@itsgettingreal17 After reading your post, I went and woke up dd. She is done! (Well, she needs to take subject tests.) Happy dancing here. 
Fwiw, her PSAT and SAT scores matched.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Great! Doing the happy dance with you. D got the high range of her PSAT score, so at least CB did get that right. Now we wait on subject test scores. I think I should go ahead and sign her up to retake those just in case.
@itsgettingreal17 @Mom2aphysicsgeek happy dancing! It must be a relief to be done. My D will find out her April SAT free school day next week. Hope to join the dance team
S checked scores and heās pleased! A bit higher than his PSAT, so it will easily confirm for National Merit. Done! Wellā¦still have SAT 2 and APs.
Congrats to all the SAT takers.
My fake kid did great. The real one did not take.
Congrats everyone! D scored just under her PSAT score and was quite lopsided. I am hoping she is done after the June test.
D17 has her own checking account. Her paychecks are direct deposited and she has her own budget. Pays for her own gas for work. She has a debit card, but no checks. We transfer money back and forth via email address. Checking account is through Bank of America and I think when we signed up the option was a student account.
Havenāt yet told D her scores (getting ready to head off for school), but Iām so happy! Her math was already strong for most of the schools on her list and she went up 10 points. RW was weak, but she went up 50 points ā yay! Now she doesnāt look quite as crooked. (Scores compared to PSAT since this is her first SAT).
Congrats to everyone on scores you were hoping for. Otherwise, June test date is a fresh chance! (Weāll probably sign up for June just to see what happens.)
@2muchquan
You kill me. I guess your fake kid might need to extend his/her list!
Well, just checked scores for new SAT and my son basically got the same score as his 29 ACT. He scored a 1310, 660,650 which is respectable. He said he thought he did a lot better on his SAT when he took it, so he was hoping maybe to get closer to 1380 or so. Oh well. He is who he is. For a few of the schools he is seriously interested he is the exact mean 50% of their median 25-75%. So, not great, not bad. Kind of predictable. His scores are not going to help him in his admissions but I donāt think they will hurt. His grades are OK and and his ECās are ok. Heās like Mr. OK Man. So, hopefully some of the schools like Mr OK Man, because at least he has shown consistency.
Heās going to take the ACT again in June. If he get his science score up, he has a decent chance of getting to the 30 range. Iād feel a little bit better about his chances to his top school choices if he had at least a 30 ACT.
Congrats all the SAT test takers. Atleast the transition to new SAT was relatively smooth
My sonās March SAT scores are lower than his PSAT, but should be high enough to confirm National Merit if he makes the cutoff for that. So good enough, but he will probably send his ACT scores to colleges instead of the SAT, because I am pretty sure that is higher.
@RightCoaster Mr OK Man should meet fake kid sometime. Maybe they can meet up on FB. :))
@2muchquan as long as Fake Kid doesāt have fake high stats and makes Mr OK Man feel inadequate I think it would be fine for them to be friends.
I was just looking through naviance a bit and seeing where sonās SAT scores rank and I think heāll be fine. Itās going to be close though, skin of teeth close.
I did get another chuckle though regarding his āexact medianā status at schools he was looking at. He is thinking of UNH being one of his safeties. He likes it there. They do have an Honors program there and to be considered, at a minimum you need to have a score of 29 on ACT or 1310 on SAT. HA!! His UW GPA of 3.7 is also completely on the bubble.
I like how this group has some kids that are high achievers with great scores, and then some kids that are more ānormal smartā ( that should be trademarked) that are looking at a wide variety of schools. You guys can feel free to use my child as the āmedian studentā going forward. Heāll be a good predictor for the group going forward. Heās going to apply to some colleges that have higher acceptance rates, some right in the middle, and a couple in the 20% range. Weāll see how he fares with his OK stats, OK ECs,and normal white kid from the burbs status in 2017.
I apologize if this is posted everywhere and Iām just not finding it. My son has a NMF worthy score and signed up for the SAT in March with no prep because he wouldnāt be able to take it until October otherwise (traveling for June date).
His score was 1460 with 770 reading/writing and 690 math. Iām trying to do the calculation of CR+M+(10x writing multiple choice) and the number isnāt making sense. Iām assuming that calculation is no longer valid because of the new format?
Can someone give me an indication / best guess of if this score is enough to qualify him?
@SincererLove if they donāt use it a lot you can get them a visa gift card and just have them use that as a debit/credit card.
The girls have debit cards, I think it is Capital One, and the girls have an app on their phone where they can monitor their balance through Capital One. My husband is the āadministratorā on their cards. Older D recently had her card flagged for fraudulent spending (it was actually fine) and H had to be on the phone with her to capital one to provide his pin # as the card administrator.
