<p>It’s a wonder these kids aren’t burnt to a crisp by the time they do get into college. I’m thinking DD might be an ACT kind of kid and am hoping that in April she’ll score high and we can get on with our lives. </p>
<p>Imagine how much money the CollegeBoard rakes in each year. Who is raking in the profit? Do any of you wise been there before parents know if CB is a non-profit or a for profit corporation?</p>
<p>ETA: Class I’m still waiting to meet Mr. Bond but Maxwell Smart just left for the grocery store :)</p>
<p>Thank you classof2015… I wanted to chime in, but just didn’t know how to say it as eloquently… these kids are poor… no, dirt poor… and don’t have live in college counselors like our kids have to give them a fighting chance. Many of these kids can barely make it to community college let alone graduate on time, if at all… it barely levels the playing field… its just her attempt/the districts attempt to give these kids a step in the right direction. A chance to possibly make it out of poverty.</p>
<p>Aw…which makes me wonder if anyone sends them to the test with snacks and extra batteries, or if they even have a full breakfast before the 4 hours of testing!</p>
<p>AgentNinetyNine–I remember you now – right after I Dream of Jeannie and before Hogan’s Heroes. You haven’t aged a bit!</p>
<p>In terms of the college board and how much money they make, I’m tending to think we could use the term for a major investment bank: Giant vampire squid.</p>
<p>NewHaven – I misunderstood. Was thinking this was a repeat of the private prep school-only summer testing date. </p>
<p>How does the sending the test scores work? Does each student have a number of schools that SAT/ACT will deliver the scores for free? Perhaps I should just sit down and read that darn booklet. </p>
<p>Class2015 – Why, thank you! Max doesn’t think he’s aging at all. Tells the kids, “I’ve still got it,” as he’s preening in the mirror. Men :)</p>
<p>Well, the schools offer free breakfast that the kids get. Not sure if they will know enough to eat it or not. Or if they will arrive on time to even take the test. Extra batteries? aww, bless your lil heart!!! Most don’t even own calculators. Maybe 10%?? And that is probably a generous number. You must understand, these kids are impoverished and have no clue to the importance of a calculator. The schools have them for the kids to use in the classes that need them. But for all the juniors taking the test at once? Hmmm I am sure my friend has taken that into account and ordered tons last March. She comes from a fine pedigree educationally/knows what a good highschool education should look/smell and taste like! She takes this whole process very seriously!</p>
<p>AgentNinetyNine, The SAT results come with two percentile numbers. The first one is for all test takers on the same date, the second one is for the senior class of your student’s high school.</p>
<p>NewHaven—I didn’t think you were lying about the test b/c as you said, you would have no reason to lie. I had simply never heard of a non-standard test date other than the hubbub that arose about last August’s test. Since I spend FAR too much time reading CC posts, I thought I would have heard of it by now. I actually spent a fair bit of time reading SAT posts b/c I debated having my son take the test Oct of Jr year.</p>
<p>I assumed (a$$ of u and me, as my father used to say) that private schools were the ones offering it. I noted the Wed test date from your post a few days earlier and jumped to the conclusion that the schools were private since all the private schools in my area administer the PSAT on Wed during the school day.</p>
<p>I think anything the schools can do to assist students in the college admissions process is good. I have heard of schools that offer essay-writing electives and others that offer SAT prep courses as electives. (Oyster Bay and Northport on Long Island, to name two.) Our school barely mentions the tests other than having the dates on the annual calendar. Guidance correctly assumes that parents are managing the process for the students—or that the self-motivated students are managing it themselves. I hope that the New Haven schools also offer SAT prep courses free during the school day as we all know how much prep can improve the score.</p>
<p>Worrytoomuch–I have only seen the unofficial score report, but it included percentiles on national, state and school levels. And, I do not know if the score is compared to the current senior class or last year’s graduating class. I copied this from the unofficial score report for a test my HS Jr took in fall of his Jr year. Until I looked at this, I would have thought the scores were compared to those taking the exact same test, but it appears not.</p>
<p>You scored higher than these percentages of students (based on last year’s graduating class of students who took the SAT).</p>
<p>AP classes - Our state has joined a national program through National Math and Science Initiative. “The goals of the program are to strengthen the teaching of the AP® mathematics, science, and English courses and to build enrollment and increase the number of students taking and earning qualifying scores on AP® exams in these subjects.” Our district has two high schools. One school has more lower income population than the other. So this school is part of this program. I don’t know the exact details of the program since it is not the school DS goes to, but the students will receive money for passing scores! I would also assume that the school pays for the tests for these students, as well. DS was at a Catholic junior high that fed into these two high schools. I know of several students who chose to go to the other school for that reason alone!</p>
