Second, my S struggled with SAT math and did much better on the ACT as he is a very fast reader, there is less and more straightforward math on ACT. You can buy a thick book of practice tests for about $30 from ACT so your son could try one or two as a benchmark, and then practice his weaker sections if it looks like he is better at ACT than SAT.
That said, I am loathe to give advice to juniors on TO. What we learned is that colleges do things differently and it is a more competitive world. A few colleges still accepted a greater proportion of test takers and were open about that, but many were very generous in my opinion last year with TO since low unsubmitted scores > access issues overall based on surveys. You can try looking at released proportions of TO admits last year for your list schools. Since access seems much better this year, I would be cautious about relying on that. There is just a lot of uncertainty going on in admissions these days, and that continues for the '22s unfortunately.
Applying early was a real advantage last year, especially ED and ED2 if that works for you. Can blow away a great submitted test score in terms of leverage arguably. If your S can demonstrate interest (at colleges who consider that) and do a good job on essays I also recommend applying broadly as even with his grades, things are just really competitive and itâs a bit hard to know what a real target is lately so better to have more IMHO.
I understand the processing speed issue but I see a lot of kids who just need a few more minutes, not double time, to do better on these tests. And Iâm soooooo glad to be done too!
OP needs to ask these questions more âlocallyâ. Ask the GCs at their high school which kinds of kids get in where and why. What GPA did they have, what classes did they take, how involved were they in ECs. Does his sonâs GPA hold up against the kidsâ GPAs who get into these schools from his high school? If he has all of the pieces for an acceptance minus a score, he might be ok.
You have to wonder how much of that is the student and the school, though. Although it pertains to college, Malcolm Gladwell makes some very good arguments on Zeitgeists and the like on YouTube as to why going to a top university for a great, but not necessarily the top student is a mistake. By measures of academic success, they do better as the best student in a lesser institution than as an average student in a better one.
An allusion between good and better high schools would probably follow the same logic.
Most or all school profiles have a grade distribution. So while many donât rank, a reviewing admissions officer should be able to determine where a student falls in the class. Dean J at UVA has published examples from several high schools in her territory as an example of how AOs determine what a particular GPA means at a certain school. I believe it is part of the common app school profile requirements.
Going to an easier school is great until you get to college and havenât learned time management or study skills. I hear about it all the time at Georgia Tech - kids got in because they are super geniuses and donât know how to study or manage their time because they have never had to. The kids from our school that are there may not be the smartest in the place but they all do exceptionally well because they are used to high rigor and having several hours of required homework a night, which they have to balance with their extracurriculars.
Oh did you mean kids should go to a less challenging college or high school? I thought you meant high school but your last comment makes me think you meant college.
I also disagree with that college statement. Lol. Our kids are partly motivated by being with other strong students and Bowdoin has been great for S19. Heâs pushed academically by his professors and loves being in class with so many bright kids. Those kids all learn from each other too. (And donât everyone pummel me - Iâm sure there are bright kids at every single college but being at one where the average student is way above average has its advantages.)
My comment is on the best kids at an average school who would otherwise be an average kid at the best school or vice versa. Malcolm Gladwellâs research shows the opposite of what you stated, albeit for college. Iâm not sure that I can post a link to it, but if you just search for Malcolm Gladwell Zeitgeist College, one of many will come up. In a nutshell, when you are the best, it motivates you to work harder, achieve more. When you are average, you tend to stay that way.
As far as the school profiles go, there is no requirement to have distribution of grades given, only the structure of the grading scale. Would be nice if there was standardization in that regard. My daughterâs school did have the SAT mean of 1400 on there & facts like 15% of students as NMFs, etc. so I guess you could make somewhat of a correlation of where you sat in that regard, but thatâs it.
I was referring to high schoolâsince some people have a choice. As far as colleges go, Gladwellâs argument is pretty hard to defend against since itâs based on objective measures of performance.
Malcom Gladwell is an author, not a peer reviewed researcher. He incorrectly quoted some research to come to a counterintuitive conclusion, which increases his book sales. A more detailed quote from an earlier post I wrote on the subject is below:
In the quote, note that I mention STEM persistence is more correlated with HS curriculum rigor than SAT score after controls. HS curriculum rigor can be correlated with attending a HS that offers better STEM preparation during HS classes. Itâs not a simple relationship like itâs always better to attend the more/less rigorous HS or college (or more often more/less rigorous course sequence within the HS or college). Instead the best option depends on the particular student.
I think there are some more fundamental issues. Gladwell mentions the following math SAT groups for Harvard:
Top 1/3 = 753, Middle 1/3 = 674, Lower 1/3 = 581
IPEDS has Harvard SAT stats for the past 20 years. In each of those years Harvardâs 25th percentile math score was 700+. Havardâs actual SAT score is nowhere near the numbers Gladwell reported. Looking a little deeper, Gladwell got the numbers from the paper at http://www.dartblog.com/documents/Elliott%20and%20Strenta.pdf .
The SAT numbers are from the 1980s and are for âInstitution Aâ, which is not identified as Harvard in the paper. But the far more important issue is the percentages do not refer to STEM persistence. Instead they refer to the distribution of science majors at graduation across all students⊠not just those who intended to major in STEM. For example, suppose a particular college had the following SAT math distribution among science and non-science majors.