They each get $100/month for discretionary spending. At first theyād burn through it like crazy buying stupid crap on amazon and have their purchases be denied before the end of the month, but now theyāre learning to save and budget for the bigger ticket items they want-Older D had about $500 in there and younger D about $250. Weāre pretty proud of them for learning good spending habits-neither one of them liked running out of money.
@Pri930 wrote
Thatās not true. Most schools do NOT need SAT II subject tests. Only the elites and the elite wannabes.
http://blog.prepscholar.com/complete-list-of-colleges-that-require-sat-subject-tests
None want more than 2, and most will accept the ACT with writing as a substitute. Thatās what we decided to do rather than subject older D to more testing (sheās taking the ACT with writing next month, then the SAT in Sept-ish and sheās done as long as that # qualifies her for NMSF).
@carpoolingma Older D did take the SAT back in December 2015 just to have one old one under her belt. She did significantly better on the new PSAT, so sheāll be taking the new SAT in September, which I believe is still fine for eligibility for NMF/NMSF. Although those guesses for our state for this year put her on the edge-she has a 218 for Georgia and the cutoff is 218, so I donāt know whether that means she makes it or misses it. Iām trying to be sanguine about it because thereās nothing we can do-either she makes it and gets a letter, or she doesnāt and we go from there.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek wrote
Thatās what Iām hoping for when she takes the new SAT in Sept (or October, I canāt remember the dates). When she took the old SAT in Dec, a month after the new PSAT, her scores were WAY lower on the test than she expected and what the practice tests were showing. Iām assuming another year of math and stuff under her belt will only help her score this year.
@datahead a couple pages back people estimated the confirming score at 1380-1390 based on recent concordance tables I believe. You should be fine if thatās the case. Congrats!
@rightcoaster Donāt let test scores influence your childās thinking about their academic strengths. Regardless of the hoopla, my kids never score in a way that actually reflects their actual abilities.
My oldest, who graduated with honors with a chemE degree had scores very comparable to your dsās. My ds who has a 4.0 university GPA and made a 5 on the AP chem in 10th and graduated high school with credit for 5 cal up physics classes (and the highest grade or close to the highest grade in all of those classes) and the same level in math bombed the science reasoning section every single time. Why? Reading fatigue. It had absolutely nothing to do with his actual abilities.
(Fwiw, when our oldest ds told a woman at our church where he was going to college and that he was planning on majoring in chemE, she looked him straight in the eye and told him he better plan on a different major bc her ds had scored a perfect 36 (she had no idea what our ds scored) and had originally been a chemE major, but he was forced to change majors bc his GPA dropped too low bc he couldnāt handle the course work. Well, our lower scoring ds maintained a 4.0 in his major courses, graduated with honors, and was recruited by profs for UG research.)
Test scores are not the end all be all. They are tests of rapid reading and rapid problem solving. It would be far more interesting to me if they gave really complex problems with lots of time to solve.
Dās SAT is up from her PSAT and probably good enough for her top choice, but she wants to get into the honors program. Plugging her score into the concordance tables and comparing to last yearās incoming class indicates she needs pull her scores up to be a serious contender for honors. Since her scores are very lopsided, she wants to retake in June and concentrate on the math section.
The questions I have is āAre the concordance tables accurately portraying the actual SAT scores of the applicants from class of 2017?ā and āSince applicants will be submitting old SATs, new SATs and ACTs will the university, and more specifically the honors program, put less emphasis on test scores, at least for the clsss of 2017?ā
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I donāt think the test scores influence his thinking much. Too his credit, he barely studies and gets good grades. He barely studied for the act/sat and did fine. But therein lies the issue. He knows he is smart enough to squeak by, but doesnāt really apply much effort until itās absolutely necessary. Heāll get an A on a test, followed by a C, and then on the last test of the quarter he gets another A and pulls an A- by the skin of his teeth.
He knew exactly what scores he needed to be considered at his top college choices and got the exact score. He didnt exceed it, nor go above and beyond. He studied just enough to do OK, again!
Iām not complaining or taking his accomplishments lightly. He is a good student and he is an even better kid. Compared to me at the same age he is far superior. ( I still turned out OK I think )
He just likes to have a balanced life. He wants āsomeā studying AND time for fun, hobbies, relaxation. Heās not one of those kids staying up all night to cram for AP tests or striving for straight Aās every term. He does just well enough, without much effort. So when we told him he should start studying again for the ACT in June he rolled his eyes, like ākill me nowā.
The challenge will be to find the right school for him that will be a challenge for him, but not too challenging. A place where he can find a balance of studying things interesting to him and a place where he can have some fun too.