That sounds sensible.
As we all know, the majority of applicants to the selective colleges come from that 20%. If the high schools serving them inflate their grades, what do you think will happen to the schools serving the rest (the other 80%)? Are you suggesting that there’s going to be a bifurcation of grading? IMO, that isn’t going to be the case. Grade inflation, like the other types of inflations, will spread and be extremely difficult to contain once it starts.
Still, the people who are most affected by grade inflation are the people in the top 20%, whereas, the people who have the most negative impact from relaying on test scores are everybody else.
It seems blatantly inequitable to focus solely on negative impacts on the subset of high income students who do better on standardized tests than students with similar GPAs, while ignoring the fact that relying on SAT scores negatively affects low income and middle income students, and has especially strong negative impacts on low and middle income students with issues like ADHD, which generally are not diagnosed in low income students, unless they are so severe that they make daily functioning impossible, or when they are comorbid with other issues.
Not to say that grade inflation is not a problem. [rant] However, that is a problem which is born from inequitable schools, the dependence of schools on the goodwill of parents for funding, the fact that high schools need to compete for the money of the wealthiest people, the fact that, like in most ecosystems, invertebrates substantially outnumber vertebrates among upper administration at schools, AND the fact that many parents in the USA believe that schools are there to keep them happy, not to educate their kids. [/rant]
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Thanks all for the advice. He wound up prepping once a week with a private tutor from May through August and wound up getting a score that will be usable for all of the schools that are currently in consideration. Definitely was worth the time and effort!
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I have to concur. Prepping, whether on your own or via tutors (free or paid) can make a big difference. It’s been DECADES since I took the SATs, but something said back then probably still rings true today: pretty much everyone taking these standardized tests can read, so what does the Reading portion of the SAT’s EBRW test? It’s not just “reading”, but close comprehension and knowing how to deal with curveballs.
DD did prepare, and she (and her folks) are absolutely delighted with her results. A great part is that she is a good student, but she paid her dues by working on questions over and over again.
Decades ago, the SAT verbal section was mostly a vocabulary test, with some time management thrown in (there were some reading comprehension questions that took up more time but made up a small percentage of the questions). Vocabulary was apparently used as a proxy for how much reading one did, but the prep books at the time often included lists of “SAT words” as a short cut to improve one’s vocabulary for the SAT.
Today’s SAT EBRW section is somewhat different from decades ago, of course.
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My focus is on today’s Reading section: basically everyone taking it knows how to read, but you need to learn the kinds of questions the SAT asks and, dare I say it, the tricks that it throws.
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My S found that the grammar was the most learnable. The reading was not so difficult for a well read kid who is in advanced English classes, the grammar rules had to be specifically learned and exactly what they were looking for. He improved dramatically with specific teaching towards this.
Mine was the other way around: the questions that were missed were mainly in Reading. But learning the routine way that the SAT asks certain types of questions and the process of rational elimination was most helpful.
But I think the net point here that several of us agree with is that prep work is important. I wouldn’t recommend to any student to go into it cold. If, at the very least, it’s answering old questions and getting SOME sense of the kinds of questions, pacing/timing, etc., these are very important.
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