<p>I’m sorry if I came across as full of myself–while I must admit I have a somewhat inflated sense of self-worth, my SAT score is by no means what makes me think highly of myself. It’s just that I find it funny that I did so well on the M section of the SAT when I really am awful at math, and thought my experience was relevant to the topic at hand.</p>
<p>The SAT tests one’s command of language and basic arithmetic operations (as well as one’s access to the type of educational opportunities afforded to the upper classes), is what I’m trying to say. It’s not about aptitude. Probably why CB stopped saying it is.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine making career predictions based on SAT scores. The kid in question has been taking classes in literature, history, science and math for years and years now. Would that not be a better indicator of where strengths and interests lie? </p>
<p>My daughter’s scores on the SAT were identical for all three sections. Her scores on the ACT subsections were also tightly clustered. She loves languages, hates math and science. But the material that was on the test is material that she knew, so she got the questions right.</p>
<p>My experience: was so hopeless on math placement test during Freshman Week that the math placement advisor person said, “Did someone take the math SAT for you?”</p>
<p>My younger son was shocked beyond amazement that his Math score was higher than his CR (though all three sections were within 50 points of each other). He’s a hard-core social sciences guy. OTOH, he has the ability to add some hard-core science and math to his repertoire, and is thinking of doing just that to improve his chances of landing the kind of position he wants after graduation. Those scores are a reminder to him that he DOES have abilities in more areas than he sometimes gives himself credit for. He also found a 12 essay and 80 MC to be welcome comic relief against the backdrop of four years of grinding, tough Bs in IB English. </p>
<p>The scores are just an assessment at one point in time. I sure wouldn’t use them to point a student in any particular direction. There are so many new fields available to explore in college – why pigeonhole yourself?</p>
<p>I had a 740 V 630 M – and wish I had not shied away from more math. My math score, in retrospect, reflected the lack of offerings at my HS more than lack of ability on my part.</p>
<p>Need to differentiate aptitude and interest. I told my HS economics teacher I was going to major in chemistry when he suggested economics- I may have done super in it but didn’t really enjoy it. Likewise I remember choosing chemistry over biology because it was more challenging (research techniques have vastly improved biological fields over the decades). Became a physician. Many do well in most areas and can have many interests but will need to focus on one (or two) as college is for being the master of one, not a “jack of all trades”.</p>
<p>Sometimes people are just well-rounded. And the SAT has a “built-in” score range of +/- 30 points in each subject, so 760/750/740 could be 730/780/730. Looks like a math kid. But what if it becomes 790/720/770. Looks like a humanities kid. And scores can easily range more than 30 points.</p>
<p>I’m notably lopsided toward CR and W, but until recently I was planning on going into engineering, and I will have 7 science credits by the end of high school. Don’t make a career choise off of SAT scores unless there’s a huge difference.</p>
<p>The fact that Ghostt picked Read and mathmoms older son chose CMU (over Harvard) shows that they knew their strengths despite of balanced test scores. However, as momofthreeboys states and mathmoms experience illustrates, some students may not know for sure what their strengths are at the time of college applications. Finding a fit school could be even harder for those balanced scorers.</p>
<p>Changing careers multiple times, as happymomof1 and many of us experienced, is in itself interesting and fun, but fewer changes might be more fulfilling. I bet happymomof1s perfectly balanced SAT scores have something to do with it. Life experiences shared here could be very valuable.</p>
<p>BTW, I pulled 760CR/750M/740W out of thin air to illustrate balanced SAT scores that equally apply to 560CR/580M/550W or 840CR/860M/850W (for a 2400 SAT when the real ceiling were 2700).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t use the SAT scores either. It’s what you become interested and passioned in that ends up being the major. I was even on my SATs back in the day and ended up being the only non-engineer in my family. My one even kid is the artsy one who is heading toward a science major. In my opinion once the college apps are done the SATs and ACTs are done and gone never to be thought of again…or at least until you’re putting kids into college.</p>
<p>Once classes become harder in college, people will naturally start to figure out what they’re good at and what interests them enough to keep them alert and excited at 3am in the morning.</p>
<p>I imagine that the challenge comes if a student (such as Frazzled D) not only has balanced scores (and grades), but multipe interests, lots of motivation to pursue these, finite amounts of time and energy, and a reluctance to make a choice to go in one direction or another early on in a college career.</p>
<p>Some schools are more accomodating to such students that others, so I would keep a close eye on each school’s gen ed requirements and policies wrt multiple majors, interdisciplinary majors, dual degree programs, and so forth. Cost might also factor in, as some students with multiple interests might want to take a few summers of classes or a fifth year to complete an extra major or get around the scheduling conflicts that often pop up when students attempt to complete prereq’s in areas that do not overlap.</p>
<p>In addition, there’s personality/personal satisfaction issues. Someone may have excellent communition and social skills to be in the business world but also loves to work in a lab. Going into business will not provide intellectual satisfaction, going into science social satisfaction.</p>
<p>I think kids are often mistaken to be drawn to multiple majors, interdisciplinary majors, and the like. I understand perfectly the reluctance of a kid with multiple interests to narrow herself, but to me that is part of what college is about – learning how to take a deep dive, how to create a base and then to go farther. I don’t think you can really learn without narrowing yourself to some extent. And at the same time I believe that once you understand how to understand a field, that makes it much easier to sample a course or two from other fields and to get much more out of that than you would have otherwise.</p>