Freshmen Year: Planned science major average 700 math, Non-science averages 600 math
Graduates: Completed science majors average 720 math, Non-science averages 620 math
The kids who complete a science major do indeed have higher math SAT scores than non-science, but in this hypothetical example, itâs not because they kids with lower SAT scores are âdropping like fliesâ. Itâs because the who intended to pursue science majors started out with higher math SAT scores.
This is a hypothetical example. In the real world freshmen who plan to pursue science do indeed average higher math SAT scores than non-science. But there is also some degree of sorting among the students who plan to pursue science, such that some persist and others do not. The ones with higher SAT scores do tend to have a higher rate of persistence, but that correlation drops tremendously often to the point of no longer being statistically significant after you add controls for other factors, particularly for HS preparation. That is kids who have a stronger HS curriculum preparation are more likely to persist through freshmen STEM classes, and kids who have a stronger HS preparation also tend to have higher SAT scores.
Harvard and other similar colleges are well aware of the challenges faced by students who have weaker HS backgrounds, particularly in math/STEM, and take special measures to address and support these kids. For example, Harvard requires also students to take a math placement test to help determine most appropriate math starting point. They also have math placement advisers who discuss results and consider the individual student and goals. The student might choose any of the following starting points â Math Ma,b; 1a,b; 19a,b; 20; 21a,b; 23a,b; 25a,b; and 55a,b. The lowest level (MA) is a half normal speed calc/pre-calc type class , while Harvardâs website describes math 55 as âprobably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the countryâ. Very few students attempt to take math 55, and many students who do attempt it drop out to a slower/easier math sequence by the end. However, top math students, such as IMO participants do tend to take math 55, so other students rarely see IMO-level math students in their intro math classes.
When choosing a college, one might look at whether similar support measures are in place vs thrown in to the deep end and sink or swim, rather than just looking at how a particular studentâs math SAT score compares the schoolâs average.
Although he does do several pieces on Harvard and in general tends to appear to have a disdain for the institution, that was not the topic to which I was referring. Itâs a video as opposed to an article or one of his books. He might be presenting incorrect figures of course, but his measures were things like # of journal articles published by Econ PhD students at Harvard that are, letâs say the #5 student, who would arguably be one of the top candidates in the world. That vs the # of journal articles published by the top Econ PhD at School X. You get the point. While, this evidence is not peer reviewed, there are many peer-reviewed studies on the subject of attrition in STEM at elite universities. The attrition rates tend to be relatively equal across most larger well-known institutions to include elites, but those same students who fell by the wayside at the elitesâwould they have stayed in their STEM field at a less institution? Based on scores, yes, they could have, but no one for sure can say if they would have done so given that you would have to have parallel experiences by the exact same student.
Anyway, this is more of an academic discussion and has totally managed to derail this thread. Probably doesnât matter to nearly 100% of the people looking into the subject line.
The material in the conference video is from his book David and Goliath. I expect one goal of attending the conference was promoting his book David and Goliath, and increasing book sales.
The Econ PhD publication stats also have problems, just like the Harvard SAT scores. I wonât go on a further tangent. You can find a discussion in other threads on the forum.
The attrition rates are often very different at different colleges. If you are skeptical, compare the graduation rate at a highly selective college to the graduation rate at a less selective college. As noted in my earlier post, Gladwell wasnât looking at STEM attrition rates (like he claims). He was instead observing that STEM students tend to have higher math SAT scores than non-STEM students, and this pattern occurs at nearly all colleges â both highly selective and less selective.
The science section of the ACT is definitely disappointing IMO and it certainly doesnât mean at all that one shouldnât major in science if itâs not their top score. All it tests is speed and the ability to skip over content to focus on questions - exactly the opposite of what we science teachers like to see happening.
For a personal anecdote, my near perfection ACT taker was never able to do as high on the science section because heâs a perfectionist in reading/understanding and was also unwilling to âjustâ look for answers. He was in the low 30s somewhere vs 35/36 on other sections. But in college he never got less than an A in any science course including such notorious ones as Organic Chemistry plus he graduated Summa Cum Laude overall - then finished in the top âwhatever the top isâ (10%? 20% - not sure where they drew the line) percentile of his med school class.
Iâd rather he be good at what he does than be good at gaming any test.
Iâd also prefer if the ACT renamed their science section as something else. Our PA Bio Keystone test tests more science knowledge than the ACT does.
Thank you. I really appreciate this. He is not the best student to ever sit foot on campus, but he works hard and participates and likes being part of a team. I donât expect him to get into all the schools, but it would be nice if at least one of his choices was interested!
I am hoping that you are not familiar with diabetes management, and that otherwise you would not have made such a comment. Taking their sugar is not as straightforward as you may think. Blood sugar is affected by stress. These tests are high stress situations. Under these circumstances, it may not be so easy to bring their sugar levels to where they need to be. Sugar levels affect cognitive performance. These accommodations are given because they are needed to level the playing field.
Yes I am aware to the extent that it did not add 2 hours to the timeline to take the test for the student in question. There are people with real needs who need the extra time.
However, just like we saw in varsity blues, there are people who abuse this. It was amazing how once the word got out of the possibility to do this, kids were applying for accommodations for everything under the sun. Good intention that was designed to serve people who need it and level the playing field, but have become another aspect of the standardized testing game that invalidate it as an objective tool.