1st post Granola - Good SATs & OK grades

Test Preparation
1

<p>My son attends a demanding independent school with no grade inflation, no AP or honors courses and has a 3.1 gpa, having put in minimal effort. He excels in Language Arts & History, gets Bs & B-s in math and this year, Cs & C- in science. </p>

<p>His SATs results were about 2110, 99th percentile in both of the language sections, 72 percentile in math and 10 on the essay (having said "I have to write something?" on the way to the exam, I guess that's pretty good.)</p>

<p>I say granola, because this is a kid from a progressive school in the Northwest, I don't have his scores memorized, his school doesn't rank kids... The whole approach to college is very different from the intensity that I see on this site. And appropriately, the schools he likes best are Reed, Bennington & Bard.</p>

<p>He knows that he should improve his grades, but should he retake the test? Maybe I should have posted this in a different section?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Well from what I know, colleges use SATs as indicators, which can mean good thing or bad things. Its more of a game rather than a test, but thats a great score. What colleges is he looking into?</p>

3

<p>So far he likes Reed, Bennington & Bard.</p>

4

<p>Reed seems to like really smart kids who are quirky, intellectual and interesting. A lowish gpa can be indicative of boredom with the curriculum, and grade deflation as you noted. Reed will take that into consideration and attempts to choose students based on who they think will thrive there.</p>

5

<p>Unless he’s prepared to study some to bring his math score up, why take it again? He can’t do any better in the other two sections. </p>

<p>He might also check out Hampshire, Sarah Lawrence and Hamilton.</p>

6

<p>Thanks for your suggestions and advice!</p>