The All Important Test Score

How does an admissions office like the one at the University of Pennsylvania or the University of Michigan weigh an applicant’s standardized test scores?
I asked the deans of each institution that question in recent interviews recorded for a coming online course, “Introduction to College Admissions,” that I helped create with my colleagues at The New York Times Knowledge Network.
In the first of two excerpts, above, Eric Furda, the dean of admission at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that “it will surprise people how quickly we go over something like test scores.” He then advises applicants, as they try to gauge whether their applications will be “competitive,” to pay particular attention to the standardized test scores of those students enrolled at Penn or other colleges who fell in the “middle 50 percent test range” of the class (in other words, those whose scores would have ranked in the 25th through 75th percentiles, when compared to the class as a whole).

Mr. Furda doesn’t specify those scores in the interview, but for the current freshman class at Penn they are: SAT critical reading, 660 to 770, out of a possible 800; SAT math, 690 to 780; SAT writing, 680 to 770; and ACT composite, 30 to 34, out of a possible 36.
Those prospective applicants who might be discouraged by the scores, take note: a quarter of those students in the current freshman class scored lower. And yes, to be fair, a quarter scored higher. I also note that Penn, a private Ivy League institution, is among the most competitive colleges in the nation, and that the median scores at most of the nation’s 2,000 or so other four-year colleges are substantially lower.
In another interview for the course, below, Ted Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions at Michigan in Ann Arbor, a flagship public institution, makes clear that his office has no minimum “cutoffs” when it considers applicants’ standardized test scores. In fact, he says, he would be more inclined to admit an applicant with low test scores and a strong grade point average than a high-scoring student who did not perform to his or her potential in high school.

this article originally appeared in The New York Times