<p>wtidad, is a 1200 scorer smarter than an 1100 scorer?</p>
<p>The problem with the Bell curve analysis is </p>
<p>1) Some cultures might value one kind of intelligence over another</p>
<p>2) Some groups might feel alienated so won't play the game</p>
<p>3) Equal access to the same education doesn't occur</p>
<p>4) We believe in an inheritance society...those that have must continue to have </p>
<p>those that don't ...we will throw you a few bones...good luck..a few of you will make it</p>
<p>From the pdf... 6% of test takers had hs gpa's in the "A+" range of 97-100 and an average SAT score of 1232, while 18% had hs gpa's in the "A" range with an average SAT score of 1155. This is followed by yet another subset of "A-student test takers", those with hs gpa's in the "A-" range (90-92), whose average SAT scores were 1096. </p>
<p>Setting aside the income/test score corelation for a moment, and admitting that SAT test takers are a self-selected group (but a very large self-selected group), it seems to me that instead of getting our shorts in a knot over athletes, we should all be asking what the heck is going on in our high schools such that 42% of test takers have A- or better gpa's and those with A- gpa's do not score all that much better than average. And in fact, the B gpa range appears to score below average at 975, and yet this group represents 47% of test takers.</p>
<p>Maybe some of the problem with SAT scores is the high schools are making it way too easy for people to think they're brilliant.</p>
<p>It's simple. At most large public high schools, grades are wildly inflated.
Unfortunately, that's why the flawed SAT becomes an even more improtant measuring stick for college - because the grades just don't mean very much.
My child attended a private high school where kids in the middle of the class (with C+/B- averages) routinely get SATs in the high 1300s (new scale, 2050-2100) These kids think they are "average" (and in their school, they are) It's all depends on your frame of reference.</p>
<p>wtidad, at your kid's private high school, did most of the kids come from families with above average incomes? from families with very educated parents?</p>
<p>Somewhere on the Internet I saw some type of chart that shows the expected SAT scoring range for unweighted GPAs. I believe it said that college admissions uses the chart to determine if there is grade inflation or deflation at a school. Don't know if all that is true; however, my SAT score was in fact right in line with my gpa. I will quickly look for the chart and if I find it, will post the link. However, I have a feeling someone else will get to it before me.</p>
<p>D's flight got into LAX a little after midnight last night and after futzing around to round up her baggage, we got home at around 1:15am, whereupon she started to pull books/tests/papers out of her luggage for show/tell/discuss. (I waved the white flag after an hour and said we could continue when I had some sleep...don't know what she was running on.) Anyway, she had always been a very good student in high school but now she's even better, with a downright intensity that I hadn't seen, as if she'd cranked it up to a hitherto unsuspected notch. (Cf., Sting.) I asked her where this came from and she blinked and said, "It's easy when you're not pouring all the physical and emotional energy into ballet." One datum from the performing arts side.</p>
<p>(Right, TheDad.)</p>
<p>Similarly, people unacquainted with the world of theater & film are sometimes surprised to learn how physically demanding & emotionally draining that activity can be, as well.</p>
<p>Wonderful, too, that your D is so stimulated by college that she can bubble at 1:15 am. Perhaps an important message in all this is how physical training in h.s. can benefit (train) the mind in college. And perhaps this is part of the "value-added" feature of any "physical" e.c., including the arts, within a college application.</p>
<p>TheDad- What a fabulous commentary on your dd's work ethic and success in college, as well as how energy consuming her art was. I hope that I will have a similar experience with my dd in a year! She is likely to continue her performing art in college, but the level of intensity she will maintain with it is yet to be seen- I can only hope that the free energy available will be thrown into her studies. Enjoy your dd's time home- it is wonderful that she wants to share so much with you!</p>
<p>We were posting simultaneously, epiphany! Great minds, lol!....</p>
<p>dstark - Yes, the majority of kids at my child's private school are from families with far above average income and parental education. All we are talking about here is the old adage "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"
Achieving parents tend to have achieving kids.
