College admissions news roundup: Week of August 31st

A weekly digest of college admissions news impacting your family

What’s the deal with test scores?

FairTest, the anti-testing advocacy group, reported last week that 90% of colleges remain test-optional — even as the Ivy League brings back the SAT and ACT.

Inside Higher Ed buries the lede: 90% of schools are test-optional, but less than 4% are “test-free.” Test-optional schools don’t require scores. However, many want them anyway. Last year, more students (51%) submitted scores than didn’t, according to data from the Common App.

Students who don’t sit for the SAT or ACT are finding themselves shut out of admissions, especially from elite schools that “consider” scores. So, grab your proverbial #2 pencils if you’re applying to any school that accepts scores. Test-optional isn’t really an option.

The DOJ accuses another school of shirking the Supreme Court’s color-blind admissions decision

George Washington University Medical School is the latest on the list of colleges Trump’s Justice Department has accused of considering race in admissions decisions. Like other universities in the DOJ’s crosshairs, GWU apparently used essays to tag applicants for preferred admissions by race.

As we reported earlier, Duke University became the subject of the DOJ probe after its law school asked applicants to answer a supplemental essay question: how would they advance Duke Law’s mission to promote a “diversity of perspective and experience”?

In the court case that banned race-based admissions, Justice Roberts specifically warned schools not to use essays to bypass the law — the DOJ calls these “racial proxies” that hide racial identifiers behind seemingly innocent admissions criteria such as diversity essays.

Students and families are bound to wonder: can they write about their racial identity? Or will schools now penalize these essays? The Supreme Court offers a clear answer: schools may consider what an applicant writes about race shaping their lives, through discrimination, inspiration, or anything else, as long as they reward the character and contribution. The constraint belongs to the institution, not the essay.

You can write about the lessons you learned at your immigrant aunt’s flower shop. Or how you explained the FAFSA application to your non-native-speaking parents. It’s fair game under the current law, and schools want to hear your story even if it involves race.

Syracuse can’t recruit enough students to pay its debt

Syracuse has an enrollment problem. As a university in the bottom half of U.S. News Top 100, pundits were quick to pounce on Syracuse’s budget deficit as a story about the so-called enrollment cliff.

It goes something like this: college enrollment peaked in 2010. Because older Millennials and young Gen-Xers haven’t had as many kids, schools now have more seats than bodies. This wasn’t supposed to touch brand-name schools, and it largely hasn’t. Yet here comes Syracuse. Is this the canary in the coal mine?

Probably not. At least not for public flagships and elite privates. Syracuse is a tuition-dependent school and recently raised tuition by 4%. Unlike public universities, including those in the University of California system, it can’t rely on public funding to keep prices and admissions low. It also lacks the lavish endowments of more prestigious private schools.

Parents are becoming more cost-conscious. Syracuse's cost of attendance has grown to more than $90,000 per year.

Here’s our read: mid-tier, tuition-dependent universities are starting to suffer from enrollment dips, with parents reluctant to pay their asking price. Their rankings will plummet, and the perceived value of degrees from these schools will follow.

The schools where everyone wants in (the UCs, Ivy Plus schools) will enjoy a premium spike: they’ll become harder to get into, and the value of these degrees will rise. The higher education market is separating into the halves and halve-nots. And the spoils will go to the elite, for students and universities alike.

A federal judge in Washington allows anti-Asian discrimination case to move forward — with AI as an attorney

Stanley Zhong graduated with a 4.42 GPA and a 1590 on his SAT. Yet 16 of the 18 universities he applied to rejected him, including the University of Washington.

After failing to gain legal representation, Stanley and his father, Nan Zhong, turned to ChatGPT and Google Gemini to build a case. They had the AI chatbots turn over past court filings and legal precedents. It worked. Just last week, a federal judge in Washington State allowed the case to proceed.

When the case was first filed, the University of Washington pointed to its selective admissions process and Zhong’s out-of-state residency. The Zhong family brought up a now-defunct diversity document from UW’s School of Computer Science and Engineering — evidence, they say, that the university set demographic targets in admissions.

Legal scholars were dubious that individual plaintiffs could use AI to win a hearing. However, a Washington judge rejected the university’s motion to dismiss, meaning the case will now move to legal discovery.

The family maintains that race-conscious admissions continue to work against Asian American applicants, despite the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. As previously reported, after the landmark legal case, Asian American enrollment at America's elite universities has increased by only 2%. Armed with AI as an advocate, Stanley Zhong and his father will now look to pry open admissions data and internal communications that the University of Washington would rather keep sealed.