<p>A senior at my HS has a pretty good gpa and class rank--not the best, but certainly good. The student has a helicopter mom who complains and constantly harasses teachers who do not give her child an A. IMHO, the child is a solid B+ student. The student has taken rigorous (but not the most rigorous) classes. "Everyone" was surprised that this student applied to only prestigious universities given the non stellar SAT scores (and yet opted out of math and science senior year).</p>
<p>The student had taken the SAT 3 times and scored high average. The student retook it again in Dec (after taking it in Oct) and increased the score by 400 points. Is this possible (or should I say likely)? Sad to admit, but most people are assuming that the student somehow cheated (as in had someone else take the exam).</p>
<p>I hate to think the worst and want to believe that this kid was able to make a 400 point gain in 2 months. Does anyone have insight on how much a student can improve after three tries or if it is even possible to have someone else take the exam for you?</p>
<p>You never know. There are students who do little or no prep work and take an intensive prep class and may do incredibly well the next time. </p>
<p>The student could have had a bad day when he tested the other times, text anxiety or who knows what. I wouldn’t automatically assume cheating, although I mentioned on another thread that there was a student texting during my D’s ACT.</p>
<p>People do improve.</p>
<p>And yes, some do cheat. They usually only cheat themselves, in the end.</p>
<p>It’s also possible that a big boost like that may attract the attention of the College Board.</p>
<p>Also - have you actually seen the hard copy of these scores, or is this just what he said? He could be bragging or lying.</p>
<p>Given the right circumstances, I have seen students increase their SAT scores by hundreds of points within a six- or seven-week period (and this was back when there was only Verbal and Math, with a 1600-point maximum score). It was rare to see an increase much over 200, but it did happen.</p>
<p>I also saw parents paying to have their child tested by psychologists or other specialists, resulting in a diagnosis of a problem which called for untimed testing accommodations. With those accommodations, scores sometimes shot up in a dramatic way. (Sadly, while so many of those students did have an unknown problem diagnosed, there were a few specialists who seemed to see such problems a bit too easily.)</p>
<p>Without many details and evidence to the contrary, it would seem gentlest to assume that the test just finally “clicked” for the child.</p>
<p>my son never studied for the ACT and made a 25. he applied to our state school and was accepted immediately. we did not push for a higher score because it was not necessary. he registered to take it gain and still did no studying and again a 25. he registered a third time to take the ACT and one week prior to test date he applies to a college with <25% acceptance rate. 72 hours prior to test date, i hired a ACT tutor for a 6 hour crash course. my son studied the next two days and made a 28. the ACT tutor said that he thought my son would have no problem getting a couple more points into the 30 or 31 range if he would see him one more time and study for a couple of weeks on the weak areas that he would point out. we were signed up to do just that but the private school accepted him 5 weeks prior to the next ACT test. therefore, we canceled our spot for the upcoming ACT test. i believe that a person can carry the scores very high if the student is motivated and the tutor is good. just do it over and over again starting as early as possible. also, place a $ figure on each # increase to your child. that works well and you will eventually give them the money anyway. you might as well get something for it. $$ is great motivation</p>
<p>He could be lying about his scores, which isn’t uncommon. Last year at my school I heard a few seniors casually mention getting a perfect score on the SAT, when in reality Naviance showed that no one at my school has ever received more than 2200.
