<p>I suggest looking at those schools that don't need to see the SAT (like Bard) and then focus on your kid's strengths. See <a href="http://www.fairtest.org/optinit.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.fairtest.org/optinit.htm</a>. If she redoes the test and the math goes up, fine & good. If not, don't sweat it!</p>
<p>Using dyslexia as an example makes it sound a little better, but math? Why not say someone with problems with foreign languages has a learning disability, or history, or writing, or ... I would think that parents would find something like dyscalculia pretty obvious in the early grades. However, there a whole lotta kids that just don't like math and that might be a more likely explanation in almost all cases.</p>
<p>bluealien: dufus is my own name. My son was never on this forum. He's starting college in the Fall.</p>
<p>Dufus, google math disability, and be prepared to read for hours.</p>
<p>I can goggle blue space aliens and read for hours. I am sure that there are actually problems with the brain that can disadvantage people. Dyslexia and color blindness are common ones. I have never heard of dycalculia but it sounds interesting. If your child has been diagnosed, then by all means they should get assistance. </p>
<p>Sometimes it just seemed easier when everyone had different talents and abilities and people who were lacking in one area or another didn't have to claim a disability. Somebody scores average on Math and outstanding on Verbal and maybe they have a learning disability? What if they scored average on both? Do they then have two learning disabilities? I think I have several disabilities now.</p>
<p>Good chance. J/k. It's a well know fact that kids who have very uneven scores typically have a LD.</p>
<p>Sorry, but how is "learning disability" being defined? Because it seems like its just being used to mean "not as good at X as at other things." Very few people are equally brilliant at everything.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your comments.</p>
<p>I do not believe she is "LD".....she never had a problem with Math untill her 10th and 11th grade. She says the teacher is terrible.</p>
<p>In 10th grade most of her class failed the final (she got a 43...ouch....the only failing grade she ever recieved.) Yet with self study she got an 87 on the regents that year. She finished the year our with high 80's avg.</p>
<p>All the parents complained but to no avail. In 11th grade she has the same teacher again. She faired better this year with a low 90 avg</p>
<p>But she tanked the regents exam.....she will retake that in Aug.
And retake SAT in OCT.....we considered the ACT this past time around in June but she was burned out from all the other testing I think so she decided to wait till fall and just take SAT again. </p>
<p>Since we are only looking to raise the Math score primarily do you think it's best to retake SAT.....or go for the ACT which then brings in science and other subjects too? Or may be both? Or just adjust school list to the schools that do not reguire such tests?</p>
<p>But as far as LD .........I beg to differ but I do not suspect it. She has a wonderful transcript and is a fine writer. Although anxiety is probally a factor for sure, as is this case with many students testing...and adults for that matter.</p>
<p>So...................whats best?.........a private math tutor? self study with book( recommend best ones? ) on-line course?</p>
<p>She is a bright girl....but young and a new boyfriend,job and art school this summer...........I honestly don't thimk she is dedicated to too much study.........you know how it is parents.</p>
<p>I guess we will keep flexible with our range of schools and keep encouraging her to study....thats all a parent can do.........after all I won't be there next year to tell her to study for exams in college right? It has to come from her.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice about the portfolio........I think I will ask her to submit one w/ application.</p>
<p>By the way..............we watched "Orange County" last night. Funny movie that captures all the anxiety students feel for "getting into" the dream college.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help. I'll probally have more questions as it gets closer to applying.......</p>
<p>Just to let anyone interested in Bard, Fordham,Vassar and Marist know....we are visiting these schools this week and I would be happy to share what I learn and impressions we have of the schools with you if you should inquire.</p>
<p>Main Entry: dufus
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: an incompetent and stupid, though well-meaning, person; also called doofus</p>
<p>What math classes did she take in 10th and 11th grade?</p>
<p>Provided she doesn't take the SAT more than three times, they will take the best Verbal and best Math score from all of the testing. (If she were to take it more than three times, there is a high probability that they would average all of the scores together.) If she hasn't taken the ACT before, it might be best to continue with the SAT and do better. She could always do both but that is a lot to worry about.</p>
<p>Whether a students would do better with prep classes or self study from the guides depends on the student. A self motivated students can do as well or better just studying the guides. From what you said, she might do better with a prep class since that would provide structure and motivate her. She still has to study outside of the class.</p>
<p>I'm personally sorry that you had to hear about the learning disability stuff. Under the circumstances, it seems to have been really out of place and silly. As I'm sure you know, be careful not to reinforce any bad feelings she has about math. I'm sure her early teachers got her off to a bad start with math and may have induced dislike, fear, and anxiety about the subject.</p>
<p>bluealien: You know, when I said something about googling blue space aliens, I didn't realize that I may have gotten it from your name. That was subconcious. It isn't doofus. It is dufus. It's an acronym for something. It's a joke.</p>
<p>I believe the dictionary more.</p>
<p>it sounds like in this case it was a ineffective teacher rather than a disability as she hasn't had problems until high school.
for other readers
SAT is not a good screener for disabilities- that would be an individually administered intelligence test combined with other tests.