<p>Our school has regular, honors and AP classes. Each one is a little more challenging than the other. Regular & honors weights an A as 4.0. AP classes weight an A as 5.0. Interestingly, I’ve also heard that the other school in the district weights its honors classes as 4.5 for an A. Why the difference in the same district??? </p>
<p>WorryTooMuch - that’s interesting about the two sets of percentiles. DS has not (and probably will not) take the SAT, but it would be interesting to see what his number would be compared to others in his school. Does ACT do the same? Seems like I only remember national & state #'s for ACT.</p>
<p>“How does the sending the test scores work? Does each student have a number of schools that SAT/ACT will deliver the scores for free? Perhaps I should just sit down and read that darn booklet.”<br>
Agent99 - I believe you are able to choose 4 schools to receive the scores for each test they take. These have to be done within a certain time period before the test (don’t remember for sure, but may be able to do it within a few days after the test). DS took test last April. We did not use the free scores then since it was his first sitting and had no idea how he’d do. He took it again in June and we did send them blind to four schools. Had no idea which schools he might be interested in, but sent to the mother of all engineering schools , the in-state flagship, and two others. Lucky for us, it was an even better score than the first test. Interestingly, we have not received any mail from this submission! I would have thought if a school received the ACT score, they would put the student on their preferred mail list!</p>
<p>Actually no. No SAT prep during the day. At least not at her school. The district has so many other issues to deal with and its so sad that SAT/college prep are at the bottom of the list. There is a small segment of kids(my daughter included) that are able to navigate this process seamlessly… especially if they have their parents at the helm. There is an SAT prep class after school but her schedule is very hectic and she had previous obligations so she was not able to partake.</p>
<p>I would also add that the reason for many kids taking AP classes is b/c thats where the serious/motivated students tend to flock. Even the so called honors classes are dumbed down. They place the kids who behave well in these classes, but often times don’t have the skill sets to be there so even those classes are a joke.</p>
<p>Re: sending scores…I do not know how often this happens but at the Jr class parent meeting held at our school this fall, a parent asked how early scores could be sent. Guidance did not have a definitive answer, but suggested students wait until after August b/c the GC knew of a student who had sent scores his Jr year, only to have the college delete/clear them out when the college purged the Class of 2012 applicants’ files. May have only happened once, so who knows.</p>
<p>Beady–the discrepancy in weighting between the two schools in the same town is surprising. Our school awards +.5 for honors or AP, but honors classes taken in 9th grade are not awarded the additional +.5. I do not know why this policy exists, as the difference in workload between honors and regular is significant. Many parents believe the school needs another instructional level between honors and regular as the regular classes may be too easy for some students while the honors move at an AP pace, even when they are not AP courses. </p>
<p>One college we visited explained that they recalculate the applicants’ GPAs, awarding +.5 for honors and +1.0 for AP. I do not know how the college admissions offices can possibly weigh a 4.0 from one school vs. a 5.0 from another w/o a careful analysis of each school’s profile and that takes time. Beady–your example of the discrepancy w/in the district adds another layer of confusion for the Ad Coms.</p>
<p>NewHaven–that is unfortunate that time cannot be carved out for the SAT prep or application process but I understand that ensuring that every student passes the CAPTs takes a large chunk of time. As to missing the SAT course after school…I would guess that you can tell her as much as she would hear in a group setting. (Even though it is always better info when it comes from someone other than mom.)</p>
<p>Technically, College Board is a not for profit - but is it really? There are multiple articles questioning College Board’s NFP status. Here are a couple of links:</p>
<p>The SAT class would have interfered with an afterschool program that she does at Yale Peabody Museum on Tuesdays & she is a literacy tutor on Thursdays. a few of her classmates took the class in the fall and felt that it was of no benefit. these are students who are just as motivated as she and felt that self study a more beneficial route. so after much deliberation, she has been seeing a private tutor for the past month. He is doing his graduate studies in physics @ Yale. He tutors SAT through the same place where she tutors and i have no knowledge of his track record. She says that he has helped her see the math problems in a completely different way. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this will be the last time she takes it. I stepped out on faith with this guy…</p>
