In each of the past three years I have written a Genuine Admissions blog about testing. In fact, testing is the only admissions topic I have written about more than once. Given the amount of time, energy, resources, and anxiety that goes into testing on the part of both parents and students, it is not surprising that the topic is virtually inexhaustible. Whether it’s the SSAT, ISEE, PSAT, or ACT, SAT, subject tests, or APs, admission testing is something that can, in one form or another, impact students’ lives across not just weeks, but months and years of their lives. There is no other type of educational assessment that carries the same weight in the United States, that costs so much, and proportionally speaking privileges so few. It makes sense that the topic would be a perennial one.

My first post in October 2019, “Testing is to Admission as Kale is to Salad,” regarded testing as kind of a necessary evil, both a painful rite of passage and an important data point for admission officers assessing academic achievement and potential. The second, “Testing is to Loomis as Receipts are to Returns,” was written in September 2020, six months after COVID-19 resulted in nationwide lockdowns and two months after Loomis Chaffee adopted a two-year test optional admission policy. In that post, I outlined a brief history of the test optional movement in higher education, my own experience reading applications at both test-required and test-optional institutions, and Loomis Chaffee’s historical approach to testing. I concluded that test results, like receipts, are certainly helpful in getting a certain job done, but are not necessary for the task.

Just over a year later, where are we with test optional admission? Reflective of the impact COVID has had on our children’s lives overall, it’s still too soon to tell. What I do know is this:

• The majority of our applicants last year did not submit testing to us;
• The majority of our admitted students did not have test scores;
• And the majority of our newly enrolled students do not have test scores.

And that’s about all we know. We cannot draw any conclusions regarding submitters, nonsubmitters, and academic success (or lack thereof) yet. We also can’t separate out the extensive range of their academic experiences last year to accurately measure whether the submission of testing or not has any correlation to their current academic performance, just like we can’t separate out those who were online all last year versus those who were in person, or half the year in person, or hybrid by week … the list goes on. Honestly, I think all our schools’ new students have had enough on their plates just adjusting to their new lives on our campuses (not to mention still under many COVID restrictions) that attempting to draw any conclusions about testing and its ability to predict future success in school is a futile exercise. Our children have had the most transformational time in their lives upended and defined by COVID since the winter of 2020. This is not an environment in which conclusions can yet be drawn about much of anything.

That’s likely why Stanford University recently announced its continuation of their test optional policy through the 2022–23 admissions cycle. Other highly selective institutions such as Bowdoin College and, more recently, the University of Chicago already adopted permanent test optional admissions, and still others such as the University of California and Cal Tech have a “test blind” policy that will not consider testing even if you send your scores. Right now, there is still too much variability among applicants’ educational experiences ― and access to tests ― for many institutions to feel confident that testing, whether required or not, is as accurate a measurement of achievement and potential as it might have been before 2020. And it’s important to remember that even at that time many were grappling with issues around testing.

So, if you’re an applicant to Loomis this year, should you test? And if you do, should you submit your scores to us? There are no clear answers to these questions because, cliché as it may sound, we employ a holistic admissions process. What that means is that we look at the full context of your application when we make admissions decisions. Like Stanford, we admit students with testing and students without. Like Stanford, we say clearly on our website that if you do not feel your test results are a positive reflection of your overall academic profile, it will not disadvantage you if you do not submit them. But also, like Stanford, we don’t give much more direction than that, because as is true with anything with admissions, it’s an impossible question to answer. We haven’t read your entire applicant file, and we don’t have the wider context of the rest of the applicant pool. Students are not only admitted with and without testing, but they are also denied with and without testing ― a point that is sometimes lost in the question. That’s what a holistic admissions process means: we are not making decisions based just on test scores.

Perhaps this submission conundrum is not unlike many questions you will face in the future that do not have clear right or wrong answers, like whether you should start the paper or accept that invite to play ping pong in the common room, or whether you should stick with swimming or try out for the winter musical. What I can assure you is this: in Stanford’s words, “We urge students not to jeopardize their health or well-being to take future sittings of non-required tests.” To put it simply, there are many reasons why our applicants do not submit test scores, and we make no assumptions regarding that decision. As a college admissions officer friend of mine once said, “if we don’t read ‘equestrian’ on your activities list, we don’t wonder where the horse is.” If we don’t have testing, we just make the decision without it. We don’t wonder where it is, we don’t analyze why it isn’t there ― we just read and decide on what we do have. Period. And that, at Loomis at least, is crystal clear.