<p>anyways... i agree with the things you mentioned later on. but you digressed onto another topic.</p>
<p>i mainly disagreed with this post:
"Anyone can work hard. Most people do when the subject matter interests them. With truely smart kids (einstein, etc), high school is of little interest."
it is a huge generalization</p>
<p>and actually...another generalization you made is about innate intelligience. it's hard to talk about this without heavy bias.</p>
<p>I'd cheat if the awards were great and I would never, ever be caught doing it.</p>
<p>Grades in high school serve two functions. First to create an incentive to learn a subject and second is to evaluate as a whole how the student does in comparison with the rest of classmates as well as his/her aggregate graduating class.
These two functions assume a couple of things. First is that grades are a valid representation of how much knowledge one knows. More often than not teachers use random and esoteric test banks that have terribly constructed questions which dont accurately measure how much one knows about the subject, rather inane statistics and fact found in a textbook. Moreover, most cheating, at least in my experience is usually a result of teachers being lazy, like not changing tests and quizzes from year to year, even not passing back tests and quizzes to keep. Ive talked to my assistant principal about teachers changing tests and quizzes from year to year, and his opinion is that either the teacher should not pass back the quiz/test, or create new ones. Teacher also dont create multiple versions of a test, when it merely requires rearranging questions. Extreme examples include my statistics teacher who pulls test, quizzes, homework, notes, projects and even the calendar from another teachers website. At the point that the teacher doesnt ensure that an incentive exists then the system is inherently defunct.
It seems that the idea of "competitive equity" relies on an equitable system. One senior last year who was a fairly mediocre student and the son of a prominent politician had his college recommendation to Stanford written by Condi Rice, he got in over a lot of extremely qualified candidates. He got a huge unfair advantage for being born into in an influential family that none of his pears received. Legacy furthers deconstructs the equitable system, thus the admission is often not based upon an objective evaluation of the candidate.
Finally grades and standardized test scores are supposed to be an objective measure of the students knowledge, and ec's, recs, and essays are supposed to be a subjective measure. Instead, often grades are just a subjective assignment of a seemingly objective number. We all know that certain teachers treat certain students differently when it comes to subjective assignments like essays. Furthermore, aside from a.p grading there isnt a uniform standard for the subjective which often isnt objective anyway.</p>
<p>Tiger - The more I think about it, you're right. The people who do well on the SAT without directly studying for it have been prepping their whole lives in one way or another - Math class, reading books..etc. That makes so much sense.</p>
<p>It can also explain how Asians, with their pushy parents who make them study hard and read a lot at an early age, do so well on such tests.</p>
<p>tigger:</p>
<p>Quite frankly the top 10-20 students of my high school (which is a top 10 high school in texas) all DONT study AND CHEAT (except for #1- she's just a genius). Most of these kids ARE GENIUSES. They do diddly squat homework (copy) and ace the tests. Many smart kids due that. Our #1 got a perfect PSAT, perfect old SAT, and perfect new SAT.</p>
<p>I love the SAT since it is STANDARDIZED. That means its a FAIR comparison for ALL high school students. I am sure there are around 95% school in the US which is easier then mine. Thats ok with me. As long as I am in the top quartile (which is still hard to do), colleges put me ABOVE the top 10% of MOST high schools. College admission people are not dumb. If you go to a stupid school, you better be top 5%. </p>
<p>If you dont believe me, I asked a Michigan Admission officer, and she says they send out "scouts" that scout and report every high school in their region on relative hardness.</p>
<p>The difficulty factor doesn't mean much at U-M .... The old point-based system gave school a difficulty rating out of 5, if I remember correctly. U-M cares much much more about GPA than you would believe, especially if you aren't an URM. Example: A girl with a 3.7+ 24 ACT got in while a 3.3 29 ACT guy didn't. Granted, the girl was involved with swimming for the last four years and was captain her senior year, but whatever.</p>
<p>In resonse to Spartan's "If I were a college admissions person..." comment:</p>
