While practice and study for tests is helpful for most students, it’s not essential for every student. The best approach may depend both on the student’s ability, test-wisdom, and incentive or motivation. High test scores usually come from being both smart and test-wise. My S only read the test booklet and took a practice test in the booklet before first taking the SAT in middle school for the Northwestern University Talent Search (CTD) program. Good enough scores for an 8th grader, but not off the charts. The next time he took the test, without any prep, was for the PSAT in 11th grade. He earned NMSF status. He took SAT I once more in senior year, plus a few subject tests, and ended up with combined scores of 3910 on the five test scores he submitted.
His sister tried a laid-back approach with §SAT a few years later (no prep other that reading the test booklet), and was disappointed in her scores b/c they weren’t up to her brother’s level. However, they were good enough for her to get admitted to every school she applied to. These were art schools (e.g., MICA, RISD) and programs (CMU). The portfolio probably mattered more than her test scores. The one time that she felt motivated to REALLY prepare for a standardized test was after she’d been working for several years as an artist-designer and decided she wanted to get an MBA. This degree was was critical for her career (shift). A high GMAT score is essential. She hadn’t taken any math since high school (8 years prior). So she decided to take a math course at a local college and use a self-guided Princeton Review program for the GMAT. She came out with 720 on her first try, and her percentile ranking was equally high on both parts. It worked. Had she just winged it on the exam, she would not have succeeded.
My daughter’s freshman roommate is in the honors program at their school, but had chosen to live in a regular freshman dorm and not in the honors housing (not even in Freshman Interest Group housing). The roommate was in several honors courses, but those in her major (dance) were just the regular courses and she still had the same requirements for A&S that every other A&S student had. Some of those courses are available in an honors version but many are not. I was up there one night and while my non-honors daughter was getting ready for hockey, the roommate and her friend were getting ready to go to a honor college dinner. I think they would have rather gone to hockey on a Sat night than to the honors dinner.
My non-honors daughter was also a preemie (24 weeker, 1 lb, 4 oz, grade 2 brain bleed which was reported as centralized, but I believe was on the left side). She has absolutely no interest in anything left-brained - no math, no science, no puzzles, no reasoning, no mazes. She is the most left handed left-hander I’ve ever met -I have never seen her pick up a spoon or fork with her right hand. Ever. She loves art and theater, English, writing, reading, music. She loves Disney. During the last few years, I’ve come to accept it. I’m not able to make her like math, to practice math, to understand math, to want to understand it. She can learn it, she can even do a few problems, but when she’s taking geometry don’t ask her to remember what she learned last year in algebra. I could force her, but that would make us both unhappy. Sure, I would have liked her to score higher on the ACT and get more in scholarship money, but it was unlikely to happen and I had to accept that. She had to accept that not getting big scholarship money limited her options as far as majors (she does not feel bad she can’t major in chemistry), and as to which schools she could get into and afford. She was okay with that, and as soon as I accepted it, the world was back in balance. She really is fine with it and always has been. She didn’t want to go to NYU or CalArts. She didn’t want to audition for CMU or Pace or Texas State (all places she’d never heard of). She did think about SCAD. Didn’t know that much about SCAD, but she liked it a little and thought it would be fun. When I said ‘too expensive’ she dropped it quickly. She just wanted to go to college and she’s fine with the schools she attends. Is she ever going to be a millionaire? I don’t think so unless her lotto numbers come in (and she’s a very lucky person, so who knows). Do her ambivalent ways drive me crazy? Yes, but so do her sister’s need for there to be an answer for everything (very black and white), and her utter dislike for books and reading in general. If I could combine them, they’d be one perfect mathy, sciencey, artsy, classics kid.
My nephew had the grades and scores but turned down the Ivies and elites and picked Florida-where he turned down the honors program. Some kids just don’t want the reaches. His answer to the original question would be 'Who cares?"
Older s did some strategy (not content) prep for the SAT, and got a 1570/1600. What’s sorta funny is that he decided to try the ACT, and got a 34, but we didn’t realize at the time (long time ago) how good that was, and since the SAT was stronger, that’s all he submitted.
@twoinanddone – you must be incredibly proud of your 24 weeker (I don’t consider our D a preemie, just early). I brought home two dozen roses for my wife when we reached 24w (viability). Were you able to get a steroid shot before delivery? I know it helps tremendously with breathing but I can’t remember if it helped with the brain bleeds.