Given the pressure on students to outperform their peers, it wouldn’t be unsurprising if a student would lie to impress others.</p>
<p>She decided to NOT call the ACT since she didn’t have proctor’s name or the kid’s name, worried that it would potentially affect the other kids in the room. She was thinking that any call she made could be connected back to our phone number on caller identification, and didn’t want to risk the scores of all the other kids in the class.</p>
<p>I told her next time to make sure she takes note of the proctor’s name.'</p>
<p>If it were me, I would have called ACT to inquire. But I do understand her point for not wanting to sound an alarm if it might impact innocent people who didn’t do anything wrong on the test.</p>
<p>That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. My D’s scores on the SATs and ACT were not reported to her school at all. Therefore Naviance used her PSAT scores. Her data point is therefore not correct. It looks like she got into schools where her test scores were WAY below average, but that is simply not the case.</p>
<p>ACT scores were just released this morning, and my D took that one in February. I must have had that on the brain! Teaches me not to post until I have been caffeinated!</p>
<p>I am sure there is cheating on the SATs, ACTs, any test, given the number of kids taking it. People do cheat. lie, steal, and these tests do not escape this blight. </p>
<p>If someone is strongly suspected of having cheated, College Board does take action, sometimes requiring a retake. If the proctor actually has evidence of cheating the consequences can be more dire.</p>
<p>No one knows for sure how many kids get away with cheating on these tests. It’s just a fact of life,</p>
<p>Another point to note about Naviance, they do not necessarily update after an initial test. My son’s scores reflect his first test in the spring of his Jr year. He retested in the early fall of his Sr. year. The new scores are not reflected, nor to I anticipate they will be. His scores increased modestly, a bit over 100pts. Not earth shattering, but enough to put him into a decent target. What the problem is, when future students refer to Naviance and see what the data point where he was accepted, they will be seeing the scores and GPA in the spring of his Jr year, NOT the scores and GPA that he was accepted with. It gives an unclear view to future applicants of what stats successful applicants from their school have been accepted with. The same holds true with his less then stellar ACT. He took them once with no prep and decided to stick with the SAT. They were not bad, but statistically not as good as his SATs. If someone looks at Naviance for the ACT they are going to see a green data point showing an acceptance for that ACT score that he never submitted.</p>
<p>These are all things I never considered when we were using Naviance as a guide, but became more apparent to me as my student progressed, his scores did not update, and I realized how they would affect future students. It stands to reason that the Naviance stats for his target school seemed pretty low to me. I remember thinking ‘I don’t buy it. I think those kids scores were a lot higher.’. My guess is the scores they were accepted with were higher. Naviance just doesn’t reflect it.</p>
<p>blueiguana, that is a very important observation! I wonder if that is the same for all high schools, or if updating is a choice that the counselors make.</p>
<p>I think the most likely explanation is prep plus luck. I think it would be extraordinarily risky to have another person take the SAT for you, and the other ways of cheating aren’t that easy, either.</p>
<p>I scored 200 points higher than I’ve ever scored on a verbal section, and than I scored on my initial verbal test, on the GRE after two in-depth online discussions with a test prep professional. (I’d hovered around 500 verbal for the PSAT, two SAT tests, and then three GRE practice tests.) My first practice test after talking with her went up 180 points, and my second was up 200.</p>
<p>Math was harder because of my slow computation speed, however, we mainly focused on the verbal.</p>
<p>I think a good coach can really up a score to that degree, yes.</p>
<p>A 200 point bump in the verbal section is fabulous! Especially with only two consultations with a test prep professional…just curious what the format was–you talked about the mistakes you made? Reviewed certain materials?</p>
<p>A 400 point increase in a short period of time seems as if it would be rare. I would think the college board would be suspicious. I think it would be quite easy for someone to cheat, by having someone take the test for you. One of the problems with cheating is if it allows you to get into a school that is above your level, you are likely to have a real hard time once you are there.</p>
<p>I am a literal thinker that knew, from context and study, about 95% of the words on the test if not more, and about 99.999% of the words in the reading comp. sections. She knew that because she’d seen my writing (she was a friend whom I’d met before I even planned to take the GRE). She told me I was over-thinking it, which stunned me. How could it be possible to over-think a grad-level exam? However we chatted about it and she realized I was choosing the “least-wrong” answer for nearly every question because I demanded that the words be used precisely, and therefore, the answers they gave were all at least a bit wrong. It is very hard to choose the least-wrong answer.</p>
<p>When I learned that they are in fact testing understanding of vague connotation, expecting you not to know the precise definition, I was stunned but also changed my approach totally to “don’t read-don’t think” and just pretend like I didn’t really know what the words meant. This perverse logic upped my score right away, just through the roof.</p>
<p>The test is designed for English majors.</p>
<p>If only I’d had time to practice my math estimation skills, I could have done that with the math section as well, but again, I was using arithmetic and algebra and I was just too slow. Most of the answers are “tricks” and require only guesstimation based on principles, but I only practiced that technique for a day or two before the test as I kept thinking up until that point that if only I studied hard enough, I would have time for the arithmetic on the GRE. But there simply is not time to work out the problems. You have to look at the answers first and guesstimate. Oh, well.</p>
<p>A former student of mine told me that people will pay students who have a history of having good SAT/ACT scores to take tests for them. He didn’t do this, but was aware of the practice. Basically, a student signs up to take the test at an unfamiliar testing location. The person hired to take the test uses a fake ID to get in as the tester. The kid told me parents will pay upwards to $2000 to a good test taker to take the test for their kid. {If only I hadn’t raised my daughter to be so honest… the money she could have made. :)}</p>
<p>Outside of that, yes students and parents do lie about test scores {or just round up because they can’t remember specifics ;)} and about college acceptances. Peer pressure and parental pride can create poor behavior.</p>
<p>I like the “don’t read/don’t think” method too. LOL!</p>
<p>Agree about the math–sometimes the easiest way to come up with the right answer is to plug and chug the multiple choices. Seems like cheating…but it is not!</p>