<p>There’s nothing I can do about double majors consisting of What I Want To Study and What My Dad Wants Me To Study, and in some cases that’s pretty rational, as when the former is Theater Arts or Himalayan Epic Poetry. But I think lots of kids do themselves a disservice by pursuing double-/multi- programs as an excuse for not focusing (and sometimes to the exclusion of taking disconnected electives that would really excite them). Not that they should narrow themselves before applying to college, though. I am completely comfortable with the American elite model that says you do that in the middle of your second year, more or less.</p>
<p>lake42ks, I get the sense you were expecting the SAT to function as some sort of career interest inventory exam. That isn’t, and has never been, its function. Even when it was an “aptitude” test, it was supposed to measure aptitude to succeed in college classwork, as I understand it.</p>
<p>There are, however, batteries of tests one can take to help identify what professional pursuits (and corresponding academic pathways) might be a good fit with a person’s interests and aptitudes. If that is what you are looking for, look for that specifically. I think some high school guidance counselors may have access to materials like this. </p>
<p>I can understand wanting to know more about what careers are out there which might suit a particular kid. Kids only know about the jobs they’ve heard of. Maybe a top-notch cryptologist or petroleum geologist or civil engineer or speech pathologist or is out there but is going to wind up in law school because he doesn’t even know those jobs exist. </p>
<p>However, the SAT is simply not the test that is going to be of any use with that endeavor.</p>
<p>Given that colleges seem to expect kids to be applying with a major already chosen and even a career path worked out, it is daunting to approach college applications with a kid who really is equally good at everything and has no idea what direction to take. Back in our day, that was par for the course among undergraduates! That was the purpose of a liberal arts education! To complete our educations, and help us identify what our next steps might be. But everything is so pre-professional now. I just finished the college application process with a kid who has some idea of a direction and a focus, and I will admit it made everything, from building a list of schools to visit to choosing which schools to apply to and even choosing which school to attend, much easier. </p>
<p>Therefore, if that is your concern–that your kid has absolutely no idea what direction to take and it’s overwhelming to the kid in the college application process–I seriously recommend you seek out some of those career aptitude inventories, either through the school guidance office or perhaps a career counselor of some kind. Otherwise, why not apply undecided and see what seems interesting freshman year?</p>
<p>Huh? Where? Apart from engineering, where accreditation requirements effectively require that you hit the ground running from the first semester, and a few other quasi-professional programs (including BFAs, nursing), most kids are NOT expected to have a major already chosen or a career path worked out. In some cases, a firm commitment may have to be made to a business school or communications school, but generally there are myriad options open within each school, and transfer from one school to another within the same university is relatively easy.</p>
<p>Furthermore, with graduate degrees becoming more and more expected, to a significant extent one does not have to choose one’s career path until after graduating from college. That has been true for a long time, by the way. Practically no one I know works in the field in which he or she majored as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>Kids seem to feel enormous pressure to have a major and a career path, but in most cases I don’t think that is imposed by the institutions.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s the other way around in most of the world. Kids ARE expected to commit to a major when they apply, and to some extent during the educational run-up to university application.</p>
<p>I consistently performed better on writing and reading than I did math on the SAT and its subject tests, but I really prefer math–just because something is easy for your kid doesn’t mean he likes it. Why don’t you let him figure out what he wants instead of letting test performance guide him? I think a far better “test” would be an MBTI personality test combined with some career inventory. But it’s not like his life will suck unless he chooses his fate right now.</p>
<p>Which is another reason (IMO) that it’s a better idea to pick a school that is all-around strong so if you go from field A to field B to field C, you’ll get a good education in all of them, versus picking solely by strength of major.</p>
<p>Larger colleges and universities definitely DO expect the student to specialize. There are separate Schools for Engineering, Music, Journalism, Business and the like at schools of a certain size and above. Often these “siloed” institutions do have an Arts and Letters school that works more like a smaller LAC, but each University and its Schools have rules about taking courses outside of the School the student is attending; some universities even require a student to apply directly to the School(s), with some offering an “undecided” option. </p>
<p>In the case of an applicant looking for a college experience at a larger university, the question of specialization definitely comes up as early as the application process.
And some students in HS do think they know what they will major in, even do as a career LOL. And a number of them actually do exactly what they have thought in HS!</p>
<p>There is also a trend towards pre-professionalism at many colleges of all sizes now: groupings of courses that are “pre-Law”, for example.</p>
<p>Yes, it is ironic, but to study across broad areas does work better if one does have a an area of depth or focus as a vantage point, an organizing principle, to take off from with some grounding. </p>
<p>I am a liberal arts grad who was completely able to work in the areas of banking, business and investments. I pursued my MBA as I worked, starting about three years after I got my BA in a major I actually built myself at an Ivy in a humanities field.
My career shared many of the “multi-disciplinary” qualities that my ug major did- but across very different areas. The commonality was the perspective, not the content. </p>
<p>Clearly, the SAT is not aptitude test, and less and less so, given the intensive prepping/gaming going on.
Yet, the AdComms do rely in it a bit in that way, using varying scores “to learn more” about the candidate. LOL</p>
<p>But that’s what makes it hard to distinguish whether you like doing something because you happen to be good at it or because you truly love the material, isn’t it? Kids who are well rounded in high school are good at a lot of things, so it’s hard to know what is the “calling”, so to speak. It’s when the work becomes challenging and effort consuming that you figure out what it is that you truly enjoy tackling. </p>
<p>(But I agree that hopefully it won’t take someone that late into the morning!)</p>