<p>Is this the first time you are going through this process? I think your expectations are too high. There are a lot of really smart kids and that becomes more apparent as our kids go through the testing and then the application process itself. It’s important to do a really good job selecting colleges to apply to. Then, if there are a number of reaches, that accept 10-20% of applicants for example, there may be a certain number of rejections to deal with. It’s a tough process, even for the most realistic parents and students.</p>
<p>Good luck. It’s really hard to know when to push and when to back off. Personally, I found I pushed when I was anxious, so I tried to back off and think about whether my input was really needed or not.</p>
<p>Good for you mom2 I think every parent wants their kid to succeed but success in the parents’ eyes can be different from success to the kid. Sounds like you and your son handled your problem well. That’s awesome :)</p>
<p>Momom2 - Sounds like great progress. That’s excellent! </p>
<p>You can now join a large club of parents disappointed with teens that lie. It doesn’t make it right, just disappointingly common. I’ve learned that sometimes teen lies are an attempt to avoid confrontation, not intended to be as hurtful as they are. Selecting the appropriate consequences can be dificult. </p>
<p>For studying, I like the College Board “SAT of the Day” option, with daily emails sent to the student (and parent too if you want to join the fun). I liked the idea better than kids did. I think my the only did them sporadically. </p>
<p>I had one kid raise PSAT about 25 points between sophomore year and junior year. Another improved the SAT writing score 100 points in about 6 months. In both cases this happened without much self study. I think it was due to intense IB coursework and familiarity with the test format.</p>
<p>I am amazed at all the responses saying that 2-3 hours a day study is ridiculous, excessive, punitive, etc., etc.</p>
<p>It is a very important test, the skills will transfer into the real SAT which is also very important. Preparing for SAT should includes reviewing, studying and drilling math topics and going over grammar and vocabulary, so it is not a waste of time educationally either.</p>
<p>Now I see why the students in China can get such good scores, even in a foreign language, with their 12 hours a day approach to SAT preparation.</p>
<p>My kid worked HARD at her SATs and ACTs, three or more hours a day, used Xiggi’s method, used an on-line prep class, etc., and never gained a single point. Got into to the college of her choice, where she would have been in the bottom 15% of her class. Graduated in three years magna cum laude, Beta Sigma Gau (business Phi Beta Kappa), senior honors award for best student in the department. Took her graduate exams (after studying for 6 weeks), and did even worse than as an undergrad. Got into the one graduate program to which she applied, with money. </p>
<p>She won’t be a trash collector (has already been offered a job making almost as much as I do, which she has turned down), and her scores haven’t affected her or her future in the least.</p>
<p>I think that’s the point>>>there is nothing wrong with that. ;)</p>
<p>BTW my kid never prepped (too busy swimming) and did well on the SAT, but did better on the ACT. He got in to Johns Hopkins, USNA, West Point, the Air Force Academy, Berkeley…I think we just get really wrapped up in the whole numerical thing. In hindsight, it seemed so important at the time, but now, not so much. My advice, enjoy your kid. </p>
<p>I am so glad things have evened out for the OP. Great job, mom! Next time you give him a hug, give a little extra squeeze for me. Mine is with an aviation squadron in Iraq. Those SATs are so unimportant now…</p>
<p>Momom2,
So glad you & your S worked things out and have reached an agreement you can both live with. We left our kids alone to figure out how they wanted to deal with all their testing. S has always tested well & refused to take the review course that most of his peers took the summer before JR year. He said he mostly missed things that were careless errors and how would that improve? He self-studied & became a NMF. He also self-studied for all his tests in HS as well as more recently for GRE & LSAT. He did fine on all of them.</p>
<p>D opted to take the PSAT review course & found it helpful in covering math she hadn’t yet learned. They also reviewed vocabularly, most of which she was very familiar with. She did OK on that & the other tests she took in HS (but not NMSF or even commended). It really is up to the kid. D also had to take the GED–got 4000 out of 4000 & that really helped her transfer into her dream U after 3 semesters of CC (with much lower HS grades & test scores than her friends who were rejected). She has been doing great there.</p>
<p>A friend’s S took the SAT & did OK but the counselor told him that he needed to boost it by 100 points if he wanted to go to his dream school. He re-took the exam & boosted it exactly 100 points, was admitted & is attending his dream U! It’s just different strokes for each kiddo!</p>
<p>Sorghum in post #44 brought up an excellent point. Although I have never expected my kids to study like this for a PSAT or SAT I can see why the kids from Chinese homes are scoring so high.</p>
<p>My clients children are studying 4 and 5 hours a day seven days a week the year they take their PSATs. If they can’t get enough hours in during the week than they are making up for it on the weekends. The interesting thing is that the schools they will apply to don’t even look at National Merit Awards. I do think there might be something to be said for how we view tests in this country vs China. </p>
<p>I wonder if after years of seeing how Chinese students are doing it, if our grandchildren will grow up with more testing.</p>
<p>The schools that pay big for NMF can make you thik that if your kid isn’t a NMF, all financial hope is lost. Not true. I will say that if he isn’t a NMF, don’t concentrate on the schools that give the big money to NMF. There is only so much money and if they decide to spend their money on NMF, there isn’t much for anyone else. There are thousands of other schools.</p>