But my point really had more to do with the fact that the SAT is important for creating a standard measuring tool, because schools are so different. In the U.S. (as opposed to many other countries with standardized curricula and grading), an A is not an A is not an A. At many top private schools, most kids who are admitted in 7th or 9th grade are admitted on the basis of high scores on standardized tests or entrance exams. Same thing at public magnets, like Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson in Va., Boston Latin, etc. So, when you have a skewed population, and you impose a standard curve on it, there will be some very smart "C" students (conversely, when you give 42% As at an average school, there will be lots of average kids getting As). The 25-75% SAT range at a top private or public magnet might be 1300-1500, while a standard suburban public is more like 950-1150. So the top 25% of scorers at those schools would be in the bottom 10% at the elite school. And vice versa.</p>
<p>It isn't just private schools. At my DDs public school, the average SAT has been around 1300 for years. However, only a few kids in each class get an A in a subject, and it is curved down from there.</p>
<p>Also, about girls in sports: someone commented that a girl in a nonrevenue sport like gymnastics ( a sport I enjoy) must have it tougher getting accepted than someone in a revenue sport. It doesn't work like that. Title IX requires a school to take as many female athletes as male athletes, proportionately to the schhols population (i.e. if the school is 50/50 men and women, then the athletes must be approximately 50/50 ment and women who get to play). Therefore if a school wants to field a football tream with 80 players, they must have a corresponding 80 female athletes...it adds up to a lot of students when you look at all the sports. On the other hand, most high school athletes must be extremely dedicated and hard working to reach the level of being recruited by a college.</p>
<p>Catherine, Yes, title IX does require a schools to take as many male athletes as female athletes; HOWEVER, that is for specifically recruited athletes. If someone isn't specifically recruited, they can take what they want.</p>
<p>
LOL. Good God , man. What kind of ignorant math is that? (Or is it "elite" math? LOL.) Let me assure you at most "standard suburban publics" (or Heaven Forbid, Land o' Goshen- even rural publics) you'll find kids who will compete with any students anywhere anytime. And win. My gosh, that would even include the ELITE schools. Your posit is just chuckling funny. </p>
<p>I think our average SAT is the national average and several students are above your 75%-tile for the elite. The top of any school is still the top. You are attempting to put an artificial ceiling on kids who you know nothing about and who do not have the opportunity to attend elite schools. Thank God no such ceiling actually exist in the real world. I could find your post as insulting as it is inaccurate but in the holiday spirit-I will choose not to. Have a Merry Hanu-Chris-kwan...uuuhhh...Sunday. ;)</p>
<p>Title IX does not just apply to scholarship athletes. It requires schools to balance their numbers with all partcipants, including walk-ons. "Participants" is also measured not by athlete count but by sport, so a runner who participates in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track counts as "3".</p>
<p>About gymnastics- Title IX hasn't hurt women's gymnastics as badly but it has virtually wrecked Men's gymnastics. Programs have fallen all over the county as a result of the "low numbers on the team-easy to cut" philosophy. But women's gym is also in peril many places for a different reason, the "not enough women make up the team" and the "skill level too high to be able to compete" philosophies. All over the country watch the burgeoning numbers in women's crew and bowling as the athletic departments seek out a sport that women can come and do with little past experience and little in the way of specialized equipment that differs from the equivalent men's sport. Vanderbilt decided to add another Women's Varsity sport a year ago. The gymnastics community got very excited because Vandy adding women's gym would mean that Tennessee would be forced to consider it (Women's basketball has kept it out for years). Despite tons of persuasion and the fact that they have hosted USAG Regional Championships and this year will host Eastern Nationals, they decided instead to add women's bowling. To make title IX work they have to support teams for women that have HIGH NUMBERS.</p>
<p>Also- as with soccer, gymnastics at the highest levels is a club sport in high school. Gymnasts rarely get any suport from their schools and must handle all their own recruiting and educate their guidance counselors so that they in turn can help them from that side of the process. What we did was schedule a meeting with the GC and show her and give her a copy of the recruiting video. Then we gave her a detailed sports resume that listed all of her significant accomplishments. It was a great decision as it really opened her eyes about what this child has been doing in the sport and how significant her investment was. I believe it played asignificant part in getting the school behind her Ivy application. Prior to that, they had been pushing high state schools and mid level LACs. It all changed after that meeting.</p>
<p>"'d rather point out that the organization has close to nothing to show for that spending. What have they contributed in their years of gossipy and tabloid-like "reporting?" This organization does not have the resources nor the required intelligence to understand the reports produced by ETS or TCB. They shoot for the hip and perform in the same manner as your ten o' clock news "insider" reports. Sensationalism with foundation seems to be their motto."</p>
<p>I have no particular truck with FairTest. But you missed the point - the "copyright violation" was posting the CollegeBoard's OWN REPORT and statistics on the direct correlation between family income and SAT scores. (And the highest correlation is NOT with one's own family income, but with the income of the students in the area surrounding the school, or, in the case of the private schools, with the school families, and with the highest education level of one parent.</p>
<p>"Anyway, she had always been a very good student in high school but now she's even better, with a downright intensity that I hadn't seen, as if she'd cranked it up to a hitherto unsuspected notch. (Cf., Sting.) I asked her where this came from and she blinked and said, "It's easy when you're not pouring all the physical and emotional energy into ballet." One datum from the performing arts side."</p>
<p>Now, let me see, in addition to 19 credits (she's taking 23 next term, and only because they won't let her take more - maybe she'll audit one), she has orchestra on Tuesday night, medieval/Renaissance vocal music Wednesday night, orchestra sectionals Thursday night, Baroque chamber music on Fridays, singing at the Kosher Kitchen Friday night, voice lessons on Monday and Wednesday, and works on polishing the score of the opera being performed in February all week. Next term she adds conducting. Friends Meeting on Sunday. I had dinner with her last night - and apparently she's read every research article and book ever published about the female composer who wrote the opera she's been working on. Next month, she works on a little film score.</p>
<p>Intense hardly describes it. Happy camper, too! (and the college bill just came, and it always makes me giggle. ;))</p>
<p>"the "copyright violation" was posting the CollegeBoard's OWN REPORT"</p>
<p>Oh Mini, what point did I miss? </p>
<p>what do you think constitutes a copyright violation if it does not relate to original reports? If it was not College Board's own report, the organization cold not claim a violation of the copyright laws. What part of the Copyright</a> Laws do you believe Fairtest.org complied with?</p>
<p>Fairtest has no right to reproduce any parts of the reports produced by The College Board. Fairtest was told NOT to reproduce the information. In the meantime, the information is still widely available on the creators' site. So aren't you the one who missed the point by alleging some kind of suppression. </p>
<p>All the relevant information we have to discuss the SAT comes from one source, and it is surely not from the morons at fairtest, who are still trying to explain that the use of escalator is a clear sign of racism.</p>
<p>Oh, no. You don't get it. I believe FairTest likely BROKE the copyright laws (though that's for the courts to decide.). It is the correlation between income and SAT score, coming out of their own report, that the CollegeBoard is so upset to have been made so publicly visible. Had FairTest ginned up their own stuff, it might have been subject to question - but this came from the CollegeBoard.</p>