<p>
</p>
<p>But I can think of several who could have done fine but don’t due to a very poor foundation going in. Sometimes the catching up needed is just too much even if they had straight As and did all their lower academic school asked of them. Those are the students I really feel sorry for.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly one reason why my high school doesn’t rank beyond the val and sal. It also matters little as many universities/LACs which typically would only accept the top 5-10% of students from an academically average high school tend to dip into the middle and sometimes…even the bottom third of my graduating class. I speak from some experience. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Still happens though. This hothouse effect is not necessarily all bad, however painful it may be at the time. Instead of experiencing “hitting the wall” in college*…students end up experiencing this at an earlier and much less expensive stage in their academic careers. </p>
<ul>
<li>Going from being all As to getting the first Cs, Ds, or Fs despite working much harder and being one of the admitted few.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Not all K-12 programs are watered down to this extent.
In the schools my kids attended, just doing the homework accurately would not have ensured good grades starting in middle school.”
-It depend on basis for comparison. All American k - 12 are way below many others. These others start covering real material in 5 - 6 grade, not in 9th grade. So, they challenge kids, realizing that challenge is the way to succeed. Doing homework is plenty to assure straight A’s even in best private preps that send 100% kids to 4 year colleges. No genius is required. Kids simply are not challenged enough so they are looking for greater challenges outside of school (sports, music, art…)and some immigrant communities are having their own schools where they compensate for deficiencies in math and science.</p>
<p>
All? This just isn’t true, even if you think accelerated math is the only criterion for how good a school is.</p>
<p>Hunt,
Accelerated math is still way below and is NOT the only criteria. Add all sciences. What holds back is not the quality of teachers / schools but k -12 program intself.
But it is all besides the point of this thread. It is just to support idea that nobody needs to be a genius to get all A’s in any k - 12. Good work ethic is sufficient enough even at schools that do not give out A’s easily, grade inflation or not. And SAT / ACT reflect the low level of k -12. It is very important to realize as some very top caliber kids skip refreshing middle school math, which is the biggest part of math section in both SAT / ACT. They wonder why they did not do better. Several hours (not months) of focused prep. will correct this problem.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, you should start your own SAT prep company. If your theories are correct, you should make a fortune.</p>
<p>Actually, D reports with math and calculus based physics that there is a point at which she sees kids starting to “top out”. It’s not that they’re incapable of understanding, for the most part, but that the understanding takes longer and longer to the point that they can’t keep up with the pace and keep it all straight even with lots of extra work. Some kids hit this point of diminishing returns sooner than others. If you attend a magnate school of some kind where the sample of students isn’t random, you are likely to find that more kids stay above this line longer in any given subject.</p>
<p>Hunt, it does not appear to me that you have opened practice SAT/ACT and try to do them. If you did, you would realize that most of it is middle school material that many high schoolers just forgot, which is even more true for top advanced kids. If they were taught math properly, they would not forget it, but sadly it is not the case. you cannot make any money direcing people to self-prep for few hours focusing on area that could be improved instead of taking useless prep. classes that give general advice.</p>
<p>Yes, calculus based physics will take longer, because physics should start in 6th grade and taught for several years before they get to calc. based physics. Nobody should feel inferior becasue it takes longer, not their fault. Still even with incorrect way of teaching, understanding is not the problem if one has strong math background, but teaching math has exactly the same probelm with being too little, too late. To have it easier, parents input is almost a must. Physics is NOT difficult, it is conceptual. Very good teachers understand time constraints of program, so they focus on most difficult part, mechanics. However, public schools might not be as flexible as privates in this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What leads you to this conclusion? How should math be taught differently so that students will not forget it?</p>
<p>In my experience, many students who are in Algebra II or higher-level classes when they take the SAT need to review some geometry before taking the test because the SAT includes geometry concepts that they may not have used for a year or more – sometimes, depending on how accelerated they are, several years. I don’t see how teaching math differently would make this less true.</p>
<p>Don’t we all tend to forget the details of things that we don’t use for a while? I recently had to use Excel at work for the first time in more than a year. I discovered that I had forgotten quite a few things, and I had to re-learn them. Isn’t this a typical experience?</p>
<p>
I just have to point out that “magnet” is the school, while “magnate” is what you hope to become as a result of attending good schools.</p>
<p>“What leads you to this conclusion? How should math be taught differently so that students will not forget it?”</p>
<p>-the way it is taught in many other countries. They start them with various math subjects (algebra, geometry, trig.) in 5 - 6 grade and continue all the way until they graduate. Math is a language, brain has to absorb it over period of time. Math should not be shoved down in short periods. Kind of disrespectful and results are not there, it only scares many of kids, they do not have time to appreciate the beauty and learn to apply it whenever possible.</p>
<p>My D is in an IB school that functions the same way. The IB is not weighed. Kids from her school work hard and are challenged,but when GPAs are compared to kids from less challenging schools in the area they appear weak. However, they are well prepared for college and succeed. Some of these other kids who look great on paper do not do as well in college. Many of them lose their financial aid packages,spend 5 or more years in college or drop out for a while. Igues the secret is to find the schools that understand the value ofthe IB.</p>
<p>Ha it is kind of interesting. I got to one of the most “successful” public school systems in the country. I can only imagine myself in Nowhereville, MT or something. Yet I still wish I went to an elite private school… Oh well hehe.</p>
<p>College mailings to D1 continue to flow in and a personalized application from Stetson University just came in yesterday. Out of curiosity, I checked the stats of its entering class on USNWR and here is what I found:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>According to CollegeBoard, CR 553 is just above 67%, MA 545 is just above 58%, and WR 533 is just above 64%. Assuming the reported numbers are true, if this is not an indication of massive high school grade inflation, I don’t know what is.</p>