In the case of someone like my daughter who had an 160 iq combined but with scores ranging from about 12 yr equiv ( this is when she was 16) to equiv of 36 yr- the unevenness indicates a disability- looking at the subtests ( there are about 15) will give more information on exactly what type of disability and of course ;) indicate what area needs to be looked into more closely.</p>
<p>My younger daughter had very uneven teaching- when she entered the public school system in 3rd grade she was at basically the same level of math that she was in 6th grade. I have seen elementary teachers who are not comfortable with math and so they don't teach it well. She had the misfortune despite my attempted intervention to have had several years of poor teachers. Combine this with a math curriculum that does not even teach long division and places more importance on process than product and it is a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>My older daughter didn't have that situation, she had been introduced to algebra in 1st grade and she has always been at grade level, but it doesn't take away that she does have a math related disability.</p>
<p>Dufus, the implication that a learning disability is something awful to deal with is insulting to the over 15% of the population who deal daily with such disabilities, many quite well.</p>
<p>LDs surface at different times for different kids. For really bright kids they often go undetected and the person assumes for life they were just a slow reader or bad at math. My daughter sounds a lot like Emerald's, very high IQ and very successful in school always. Then she hit high school math. Put into an honors class, she hit a wall. Her first B ever freshman year, followed by heavy duty trouble with geometry.</p>
<p>A very good tutor helped us understand that she had an LD, dyscalculia, and that she could successfully deal with it if she was taught in the way she needed to learn. Interesting reading is Mel Levine's book on brain types and learning. We don't all learn the conventional way. </p>
<p>The tutor immediately knew what he would find after reviewing her various scores because of how uneven they were. As Emerald pointed out, this raises a flag in a high IQ child.</p>
<p>Long story short, her 9th grade math SAT was 520, and she just tested 700 at the end of tenth grade. Still 80 points under her verbal score, but a normal spread now. </p>
<p>She could have done just fine in life and been fine at a mid level college, but I'm sure glad the term LD didn't scare her and she can now fulfill her potential fully.</p>
<p>I didn't mean to insult anyone who has a learning disability. As a parent I reacted to some of the earlier comments in the same way that I do when I hear about Attention Deficient Disorder. I certainly believe that ADD exists and it can be so bad that people need help, but I have seen a lot of parents go immediately to drugs to control ADD. Little Billy is overactive in class and so lets calm him down with some pills. Today, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would both be on pills. It seems that some parents are more comfortable with their children having a disability than being bad at something.</p>
<p>Also math is a bit of a special case. I agree that there are math learning disabilities, but a lot of kids don't "get" math right off. This leads to fear, anxiety, lack of interest and math phobias. I just went to <a href="http://www.dyscalculia.org%5B/url%5D">www.dyscalculia.org</a> and they are offering an online evaluation of your child for $550 that you can pay with you credit card. Some of the symptoms are inability to read music scores, not keeping track of whose turn it is in games, and not being able to play chess well.</p>
<p>My comments are NOT directed towards people with actual learning disabilities. </p>
<p>A good research book on the subject of math ability is "The Math Gene" by Keith Devlin. His basic premise is "the feature of our brain that enables us to use language is the same feature that makes it possible for us to do mathematics." Briefly our evolutionary ancestors advanced from a simple protolanguage to full language that embodies grammar. Once they developed the ability to handle grammar, symbolic off-line thinking was possible. Humans are the only species with this ability. Mathematics is a specialized form of symbolic off-line thinking and the ability to do math is no different than the ability to gossip, at least as far as the brain is concerned. Math is harder only because it is removed from everyday reality. </p>
<p>Someone who improves significantly in their math ability may just be getting better at math, and not overcoming a disability.</p>
<p>Certainly possible, but not my daughter's case.</p>
<p>Dufus, there are quacks and money hungry individual scaming every disease, disabilty and ability for that matter. These dissabilities are easily picked up with knowlegable testing, as opposed to ADD.</p>
<p>If it were my kid, and I didn't think she was lazy, I'd have her tested. It could make a big difference when you are tilting at top colleges. That's all. The truth (back to the original question) is that a 490 will stop this child from getting into many colleges. Wouldn't you want to see if she just needed a different learning style if she were your child? </p>
<p>All the LD diagnosis means for most kids in that they need a different approach to learning. Better than not learning IMHO.</p>
<p>I should probably tread lighter when talking about parenting. Parenting is hard and kids are all different. From what you have said, I personally see your D as needing to try a different approach to learning math and that treating it as a LD got her to where she needed to be. I congratuate you and her both. From the OP, I think that her D was turned off of math in 10th and 11th grade by some bad teachers. If something isn't working, try something else. My own approach when my S had trouble with math was to tell him that math was hard and that he wasn't allowed to think that he couldn't do it. If that hadn't worked, I would have tried something else.</p>
<p>My son also had a terrible algebra teacher. Here's the difference, he just read the text book and learned algebra.</p>
<p>I also want to say, while I would try everything before a drug, I know many people, kids and adults, who would have a better life and future if (or had) they taken an ADD drug.</p>
<p>In reply to the question.....</p>
<p>"which math math did she take in 10th and 11th grade"?</p>
<p>She took Math A and Math B</p>
<p>Let me just say that hearing everyone confirm that having her retake the test is imperative...........and that she only needs to hit the books and perhaps try a stadegy book like 10 real SATs( thankyou very much for that tip ) certainly has eased my mind.</p>
<p>I feel much better and confident in her application strength again.</p>
<p>I believe she will be ok.</p>
<p>Also..............she is feeling pretty good about a back up school ( Quinnapiac University in Connecticut )........where her boyfriend is attending this fall..........I know I know......don't even say it.</p>
<p>So whatever happens with her scores .........she will be happy. But I am really going to encourage the upping the score with lots of study and practice because whether she wants to be aacepted to a premiun LAC or be eligible for a top merit based scholarschip @ Quinnipiac she still needs to improve that math score.......I mean we are not made of money right?</p>
<p>Thanks again for everyones input.</p>