<p>I have a solution to find out who “Johny Inc” is or rather who the real “John” is - a 30-min supplement test by individual schools, in addition to a supplement essay. </p>
<p>Design the test in such a way that no one can score high on it (40-60% max), and it needs no preparation other than what you’ve learned so far in life/school, in an integrated form (not math or science or English questions). A test like that allows a school to go after future leaders in whatever fields the school specializes in. How can you design a test like that? Elite schools have elite professors and scholars, give them funding, big bucks, and they’ll figure it out. What’s more important to a top college’s survival and staying on top than to have future leaders among its students?</p>
<p>How to administer such a test? A student can click “start”, with the webcam on, and she has 30 min to finish. The answers will be reviewed holistically by a committee of professors, from only those prospective students who make the first cut (e.g., SAT 1900, GPA 3.2, etc).</p>
<p>I noticed that my son has been seeing a lot of requests for private tutors for high-school students lately from his university tutoring department. It’s usually for a science or math course where help is needed immediately. It’s also usually for an AP, honors or other advanced course. That it is happening midway through the semester tells me that the student is in over their head and that this is seen as a quick fix which it may very well be. The use of student tutors would be cheaper than hiring teachers or professional tutors.</p>
<p>Things were pretty quiet last year on the private tutoring front, no doubt due to the rough economy. It looks like there is a bit of a thaw there. MA revenues have been ticking up while unemployment has been ticking down.</p>
<p>My son took the GRE recently and the security there was pretty impressive. I suspect that there are a lot of cheating issues in certain other countries that has resulted in much higher security for GREs compared to SATs. I think that the added security comes with a much higher price tag for the tests though.</p>
<p>IMO, though, a lot of leadership is based on qualities that aren’t or can’t be measured – ability to motivate, be inspirational, get along with others, etc.</p>
<p>The ECs I was thinking of conflicting with intensive summer tutoring were the competitive residential programs. TASP, Clark, etc etc etc. You can’t fit those in with also doing a community college calculus class. On the other hand, maybe the kind of kid (or family) who is going to pursue TASP is precisely the type of kid who would have no interest in academic pre-gaming? In which case those kinds of summer programs start acting as even more of a flag to selective schools that this is a kid worth looking at.</p>
<p>Mulling over pre-gaming, I realized it apppears in D1’s school in a legit way. The school has highly competitive Science Olympiad and Science Bowl teams. The kids on the teams put in a lot of work prepping; not surprisingly, that carries over to the classroom. D1’s mentioned that test grades tend to be bimodal, with the Oly kids crushing it and the rest of the kids doing not as well. I don’t see how a teacher can meet the needs of both types of kids in one class, especially when both sets of kids are extremely capable and hard working. </p>
<p>MiamiDAP, the vast majority of students in the US don’t even have one year of physics. Before worrying about high schoolers receiving two years, I’d like to see a broader population having ANY exposure to the subject. Some schools offer a middle-school integrated science class that start exposing students to physics (mostly laws of motion). That’s a good foundation for high school physics classes. There’s also the problem that you need higher level math to really be able to do physics. At minimum, concurrent trigonometry, though concurrent calculus is best. We’d do better as a society to have a year of statistics rather than a second year of physics. </p>
<p>A 6th grader bored in math–if she’s at a middle school, accelerate her into pre-algebra or algebra. If not, there are online programs that will do the same. This is a fixable issue.</p>
<p>^^^ Perhaps a much higher cost on the test would result in fewer tests taken per student.</p>
<p>Sadly that’s in theory because A) consider what parents are paying now. Triple that and a few may cut back a test, but the professional test takers are still going to be taking the same number of tests and B) the money would just go the collegeboard which I detest on principle.</p>
<p>We were looking into some type of new early decision program at Bard College – and noticed that students were observed during their day there as part of the decision process. Students were given some readings to prepare in advance and then were observed during an on-campus classroom discussion. </p>
<p>While that seems like a step in the right direction (at least mom and dad won’t be in the room telling Johny, Inc. what to say – they could, however, still get an acquaintance to ‘prep’ him for the discussion in advance), I found myself wondering about other ways of observing JUST the student and ONLY the student. Wondering if this is the wave of the future. (Doesn’t getting a scholarship to Oxford involve 3-4 hours of the student being interviewed individually by professors and the like?)</p>
<p>Concerning your rant. My family was not in a position to pay for a private tutor, but we could afford the $40.00/yr for the test. I took the test every year 10th thru 12th grade.</p>
<p>I have spent many months reading the comments of many of the members on cc and it amazes me how many ccers have such strong opinions. The background of each student is different and this is why admission officers use a holistic approach.</p>
<p>Some scholarships involve a weekend where students are evaluated during open house, reception, interviews, etc…untethered. The ones I’m familiar with are tied to private schools, generally selective, and are tied to endowments. They have the manpower to put on the dog and pony show. I don’t know who this could be done for regular students. Maybe at smaller schools.</p>
<p>My kids’ school wouldn’t know what these things were if they tripped over them.
