Really, zinhead? Um, it’s the “poorer” students where the school asks for tax returns. Not the wealthier ones. How does my kid’s school know whether we make $250,000 or $2,000,000? Our professions don’t provide a clue and our zip code is “nice” but not OMG-wealthy.
^ Except that the ivies and most other elite colleges don’t offer merit aid. Even for the ones that do have merit ,per the link referenced “The good news is that, in most cases, there is no separate application for merit money, there is no FAFSA required”.
From the article:
^ It’s still OPTIONAL. We filled out a FAFSA when our oldest was a HS Senior, never bothered after that. Never filled one out for the younger child.
Here’s an idea: How about repetitive standardized test-taking be abolished?
You get one shot at the ACT and SAT sometime early in your senior year. That’s it. Submit both. Prepare all you want, but know that it begins and ends there. Oh wait, that’s right, that’ll never happen because each additional test is a new source of revenue.
I’m receptive to this idea on principle, but I’d worry that someone would have their results thrown off by, say, a virus that starts to manifest itself an hour into a sitting.
Cap it at two attempts for each test, on the other hand, and I’d be right there with you.
Or let all schools see your whole history. If you took it 7 times to get that score, they’ll see that.
To take that analogy further…athletes can only work so hard before things start to break. If the natural talent is limited, hard work can help…but only until the stress fractures, tennis elbows, acl tears etc etc begin to appear and say “you better slow down or you won’t play at all”. In academics, these warning signs may be stress, depression, ill health due to lack of sleep, etc saying “slow down or you won’t be able to play at all”.
Why? Besides leading to a bunch of doctors notes that claim test anxiety, why does the number of test takes matter? Sure, its more money for the test-taking companies, but colleges superstore, so they encourage retakes.
Again, why? Wouldn’t a one-and-done increase the pressure on that one fateful day? What’s the educational/health value to a single sitting?
Re #329, #346, #355, applying to school versus major
Colleges that do admit by major often do so for capacity limits. Some schools instead have secondary admission processes for full majors, including Harvard VES.
Re #403, #404, #405, number of times per standardized test
Two instead of one for each test makes more sense (or maybe three total across the SAT and ACT) to avoid the high pressure on one chance only testing. But start junior year so that students and parents can make realistic lists early, instead of guessing before the senior year test scores are gotten.
As it is now, colleges can require all scores to see if someone is taking test “too many” times.
@bluebayou “Again, why? Wouldn’t a one-and-done increase the pressure on that one fateful day? What’s the educational/health value to a single sitting?”
This would be my concern too. Some students really stress out about these tests. It help when you can tell them that there is no reason to stress because if it does not go well, there is no penalty. They can take it again. Once the anxiety level drops they often to well the first time.
Actually the whole point of the residential college system is that they ARE like social clubs. The idea is that half your education is going to be at the lunch table, in the junior common room, playing pool with the House tutors. They are interested in anti-social people who are going to sit in their rooms and study all day.
Even most quiet kids have some friends. My kid had no one who shared his interest in computer programming, but he was on the Science Olympiad team and was the math guy on the Academic Team. He played video games with a couple of other kids.
There’s nothing wrong with being quirky or somewhat shy. MIT or Harvard aren’t going to reject you for that. But by encouraging interviews they can eliminate the ones who really have no people skills.
I agree. When DD17 was a sophomore last year she took the PSAT with a migraine. She scored lower on it than the SAT she took when she was 12. Since she doesn’t typically get migraines she thought she’d just tough it out and not say anything, and bad scores were the result.
I’m not sure there’s a good reason to limit the test taking-most kids at some point are like, yeah I’m done after what they consider to be a reasonable amount of repetitions.
The point is, colleges CAN ask for all scores and see Zoe’s 8 SAT attempts. It is something they CAN do now without and change to status quo (except their own). No limits, etc.
And stop telling kids, oh, we just look at your “highest”. And stop super scoring. Easy things colleges CAN do now if they chose to level the field a bit.
If you take the LSAT more than once, most Law Schools use the average, not the highest!
Some kids, including myself years ago, do great on standardized tests, some, including my own kids, just don’t. So they probably need to take more than once, and some prep classes. So, does that make them unqualified to attend school X.
I am always perplexed how the SAT’s ridiculously low math standards result in near genius status if kid can quickly fill in the bubble charts and remember 9th grade math, especially if the same kid has say a 4 in Calc AB in 11th grade. I think their math skills are just fine. Verbal SAT is somewhat better, on old test and on the 80s test, but no everyone wants to build a huge vocabulary and tease out minute differences in grammar when they will be reading completely unintelligible emails written by their say engineer colleagues for 40 years …
I am an engineer and I personally think learning to do critical reading and writing intelligible and somewhat engaging text are probably the most valuable thing you can learn in high school other than being say Calc 2 ready (rigorous college course, get an A) if you are going into engineering, physics, math.
I also agree that effort say at work is probably weighed way higher than raw intelligence or especially ability to answer 100 trivial questions per hour or whatever. Effort is really what 99% of people need to contribute to succeed in life, excluding the 1% who just luck out… so demonizing a Zoe, hard-working motivated student of high but not genius academic abilities … is just not right or appropriate.
Isn’t this whole thing just an elaborate way to select say 50,000 students out of a highly qualified 100,000 pool of students? The whole prep and Zoe thing is just trying to make yourself move from 50,001 attending Emory to 49,000 attending Vandy … or whatever … or maybe making the top 10,000 at HYPS …
Tennis elbow is a good analogy … if your kid is working hard, maybe not always sleeping 8 hours because they are genuinely engaged in and enjoying a rigorous life … great … if your kid is stressed, burning out, please notice that and find a life they can manage … which may be more available if they attend say a state flagship honors program, get As, have family support, and then maybe by 22 have the maturity and study skills to do great in a top graduate program.
One-shot test taking is a terrible idea! why add pressure to an already stressed-out kid?
I put up a modest proposal some time back for a unified stat that would modestly penalize a student for taking the SAT a bunch of times. See: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/509446-modest-proposal-the-super-stat-p1.html
I interpreted this sample as having been written by cobrat (who does seem to keep extensive personal, familial and aquaintance historic archives) about a friend.
Not just about “a friend,” but about MANY friends, acquaintances, former classmates, cousins and colleagues.