I was thinking about starting a different thread about this in the Testing section but decided to put it here since there has been plenty of test talk here already. I looked more into the scores and found a couple of odd things. D got a relatively low 28 (92%) on the Science section on the ACT but her PSAT “Analysis in Science” Cross-Test score was 38 (has to be 99+% since it was the max possible). Similarly, ACT Math was 27 (88%) while her PSAT Math was 650 (96%). Another 8 point difference. Shouldn’t the percentiles be closer together?
On the social issue. Don’t have any real experience yet, as my oldest is a rising junior also. So just an observation. At our state flagship, 3600 kids applied for honors last year for 500 spots. I think the freshman class is roughly 5k. That being the case, it would be hard to convince me that those applying and/or accepted were all the nerdy/quirky type, or even any certain type. Seems to me you are going to have a pretty diverse group with a lot of different interests and personalities. All very intelligent. Average ACT of 32.
I think my kid will be applying to several honors programs in state and out of state (chasing merit money). He isn’t the nerdy/quirky type at all. Likes sports/athletic, has a part time job, and is the “nice kid” everybody likes. Definitely takes after my wife.
I agree with you @LOUKYDAD . I’m not sure why, but for some reason some people want to believe that if a person is intelligent that somehow they’re “nerdy " " geeky” socially challenged and don’t know how to or ever want to have fun. That all that they do is study all of the time. That they will sacrifice the " traditional " social college experience by being a part of a group of academically like minded individuals who enjoy a challenge. I can’t speak for every honors program because they all are truly different. I can speak only for the one at the school that my son will be attending in the Fall. There may be times when he may have to miss a movie or a sporting event to attend an Honors function, but there will be just as many times where he will be involved in Honors sponsored social activities as well. It’s not all academic as some people believe. There’s a strong social component as well. Just as I would never assume that everyone who chooses not to participate in an Honors program is a slacker who wants nothing but the social scene in college, I would hope others would not assume that everyone who does chose an Honors program is a nerdy, socially inept geek who studies all the time and doesn’t know how to have a fun.
Try to find three books: Fisk Guide, Colleges that change lives (latest edition) , and Fifty Public Honors Colleges.
You can compare descriptions, cross read the general description in Fiske and in 50Public Honors.
That being said, honors colleges are not LACs on a large campus. Students take some honors classes, some non honors - so check both how many honors classes are offered (four hundreds? 20? - yes, it can vary that much), and what the other, non honors classes are like.
Not all colleges recruit the same way, either. UTD McDermott is almost entirely stem majors and there’s a high minimum sat score.
Penn State Schreyer doesn’t even consider test scores - essays, course rigor, and recommendations are paramount - and they try to have a good mix of majors, theater tech, agriculture, political science, foreign languages, information science, meteorology, business… You can have her look at the information pages for these two programs so that she sees if she likes one or the other.
Yikes, I’m getting way ahead of myself on this issue. I looked at the 2015 stats for State U and its average ACT was 29, mid 50 was 27-31. Honors ACT mid-50 was 32-34. There were 58 kids from her HS enrolled in 2015, the most of any HS in the state. Forget this honors stuff, even regular admission isn’t going to be a gimme.
Good that you find that out now. In my home state many kids are finding out that stats that were good enough for siblings just a year ago will get them offered a Bridge program or waitlisted . You still have time.
The state school my kid is applying to are tough to get in to. I don’t know if they even have honors programs above and beyond, because, dang, just regular is hard enough.
Note that many posters are telling you that honors varies with the school. Some are Honors Colleges with a lot of segregation of those students, others are Honors Programs. Some offer classes throughout the four years, others have many required classes that replace other courses for the first year or two. Some are excellent choices at otherwise more average schools while others enhance an already top notch student body. Some offer merit money, others do not. Some departments may say their program is so tough they don’t need Honors (engineering at Wisconsin used to be like that- now they are acknowledging students taking those nonengineering versions of Honors courses I see).
As you can see there are many, many ways to approach Honors. Look at how your public flagship does things in various departments of interest. Look at other probable state school choices. There is so much more than academics to any school your D needs to look at many factors.
I personally like how the U of Wisconsin-Madison handles things. Flexibility with various offerings for diverse students at an place with top departments and opportunities to do some time in grad courses/labs. Look at other schools and you find other ways of doing things. Remember some public schools are more high end than many of the private schools you hear about. If you happen to live in one of the states with a top flagship you may not want to encourage your D to apply to lesser private schools that are still in the top tiers.