And “tutoring”? My D is a Spanish tutor, which means that a freshman who wants extra help with Spanish shows up before or after school and she (a senior) helps them. That’s the extent of tutoring around here, pretty much. Maybe some specialized cases where a student is really struggling with a topic, that type of thing. It just isn’t gamed around here the way it is for some of you. </p>
<p>Which gets me back to … A few weeks ago, I was ranting about there’s just no hope for kids from high schools that selective colleges aren’t familiar with, you’re pretty much hosed if you aren’t Harker / Westlake / Scarsdale / TJefferson / Short Hills / New Trier. And posters like Redroses, a former GC herself, were agreeing with this notion. And now I’m hearing you all complain that these places are so competitive, everyone’s been pre-gaming and if you’re not taking calculus by 6th grade, just forget about it, might as well just go and resign yourself to a life of making the donuts. So which is true? Or is there only some truth to each extreme?</p>
<p>I’m sorry that my post offended you, however I don’t apologize for having an opinion different than yours. I was speaking in generalizations as many do here. Obviously there are going to be those that don’t fit in a generalization.</p>
<p>Reading your post, I don’t see how you could have seen yourself in what I was writing. I made an example of a 9x SAT test taker. I used the example of 3x SAT tests as pretty standard. According to you, you took the test three times, yes? Obviously, people are going to take it once, and others 4-5. By the time you’ve taken it 8-9 times I’m going to make a generalization of a professional test taker.</p>
<p>NOTE: I am a bit dense and must need some coffee. I just read the screen name ‘testtaker1’ No wonder my post was grating. :-/</p>
<p>Post 321:
Already suggested, years ago, by a few of us CC “old-timers,” who were shot down by the majority as being “unrealistic,” “impractical,” etc. I don’t buy it. It’s just a matter of collective will & ingenuity. It can be done, it should be done.</p>
<p>Momzie,
My understanding is that the Bard admissions avenue of which you speak is one of a few avenues there. The brave (and impatient, and focused :)) do choose it, but the more traditional avenues of admission are also available.</p>
<p>Yes, the Oxford (and Cambridge) interviews are long, are mandatory, and seriously academic. A single professor, though, not multiple. A one-on-one meeting, respective to the field (major) applied to.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, if your kids wouldn’t know what Science Olympiad and Science Bowl were, then the issue I describe doesn’t apply to your kids or their school. I’m not sure what you’re complaining about here. My point was to show that there can be “pre-gaming” effects even when the motives are pure. For the kids at D1’s school, it’s NOT about gaming the system. It’s about having a cadre of kids who really love science, and who go about learning a great deal of science on their own. </p>
<p>I’ll again point out that your kids have two huge advantages over many, many others. They have a mother who’s thoroughly educated herself about college admissions and selection, and who is providing her kids with top-notch advice. With that one advantage alone, we’ve seen many many examples on CC of kids from Podunk High going on to wonderful schools and lives, even when they only get to calculus in 8th grade ;). Secondly, your kids have the good fortune to be able to choose a college without worrying about cost. There are families at Thomas Jefferson and New Trier and yes, even Harvard-Westlake who won’t be able to manage that. I can assure you that there are top notch science kids at D1’s school who won’t be going to their top choice schools because their families won’t be able to afford them.</p>
<p>Some of you seem to believe that somehow Johnny Inc will perform worse once he’s on his own. If so, he’s not the same Johnny Inc that I was referring to in my OP. If this were the case, then our kids should just take the second option (#176) and tough it out because sooner or later Johnny Inc will have to do something on his own and he’ll fail miserably. The Johnny Incs I have in mind and have seen are naturally smart and hard working kids to start with and who, even without incorporating, would have been impressive enough. The incorporation simply gives them the edge over their equally or even slightly more talented classmates. The situation (once again exaggerated for the effect) is like two chess grandmasters playing for the world championship; if one receives just a single hint at the right moment in the match, it is enough to decide the championship. </p>
<p>A pattern I noticed however is that Johnny Incs tend to be less creative than their non-incorporated classmates. This is noticeable when both groups are given open-ended assignments that require out of the box thinking that can’t be found in the textbook.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>S1 was tag-teamed by two profs in his Oxford interview over Skype. They may have done this because S1 couldn’t be there in person.</p>
<p>That is, and was, the entire point of what several us brought up several years ago on CC. I’m sorry that that wasn’t clear in my current contribution here. (An un-preppable assessment, not a duplication or a mimicry of standardized types of testing.) </p>
<p>Yes, the Skype Oxford possibility is rather modern, was not an option when D1 was considering applying there and the interview option was one of the Coasts with 1:1.</p>
<p>"… A few weeks ago, I was ranting about there’s just no hope for kids from high schools that selective colleges aren’t familiar with, you’re pretty much hosed if you aren’t Harker / Westlake / Scarsdale / TJefferson / Short Hills / New Trier. And posters like Redroses, a former GC herself, were agreeing with this notion. And now I’m hearing you all complain that these places are so competitive, everyone’s been pre-gaming and if you’re not taking calculus by 6th grade, just forget about it, might as well just go and resign yourself to a life of making the donuts. So which is true? Or is there only some truth to each extreme? "</p>
<p>by TJ, do you mean TJHSST in Northern Virginia?</p>
