<p>notre dame - your perspective is helpful. Even the smartest among us human beings always will run up against some one smarter in one way or another or one field or another. Young people need to get a sense of instrinsic achievement - with the understanding that competition is often helpful and vital to improving performance but that in the end what matters is developing one’s own human capital. </p>
<p>I have trouble (and in all honesty, I think many share this with me) putting this SAT thing in perspective. It is just a test - and frankly in some respects a silly one at that insofar it is does to a degree measure test taking abilities. Yet there is an inexorable pull to want to do well on it, and frankly, even the least pushy of parents (I count myself in that group) still find themselves vicariously living - despite our best efforts, through our bright kids. I think I do a moderate job in not taking the SAT or college admission thing too seriously - because it really is about the kids learning to perform at a level and in areas of endeavor that they want - not their parents - but despite frequent internal scoldings not to enter into vicarious behavior as I do on occasion find myself slipping. I am reminded by my own daughter’s entreaties - she has inquired in the finest and most sarcastic form of Socratic method whether it is indeed true that I have already finished college and graduate school, and further whether my nosy questions evince a desire to take those courses of study over again. </p>
<p>Thanks to all for the input.</p>