<p>As far as sending scores now, I have heard the same thing. That schools wipe the slate clean each application cycle. Wouldn’t it be great if the scores were a part of the official transcript? Everything gets sent at once…it’s a no brainier if you ask me!!! But here again, CB is all about squeezing as much out of each student as possible. It just occurred to me, Applying for college is such an expensive risk isn’t it? So much money is spent to send scores/app fees/css reports et al…and no guarantee of admission… Where else is so much time/effort/$ spent with no certainty of a return? As I sit here at almost 3am pondering this issue, just the thought of it seems so crazy…</p>
<p>"I was talking with a friend who teaches AP Calc, etc. and she said the AP chem test is really rigorous and she suggested daughter buy a pair of cute shoes instead of paying $85 for a test she’s very unlikely to pass. :-). Better for self esteem! " -K4M</p>
<p>Our local university is conducting a five-year study with jr high girls and science trying to determine why so few girls pursue STEM.</p>
<p>Would any AP Chem teacher ever suggest that a boy buy a pair of shoes, rather than take an AP class because it would be better for his sel-esteem? AP Chem is not for everybody, I get that, but Yikes!</p>
<p>re: SAT scores on transcript - School transcripts don’t allow you to choose what is included so I believe that would interfere with the ability of score choice!! :(</p>
<p>DS school actually has all of the standardized test scores on his transcript. We can request them not to send the test scores but we cannot pick and choose which test to send so they send all or none. I like the fact that we can save money by having the test scores on transcript without paying CB. However, I do not like the fact that colleges would see that DS took PSAT three times and get 204(9th without study) 196(10th without study), and then 230(11th with study). If he gets a poor SAT/ACT grade down the road, they will show up, too. So even though our school transcript shows test scores, I might choose to withhold them and pay CB/ACT and elect the score choice or superscores feature. I prefer not to pay but CB people are too clever.</p>
<p>NewHaven—my older son used to LOVE the Peabody Museum, until we took him to Natural History. My younger one had a few admits to Yale-New Haven Children’s, so we have spent some time up there. How wonderful for your daughter to spend time there. My younger son was up at Yale for their Splash program last fall and plans to attend the spring one. He loved that. Lots on offer up there. I feel the same way about friends who live in the Boston area with all of the STEM offerings available.</p>
<p>Re: SAT course. Agree that classroom setting can be a waste of time so I opted for semi-private tutoring. Very challenging to arrange schedule of two boys from different schools, but saved me 50%. Good luck to your daughter. Math is also the issue here but almost all careless errors.</p>
<p>glido — I would be very interested to hear what they find. Is it the lack of role models (women in STEM careers) which is a downward spiral – the less women who go into STEM, the less women go into STEM. I know in my kids’ school, most of the science teachers (Bio, Earth Science) are women. Both my kids got their worst grades ever with these ladies. I’m not against women teachers; I’m against bad teachers. The Bio teacher pretty much taught on 2 levels – what she talked about in class was never on the tests; the tests were unrelated to what she taught in class. One friend said her daughter figured out she had to read the textbook cover to cover (basically, teach it to herself) to prepare for the tests. Reading her notes from class did nothing.</p>
<p>I can’t decide if score choice is all that it is cracked up to be, but I haven’t actually been through the app process yet, so I may be wrong–so someone please correct me if I am. Suppose a student takes the SAT three times and has his best score on a section across three different tests. (Best Math on 1st sitting, best CR on 2nd, best writing on 3rd.) Won’t he still have to send all three scores? Now, if his scores improved on all three sections each time he took the exam, then I can see the benefit of score choice. </p>
<p>I have another question…in case any well-informed readers are lurking here…</p>
<p>Do large schools have computer systems that extract the info when submitted to then produce a consistent stat sheet for each applicant? That is poorly worded…what I am trying to ask is will the Ad Coms at large schools even see the score reports or will they just see a top sheet where a computer or secretary/assistant has consolidated the info that school wants to view? </p>
<p>Same sort of question for GPA. I have read that many schools recalculate GPA so that they are evaluating the applicants on a more level field. (For example, our school reports a letter grade for PE/Health but that grade is not used in the student’s GPA. Additional example from my post above–have heard of colleges that award +.5 for honors course and +1.0 for AP whereas our HS simply awards the same +.5 for honors or AP.) Am wondering if large schools even see the GPA or just the recalculated GPA. Just curious…not sure how knowing this will change anything!</p>
, the in-state flagship, and two others. Lucky for us, it was an even better score than the first test. Interestingly, we have not received any mail from this submission! I would have thought if a school received the ACT score, they would put the student on their preferred mail list!</p>