High Performance Academics Blog

When test optional policies exploded across American colleges during the pandemic, a lot of families breathed a collective sigh of relief. No more Saturday mornings at a testing center. No more prep courses. No more agonizing over whether a 1280 would hurt more than it would help. And for some students, that relief was entirely warranted. But for many others — particularly high-achieving students applying to selective schools — test optional has become one of the most misunderstood and potentially costly policies in the modern college process. After nearly three decades inside high-performing schools and now working one-on-one with families navigating this landscape, I want to set the record straight. Test optional does not mean tests do not matter. It means you have a choice about whether to submit them. And that choice has real strategic consequences that most families are not thinking about carefully enough. What Test Optional Actually Means When a college declares itself test optio...

If you went to college in the 80s, 90s, or even the early 2000s, here is something worth knowing: the process your child is navigating looks almost nothing like the one you went through. When most of today's parents applied to college, you visited a few schools, wrote one essay, mailed in your application, and waited. Acceptance rates at selective schools were dramatically higher. The Common Application didn't exist yet, or was in its infancy. Test scores were straightforward. Financial aid was simpler. And nobody had heard of demonstrated interest, coalition applications, or test-optional policies. That world is gone. Today's college process is a multi-year, high-stakes, constantly shifting landscape that requires strategic thinking, careful planning, and a level of insider knowledge that most families — no matter how educated or involved — simply don't have. It is not because you aren't paying attention. It's because the game itself has changed, and nobody sen...