<p>Some will remember my test prep rant of a thread from a couple of years back. My son’s sophomore PSAT was high enough (maybe 196?) that I thought he had a legitimate shot at NMSF. I sent him to an expensive PSAT prep program. His score went up all of 2 points…he wasn’t even commended. The prep screwed up his verbal score. I had him keep going to the prep school for math and told him to forget all they had taught him for verbal. His SAT score was great and he received some terrific merit aid offers (and he was only in the top 20% of his class.) There are many avenues to great merit money.</p>
<p>While I respect any parents right to educate their student the way they choose and understand cultural differences, I certainly hope not. My kids are tested, and are therefore taught to the test, more then they are instructed. I can’t blame the teachers for conforming to the system, however I don’t know that it is the best system for all students…and I mean that sincerely, I really don’t know. </p>
<p>My kids have taken SOL’s, Stanford 9’s, CoGat’s, Kaplan’s, PSAT’s, SAT’s, SAT2’s, ACT’s, AP’s…and these are just the one’s I remember…all in an effort to measure teaching, achievement, gain state funding, college readiness, etc. While I can see a trend possibly of universities moving towards additional SAT2’s in the future to measure subject achievement/readiness, I don’t know how much more testing can be integrated into a students schedule and still maintain instruction that is not test driven.</p>
<p>Regarding the prep, I think we are talking about two different things possibly. There is pure test prep where you learn how to take the test, the language that is used to ask the questions, time management, test strategy, etc. Students that simply need to learn to navigate the test will have the best results. Then there is actual content. If the student does not know the actual information presented (ie vocabulary, math concepts) then you may have an uphill battle. IMHO the sophomore PSAT is very important in determining this. Go over the test carefully with the student to determine what they missed and why. Do they not know the information/struggle consistently with a concept, or was the question presented in such a way that didn’t make sense to the student? It’s obviously worth noting that from fall of the sophomore year until spring of the jr year a student that scores lower on the PSAT do to content will probably do better on the SAT simply by virtue of having two additional school years behind them. This student may in fact score very well on the SAT and be eligible for great merit aid at some schools.</p>
<p>OP, I would not put so much emphasis on a PSAT score. My D was a NMF and was eligible for many automatic scholarships to schools she did not care for, but didn’t get the scholarship she really wanted. However, others, who were not NMF’s did get it. There are many opportunities for bright kids whether or not they have NMF status. BTW, D did not study for PSATs. We had no idea people did study for these tests. As it turned out, D obviously did well enough studying or not, and I doubt S would have made qualifying scores whether he studied or not. Therefore, I doubt studying for PSATs makes much of a difference at all and puts a lot of stress on you and your kid.</p>
<p>@blueiguana
I could not agree with you more. While I understand why schools would be looking at the test scores, it is a shame that some people equal a high score to an automatic acceptance. As a parent of a high scorer and a bright student, I did my best to emphasize the importance of numbers but we always looked at it from a perspective whether my kid was happy with the the score and felt that he could stop at that point. I never established a minimum number of study hours but understand that some kids need a little more prodding and motivation. </p>
<p>I saw somewhere on CC the link to that YouTube video about Asian kids applying and waiting for response from Ivies. It was so sad and heart breaking. Do those kids ever have a life???</p>
<p>blueiuana…agree with you regarding the over testing of our kids and I do believe in large part it is driven by the fact that too many people are driven by scores because of what is going on with many first generation immigrants that are testing so high. We are starting to resemble countries that value scores over learning and thus kids are taught how to test rather than spending the time to learn. It is absurd. Many of the immigrants do not yet realize that there are more than 10 schools in America and unlike their home countries, there is a college for almost everyone.</p>
<p>momma-three, I hope it’s okay that I paraphrase in quoting you, but you brought up a point that I wish CC would put in bold at the top of their website for every parent to be reminded of on a regular basis as we navigate this process!!!</p>
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<p>At the risk of offending anyone, can I get an AMEN?!?!!! Truer words have never been spoken.</p>
<p>While i would never support the idea of studying for these tests for hours every day, when my kids were in high school, I did give them some incentives to do some practice sections…If they did a couple of sections, I’d buy movie matinee tix for the child and a friend. </p>
<p>I must say that I didn’t have to do it more than a couple of times. After one son saw his score jump after a small bit of practice, he did it on his own after that. The first time he took the ACT, his Science Reasoning score was very low compared to his other sections. with a bit of practice, he raised it 4 points. With a bit more practice, he brought it inline with the scores from the other sections.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to practice to familiarize with what’s being asked.</p>
<p>i can remember doing a practice test for the CBEST test. I hadn’t done standardized testing in a long, long time. I did pretty badly the first time. I looked over my stupid mistakes and realized I needed to slow down a bit and really read what was being asked. I took another practice and did much, much better. When I took the real test, I killed it… Sometimes improvement comes from just “getting warmed up.”</p>
<p>Sorry limabeans (the original). This has been my nickname since I was born (don’t know why) and it is what all my friends call me. I am usually not on the parent thread but the others have been a little boring lately. I can only take so much of the “ranking game”. You shouldn’t run into me too much (especially when I start college in the fall).</p>
I think every parent wants their kid to succeed but success in the parents’ eyes can be different from success to the kid. Sounds like you and your son handled your problem well. That’s awesome :)</p>