Another huge thing to discuss with your D is that HS is vastly different socially than college. Top students get to be themselves without worrying about nerd labels. She will find likeminded students and doesn’t need to worry about what the rest of campus thinks. A consideration will be the presence/lack of Greek influence on a given campus. There are places where a student could feel uncomfortable because of Greek power and others where it only matters to the small minority who choose it.
Repeat to your D- college is for nerds. Showing your intelligence and ability is done. Of course, this means applying to the top tiers and not the average schools most will attend.
I do not think all the honors students are nerds, and in fact think most honors students are bright and social and non-nerdy, and that’s why they are chosen for the honors programs. My niece was in honors at her school. She is a very social, smart girl, athletic (could have played D1 but chose not to), in student government, struggled with calc, breezed through languages. It was almost like she was a regular student. Most of her friends were also in the honors program and they were all popular, in sports, did study abroad, were in sororities, in student government. Not wallflowers, not socially stunted.
Not being in Honors doesn’t mean you are stupid either, or even average. My nephew chose not to do it. My second daughter has zero interest in the types of classes usually offered in the honors colleges (literature, music theory, history, writing) and having to do a senior project and writing a dissertation would have killed her. Her stats may have qualified her for honors if she’d gone to a state school, but she’d have had no interest in the program. She also didn’t want to go to an LAC. We looked at them, she like the atmosphere and the activities, but just didn’t like the curriculum (or those required English courses with all those BOOKS to read).
I really appreciate the replies and discussion … but I might ask the mods to delete this thread. Why? Because I started reading the “Reflections of an elite legacy parent” and saw posts about how a kid will be perfectly fine if they only get into UChicago or Stanford. Are you kidding me??? I’d kill to have my D get ‘scraps’ like that. My sisters were the first in our family tree to graduate from college (UT-Austin, I dropped out after several years). Then I saw the “Any parents of ordinary kids” thread and thought how they’d view my thread and title. Especially since this thread made me look at the numbers more closely/objectively … I am now sufficiently humbled.
I don’t see any reason to ask that the thread be deleted! It has lots of useful information. Don’t be intimidated by other threads or contributors. Everyone is entitled to their own outlook. Our kids are all special to us and there is not some standardized measure of any student’s worth (not even test scores).
Even though I think my kid’s great, I never expected any merit awards of which she got several, very generous (one was half of the total of rm & bd and tuition & fees). Her ACT was lower than your D’s and she was accepted at several very reputable colleges and one U Honors Program (not highly competitive, but that wasn’t what mattered to us, it would have provided very personal attention). You should not downgrade your hopes/plans for your D’s future based on random comments here.
There is lots of research you can do to help your D in her search, if she’s open to that. Just remember to temper expectations with a reality check. NOTHING about admissions is certain unless you have an open enrollment community college. Aim for that mix of safeties, reaches, and matches. You CAN find a State U Honors Program where she’s a shoo-in but it might not be your local U!
Unc Wilmington, WKU, College of Charleston, UMass Lowell… All have accessible honors colleges. Check the specifics for each. Good luck to you and our daughter.
@droppedit - spending a lot of time on this sight can skew your perception of reality. You begin to think every other kid has a perfect ACT score, unique ECs, etc. On the other hand, not looking beyond your kid’s own HS and community does the same thing the opposite way.
The reality is that without prep your daughter was able to get an ACT score that is in the top 5% of all students taking the test. And she did this as a sophomore, so I assume she will end up taking it again after more HS coursework that should help perhaps raise that score. She has excellent grades and parents who are involved and interested in her success. She is way ahead of the game already, and is going to have plenty of good options when her time comes.
Could a so-called “elite” school be one of those options? If she really wants it, there is nothing wrong with aiming for it, as long as she appreciates the odds, it is financially feasible and she has a solid plan B. There are things she could do in the next year that affect her chances. Nothing wrong with learning what those things are and deciding if they are worth the time and effort expended, which should be her choice and not yours.
And there is nothing wrong with not wanting to go to an elite school BTW. As an example, the honors colleges of public Us are full of students with similar test scores, ability, etc. who decided for different reasons to be where they are.
Your D needs to realize how different college is from HS when choosing where to apply. Remove all of the social negatives and you have your college. Every person is a combination of so many different facets and people overlap in so many ways like Venn diagrams. She can be the highly interested in academics person, enjoy a social life of many different kinds and all sorts of combinations and permutations without worrying a bit about what others think. btw- your title ignores the fact that most state flagships are high end- even if only for the honors students.
Most of her friends were also in the honors program and they were all popular, in sports, did study abroad, were in sororities, in student government. Not wallflowers, not socially stunted.