<p>I don't test well. Numerous factors come into situation and overall, the tiniest little things can throw me out of the zone and I daze out. Maybe it's ADD or something, I don't know. But it's SMALL things, too, that annoy the hell out of me. The most popular one is somebody shaking their leg nonstop. That irks me like crazy so much that I have to completley reposition myself to get him out of eyesight or... I just zone out because I'm so annoyed. And then I overanalyze EVERYTHING. Every little thing. I'll do math problems numerous ways. I'm just an analytical person. I'm an editor for my school paper and I guess that is a skill I've picked up through editing -- I've learned to never assume I know exactly what is being said. I look at everything from 15 different perspectives. It's good for a lot of things and has helped in school, but on tests it does not help. In my opinion, I cannot be tested well at all.</p>
<p>That said, I have a fabulous work ethic. I'm not saying I've NEVER cheated... but in high school, no I haven't. I've never asked anyone what's on a test before I took it... I've asked if it's hard or easy, but not for specifics. I don't copy homework. I do my homework. I study for exams. I can do pretty much whatever is thrown at me work wise... but I have this blockade when it comes to standardized tests. </p>
<p>NOW >> think about it. I don't think my admissions process should be hindered merely because I have a high GPA and low SAT scores (they aren't crazy low... they're mediocre). I've worked HARD for my GPA, and I'll continue to work hard for it in college. Someone with a high SAT with a low GPA demonstrates that they do not have a work ethic... how far will they get in college, really? In my opinion, a high SAT does show capability... but a high GPA can show more than just mere capability... it can demonstrate determination, motivation, and overall SKILLS. I don't know what the hell I've ever learned in a science course. Ever. None of it makes sense to me one bit. The only reason I've gotten A's in science is because I've studied and memorized. I'll probably never understand any of it. I want to major in Geography and Political Science. I don't need that much science (minus maybe biology for evolution and what-not) to become skilled in that area. But by passing science I've demonstrated that I'll get it over with because... I have to get it over with. I hated everything about science through High School but I've done it because it needed to be done. And I did it well. I hope to God college admissions counselors look at that closer than my <em>cough</em> 23 <em>cough</em> in Science Reasoning on ACT. I think the fact that I tried to do it well should weigh more than my actual comprehension of something I'll never use again.</p>
<p>sonar-</p>
<p>Her 24 ACT is around the average for Michigan + she had really good ECS. Now a 3.3 is quite uhh low if you might say ;). I'm just saying they DO look at your school if you said the old point system is still in effect. </p>
<p>Life aint fair whoppe doo. If I had known all this, I probably should have went to a blow off school, get straight A's be rank 1 and study my ass off for the ACT and pow. </p>
<p>Whats an URM anyway?</p>
<p>to ^ post:</p>
<p>Great your GPA is good. But the question is, is your school as hard as mine. There is no way everyone in this forum's high school is top 10 in their state unless they go to a really small state. Assuming that your school is easier then mine, wouldn't my GPA go UP if i went to your school?</p>
<p>tiger, i completely agree with Spartan.... I personally study very little for my classes, just because it's easy... I usually just get the homework from other people and just listen up in class.... High School is a joke, if I didn't procrastinate major assigments, I would have way to much free time.</p>
<p>If youre good at school, and you know you are going to get good grades everytime without doing youre homework, but only memorize or learn it the day before the test. Why should you then make homework.????
The reason we make homework is that we then understand the material better, and then why should we do homework if we already understand it.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, i can't even tell you how much i hate cheating. for one thing, there was an ap cheating scam thing at my school this year, and everybody in one of my AP classes was questioned about it. now, i did not see anybody cheat, but i know that people have before, and i have a few friends that said that they did see people cheat. so now i may have to take the ap test again because of other people's stupid decisions....wonderful! on top of that, one of my teachers is saying that she won't count the final in one of her classes because of another big cheating thing, and she doesn't know who did it, and she doesn't think she can trust anyone, so now the same thing might happen in my class....it all just sucks.<br>
the worst thing is that the people who probably cheat the most at my school are the ones who are actually smart and are well off without cheating. it's all caused by the competition, and i guess they just crack under pressure, and yea...i guess i can't say that i have never cheated in my life, but really, i have never traded tests and looked ahead at a.p. essay prompts as some of the kids in my class allegedly have. and i know for sure that i will never, ever, ever cheat again.</p>