshman. The College Board did not have an average writing score for Wake.
"I might have sent it if I had scored higher," said Nyswonger, who was accepted by Wake.
As part of the admissions overhaul, Wake looked more closely at an applicant's high-school achievements, such as grades, class rank and curriculum. It also added an interview, which can be conducted in person, by Web cam or online with written questions.
For this year's class, Allman's staff of admissions officers interviewed about 8,000 applicants. The interviews give admissions officers a chance to learn about applicants beyond grades and essays, which can be reviewed and polished by coaches.
"We're looking for intellectual curiosity. What are your outside activities? How do you spend your time? What do you read? We're really trying to learn about the students and have a less rehearsed introduction to them," Allman said.
In the 30-minute interviews, applicants were asked to talk about random things such as "defining cool" and to make an argument for something they don't support. Nyswonger was told to rate how nerdy she was on a scale of 1 to 10. She said she didn't do anything to prepare for the interview.
"I wanted them to get an actual view of who I was," she said. "If I started thinking of stuff, it would have been a little too artificial and they wouldn't see who I was."
In becoming a test-optional school, Provost Jill Tiefenthaler has argued that the SAT does nothing to indicate how a student might enhance a school's intellectual community, nor does it predict whether a student will be successful in a college classroom.
The shift in priorities for Wake Forest means that admissions officers are now more focused on building a class with a range of abilities from a variety of backgrounds.
"That's where diversity comes in," Tiefenthaler said. "We want the clarinet players, the political- science majors, from the North and South, from different backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. It's not a meritocracy where you line everyone up. It's really about building a class, where you try to get as vibrant an intellectual community as you can get."
The university made some gains in its desire for more diversity. Twenty-three percent of the freshman class are minorities, compared with 18 percent in 2008. The percentage of international students also increased from 1 percent to 2 percent. First-generation students make up 10 percent of the class.
Wake Forest officials will monitor the class over the next four years to see how those who declined to submit their scores fared compared with those who did.
What they are likely to discover is that going test-optional will have little effect on its graduation and retention rate, said Scott Jaschik, an editor with Inside Higher Ed, an online news source that covers higher education. Jaschik has written extensively about the SAT and the admissions process.
"Colleges like to make decisions based on track records," he said. "And there is a track record on this. The sky does not fall when you drop the SAT. You can be sure that if test-optional schools saw their graduation rates drop, they'd rush back and get students to submit their SATs.
lodonnell@wsjournal.com
727-7420
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