<p>cause if so my short answer is that going to TJ, ceteris paribus, makes it harder to get into UVa (but for the top 2/3 or so of the class it doesnt matter, cause they get in anyway), for the second tier of elite privates (from like USNWR 25 or so to 60 or so) its probably a benefit, but not huge. for The tippy top schools, and for VTech and W&M, its probably a wash. For a few kids who really take super advantage of what TJ has to offer it probably helps more, for kids who are ADHD or LD or generally have issues with pressure, it hurts more. Orthogonal to those issues, the social fit for some kids enables them to succeed in ways they never would at a base school, even if they are barely staying afloat academically.</p>
<p>What interesting is the assumption that one need to stand out and chase some elite college to be successful or to get exceptional education for that matter. I have completely opposite experience with my own D. She graduated #1 in her HS (I bragged about it millions times), never compared herself to anybody else or chased her teachers asking for higher grade or taking any classes outside of school (in this she was the same as all her classmates - thier HS did not allow to take outside classes), just tried her best and we have supported her by providing help when she asked. Did she chase any elite college? No, she went to state school on full tuition, had awesome opportunities and still continue having straight “A”. Also was hired by her school to be Supplemental Instructor (fancy name for a tutor on college payroll) and have been accepted to several Medical School. What did she miss? Her state college is ranked #2 in a country in undergraduate teaching beating Harvard.</p>
<p>Why waste your energy on all these comparisons? Just do your best under circumstances and do not worry about things that are not under your control (like somebody hiring private tutors and sending kids to CC, let them do what they want). I am sure that some of my D’s classmates had private tutors. Why I am so sure? She went to the most expensive school in our area, she had awesome academic scholarhip in HS that covered 1/3 of her tuition. Also, she herself had tutored during HS, and although she did not want to take $$ for it, they were placed into her pocket so to speak. It has never bothered anybody. If some have $$ and giving somebody else a job, it is a good thing. As it has been proven, our parental support and D’s hard work were enough for her, but we have never had a goal of her academically beating somebody else in crazy race to some status of intellectual superiority. My message - relax and enjoy while it lasts, they will be gone to college, you will be missing them, do not spoil precious time while they are at home with you.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,
It’s not entirely wine and roses for the kids at the selective admit HS programs, either. Each of my kids attended one of those programs and they took a definite GPA hit vs. their local HS. Both would have had the top SAT scores at their local HS, but were not in the top 10% at their programs. They knew that going in, having been at similar programs for part of ES and for middle school, but felt it was worth it. There were opportunities for advanced coursework at these programs that were not possible elsewhere. Jay Mathews (love him or hate him) has done some research indicating that for some kids, attending selective admit programs can be detrimental to one’s college prospects. However, we felt as a family that the best approach was to get the best education possible now and let the college chips fall where they may. Especially for one of my kids, the social fit at a school like TJ/Bx Sci, etc. was essential. Outcomes would have been QUITE different at the neighborhood school for him.</p>
<p>We know many, many of these kids (including 4.0/2400s) who turned town top schools for full rides at the flagship. Finances are a big factor, as the COL in this area is very high.</p>
<p>“Pre-gaming” and “Johnny, Inc.” have now been added to my vocabulary. Somehow I think when I use them IRL I’m going to get some strange looks. Wonder how long it will be until they are in Webster and I can say “I was there when they were born.” I love CC.</p>
<p>Borgebege - Saturday school has much to offer its ethnic constituencies (and all the Saturday schools I’m familiar with, Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani etc. offer the same advanced curriculum you mention). What is truly sad is that I’ve overheard public school teachers taking credit for the mathematical accomplishments of these Saturday school kids - because they don’t even realize that Satuday school exists or that it teaches more than simple language skills for heritage speakers.</p>
<p>I don’t count the Saturday school kids as part of the Johnny Inc. group - for one thing, the attitude of Satuday school parents is quite different, in my experience they would never settle for the appearance of quality over real achievement. Johnny Inc. may be an amazing kid on his own (in which case he is a fearsome opponent in any academic quest) but is also quite possibly an above average kid with over achieving parents living vicariously. Johnny Inc. invests heavily in test prep, pre-gaming, - Saturday school kids take calculus at an early age.</p>
<p>I did not put my own children in Saturday school, I supplemented elementary math with Kumon for a year and let my kids take piano lessons at the local univerisity (within walking distance of the one local Chinese Saturday school). Several kids also taking piano were Saturday school attendees - too much for my family, but worked for others.</p>
<p>I am grateful that I had good high school options that were not driven by Johnny Inc. - I have friends whose children were not so lucky. If you are in a system where you are overmatched by other parent’s resources and willingness to exploit the corporate support system that is all too willing to embrace you and your child with a caress that can kill normal family life in a heartbeat, it is very difficult to keep your priorities and not find yourself second guessing what you should/could do for your child. The difference between helpful and hurtful in those circumstances isn’t as clear as it should be.</p>
The ones I’m familiar with are tied to private schools, generally selective, and are tied to endowments. They have the manpower to put on the dog and pony show. I don’t know who this could be done for regular students. Maybe at smaller schools.</p>