We were only a couple minutes into an "ask the deans" panel at a high school's college planning program and the first testing question was asked. We all knew from experience that once the first testing question is asked, we don't get away from testing questions without some sort of intervention from the counseling staff in the room.
The crowd probably has lots of questions about other topics, but once testing comes up, they skip down the list to the testing stuff. And so we dwell. And the admission officers are a little perplexed that all the time is being spent on testing when there are other things they could discuss.
This is going to be an interesting year because of the changes made to the tests and how they are scored. Rest assured, we've been through things like this before (recentering in 1994/5, the move of the Writing test in 2005) and we will all get through the changes together. I actually like years like this because they often force students to look at the more substantial parts of their application. Remember that four years of development get much more of our time than the four hours spent taking one test.
Students, as you start this year, I want you to pay attention to how much time admission officers at schools with holistic processes spend talking about testing. I assure you that the time spent talking about the SAT and ACT will be dwarfed by the time spent talking about programs, grades, recommendations, and essays. I'm not saying testing doesn't matter. If a schools asks for something, it matters. Testing is definitely an interesting piece of data. However, we don't have minimums or cut offs in our process. We read the entire file and render a decision based on the whole package. That's what holistic admission means.
Testing doesn't warrant getting half the time during a panel program and it doesn't warrant getting the majority of your head space as you are juggling the academic load and responsibilities that come with being a junior or senior in high school.
As always, I'm happy to answer your questions in the comments.