@ADonkeyFly Alright, thanks man. I will try tomorrow.
Well, then, I’m sure you must realize that office space, hardware, software and personnel to operate it costs more than “free” or “shipping and paper” as you stated in your original post.
Good news! I just found out that Purdue extended their merit deadline: https://twitter.com/PurdueAdmission/status/661301071114084352
At least I’m not totally screwed lol.
Wow, that is a generous extension. Most colleges I know gave 2-3 more days. Congrats
@JustOneDad I understand it isn’t free, but that doesn’t give CB the right to screw students over.
@ADonkeyFly Thanks.
I don’t think it’s been established that the CB is “screwing students over”, as you term it.
I can accept the costs are a challenge for some here. But I sure hope you put the same concern into your app and supps. And that you are (or were) truly informed enough to do that well.
And imo, outrage is best used when it fires you do some good. There are lots of problems out there that you can choose among.
Yes, these fees are expensive. A number of parents here said to control what you can. That perspective will serve you well, in life.
@JustOneDad There are 9 pages in this thread sir; 7 of them are discussing it. Feel free to read them.
@lookingforward You bet.
Well, I did, of course. Rational people still don’t subscribe to the theory that the more you talk about something the more true it becomes.
I really didn’t see any substantiation for your claims that students are getting “screwed over” or that the College Board is exhibiting “greed”.
I don’t really see it, either. I do agree that the June test problems were a fiasco. But let’s say College Board doesn’t exist, and every college administers their own admissions test. Want to go to eight colleges? Sit for eight tests. Oh, and the colleges could do their own subject test equivalents, too. Want to apply for FA? No CSS profile, every college gives you their on firms to fill out. And AP credits could just be ditched altogether, since CB also administers that. CB isn’t perfect, but no CB would be worse. Colleges would pretty quickly band together to create a CB equivalent, and students would be glad.
The ACT seems to have their act together. Why can’t the College Board get theirs together?
I do think that’s a bit unfair, @intparent—you’re creating a strawman. You’re assuming, after all, that if the SAT and ACT didn’t exist, that something similar would automatically be put into existence by each individual college. Maybe that would be the case for a few schools, but I can’t imagine many schools taking the trouble to put that infrastructure into place.
If one is going to point out other posters’ unrealistic expectations, it seems only reasonable to aim for realism in one’s own arguments, I figure.
I don’t see a strawman in saying that, rather than endure the chaos of the absence of CB, with each college handling it’s own processes, an equivalent organization would be formed.
@lookingforward: Quite possibly true. But in that case there’d just be one or two tests to sit for (just like now!), not one for each school—that’s the strawman.
Because the CB serves a purpose for students and colleges. And would quickly be replaced if it ceased to exist. The straw man alternative doesn’t make sense – but that is the point. That state of chaos would be bad for everyone.
ACT has gotten itself a nifty income stream advantage in recent years by insinuating itself into high school graduation requirements in many states. Certainly these students have had the option of taking the ACT instead of the SAT.
Hey, about that. How did the ACT get to worming its way into Grad reqs? That doesn’t seem entirely legal. I like them more, but I also do worse on their tests. But at least i get to take it for free at my school
So it was a state of chaos 25 years ago when your SAT score was reported by your HS on your transcript, you actually filled out a paper application and financial aid package for EVERY school that you applied to and yes you actually sat for individual subject tests but only once you were admitted and the school was trying to determine an appropriate course level. Chaos? No. We all managed to handle back then, universities, HS, students, parents. But adonkeyfly would not have been applying to 22 schools (or my own D’16 to 12, lol) either.
Not saying that the SAT doesn’t serve a purpose but the fact is we all got lazy and an industry was born or at least boomed.
Fewer students applying to fewer schools. Harvard only had about half the apps even ten years ago, as one example. You can hate CB, but you can only manage the options you do have.
I took subject tests same as the SAT. Not after, not as placement. We had tests at the beginning of the freshman semester for that and they were course dependent. Maybe some colleges looked at them differently.
They did not ask for nearly as much financial info when we applied. Of course, college cost $10K per year, not $60K per year. There was a lot less incentive to cheat. And most parent posters on here will tell you that they applied to 2-3 colleges at the most (and posters who applied to more were well off, so no FA paperwork needed). The rest of us just went to our state schools or applied someplace we had heard of. With no internet and in a state with a strong flagship, I can’t say I had heard much of other schools except maybe about their sports teams.
A lot of colleges still do placement tests – both my kids had at least one when they got to campus, and one of my kid’s school had them in almost every core subject. But the subject test is a different animal – the purpose is to get more information on the academic skills of the student in a standardized way for admissions decisions. It isn’t the same purpose as a placement test.
I don’t think we got lazy. I think college turned into a much bigger business, and the stakes got a lot higher with such high tuition rates. And we could talk about the pros and cons of the Common App, which makes it so much easier to put in gobs of applications (speaking of a college-related institution that everyone loves to hate, the Common App is not exactly beloved by all!).
@notverysmart Well said. The whole set up puts students in a position of having to assess the risk. Who wants to send unseen scores when there is score choice and those who can pay to see the scores before sending will use it to their advantage? To me they have disrespected the whole process by saying to colleges and students that we have to accept their shoddy performance. Nor does it matter that they have to send 5 million scores. That is not a reason to do a poor job; that is the job.