If your student has plans to take AP examinations this spring, you will want to be on the lookout for announcements from their school/school system on when and how they are going to be administered. The College Board announced today a revised testing schedule that requires, imho, some heavy lifting by schools (especially testing coordinators). Understandable outrage forthcoming …

College Board 2021 AP Scheduling Announcement

and . . .

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The dominos are starting to fall. My location bias is going to show but here goes … how about you, UNC and NCSU?

Though I am not going to publish a new post every single time a school announces that they have extended their test-optional policy to future admission cycles, the announcements by both the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University could hasten moves by other institutions. Good news!

The announcement by Penn State University (test optional through Fall 2023!) last week is evidence of the fact that state boards CAN get their proverbial acts together and make decisions quickly in the best interest of future applicants. Let’s hope large systems here in North Carolina and neighboring states do as they should and make announcements in the near future.

There is SO MUCH to digest in this article published in Sunday’s New York Times on how academic merit scholarship aid is awarded at a number of colleges and universities today. The overarching point: If attending a private or out-of-state public institution is a goal for your student yet you will need to keep expenses close to that of full cost of attendance at one of your state public colleges, curriculum and grades matter – a lot.

This notion of “academic merit scholarship” versus “coupon” or “discount” is something I cover in depth with families I work with here in North Carolina. We are fortunate to have a tremendously strong and relatively affordable state college and university system (fwiw – I think this is true for ALL states – look beyond the fancy names and you’ll find tremendous academic opportunities everywhere). Though local students are often wooed with scholarship money by public institutions in neighboring states (or private colleges anywhere), it is important to understand that it still may be more affordable to attend a North Carolina public college despite receiving scholarships that may total $100K+ over four years.

As is true with every aspect of the college admissions process, it is important to consider merit based aid offers thoughtfully.

What started as a message board rumor last night became reported news this morning – the College Board is ending its subject test programs and removing the writing section from the SAT. You’ll see tweets from many and articles published by the likes of the Washington Post throughout the morning. For a most thorough analysis of this decision and its ramifications, I strongly encourage you to read this breakdown by Adam Ingersoll of Compass Education Group.

The College Board just released its official statement this hour.

Because you may be curious, Compass provided lists last fall of schools that still require or recommend subject tests or the writing section for the 2020-21 application cycle.

My take? Simplifying the college application process is always a good thing.

Casey Near, Executive Director of Counseling at Collegewise, published a terrific article yesterday on how students who will be applying to college in 2022 should approach standardized testing. To Test or Not To Test: Junior Edition – it’s well worth the five minute read.

This comes on the heels of New York University announcing that they’ve received 100,000+ applications for the Fall 2021 term, a 20% increase over last year. Prior to this year, only UCLA had hit that mark in the U.S. Though NYU has had a “test flexible” policy for some time, they relaxed even that policy last June because of testing limitations forced by the COVID pandemic.

The publicity that comes with receiving over 100,000 applications is real – NYU itself even put out a press release celebrating the occasion. All of this is to say that Casey Near’s theory that “it’s very likely colleges will remain test optional for the class of 2022” is further supported, in my opinion, by the idea that NYU and other institutions with massive increases will be hesitant to risk receiving fewer applications next fall. We’ll see how this all plays out in the coming months.

Both Baylor University and the California State University system announced last week continued adjustments to their prior SAT/ACT test policies. Baylor will remain test-optional through 2023 and the California State system will remain test-blind (even submitted test scores will not be evaluated) through the 2022-23 academic year.

We are closely monitoring news releases from our local public and private institutions in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia and are hopeful announcements will be made prior to the busy junior college visit season (even if virtual) begins this March.

The surprise I felt when the University of Georgia announced its 27% increase in early action application numbers this November was minimal. I chocked it up to their accepting the Common Application for the first time as well as their continued growth in popularity as a Sun Belt state flagship institution.

However, with the announcement by colleges across the country of huge increases in ED and EA applications, it’s clear that something more is at play.

Judi Robinovitz, a certified educational planner based in Florida, has aggregated application increases from over twenty institutions with input from fellow independent educational consultants:

The “why” (really, “whys”) behind these increases are numerous. Josh Stephens, an independent educational consultant based in Los Angeles, published a terrific piece on Medium yesterday – well worth the read!

While he covers the likely impacts of these increases for current college applicants, what might this mean for current juniors, sophomores, and beyond? Since test-optional policies may be the primary factor behind these increases, will colleges be even less likely to return to requiring tests once the pandemic is behind us for fear of losing applications? We will be following requirement announcements closely in the coming months.

Rick Clark, Director of Admission at Georgia Tech, offers this wonderful perspective on dealing with disappointment. Sure, the subject matter is college decision related, but there are lessons here for all of us, parents included. Enjoy.

Later this afternoon, the University of Georgia will release it’s 2021 EA application decisions. David Graves, Interim Senior Executive Director of Admissions at UGA, does a terrific job keeping prospective students and applicants updated on all things UGA admissions and even goes so far as to answer questions posted in the comments section of their blog. His forthrightness and thoughtfulness is worth appreciating.

The statistics David shares on this year’s applicant pool are remarkable. And he reminds us, “This is data on the total EA applicant pool, and not on the group we will be accepting (which will be higher).” Highly competitive indeed. Reasons for the big increase in applications? New to the Common App this year, continued growth in major southern university application pools (we continue to graduate more students each year down here and folks from elsewhere just like the warmth of our winter sun!), perhaps growth in applications from neighboring Florida as the UGA system is rightly test optional – my guess is it’s a combination of these three and more.

Applicants (of which I know a few!), I encourage you to read David’s entire post here. He explains the decisions UGA releases and offers sincere advice on how you should proceed. Good luck!

Late afternoon addition: David Graves has posted statistics on this year’s EA admitted class. Take a look here.