My son… no SAT prep… just took it, 1390, we don’t care or tutor that crap… HS valedictorian, 4.9QPA, 4.0GPA, EC’s, leadership, volunteer, startups… nothing forced by us, just who he is… if he studied for 40 hours would have easily moved his SAT up… but why? what really matters… accepted to every school top 5 schools too. The whole thing is such a crap shoot, why bother getting stressed out…
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Yea, I do that sometimes. My bad.
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It was 2020/21, the year after my son applied.
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Hi all! Congrats to all that have been admitted thus far and I hope those on the waitlist or RD hear great news very soon! Sending you all good juju! My son was admitted for Environmental Science and we are thrilled. He is what you all would say is a high stats kid, but I think his love for Virginia Tech really shined through in his essays. He had written about the guide dogs Josie and Derek, he mentioned Gobblerfest and wanting to be in the Marching Virginians. I wonder if those essays are what really make the difference in the process.
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Gasoline for sure but on point!
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My son’s 1400 is also organic, one take, no prep class. Although I was concerned that people would assume he took a prep course based on socioeconomic assumptions. In hindsight, we should have paid for one. Live and learn I guess.
There is already 11.25 years of prep (13.25 if you include kinder), correct?
And for all that VT doesn’t really consider the SAT anyhow. During their admissions session they suggested they are evaluating it but likely will never go back to test mandatory.
Completely agree with you that there’s no reason to get stressed out. Challenge is when a kid locks in on a single school being their end-all be-all (sometimes for good reason, mostly silly reasons). Good luck to your son - sounds like he has good options in front of him!
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I agree with your overall point, but I’m not sure I’d call it a crap shoot exactly, your son’s SAT is in the 95th percentile already, and given his top of the class ranking and extra-curriculars creates a picture of an excellent and well balanced student. Obviously you were correct that he didn’t need to take it again based on the results. I think it may help in some cases where a kid might be top 20% of their high school and average EC’s, just as a differentiator since there are a LOT of kids in that range… but it’s also probably not worth stressing out over. For disclosure purposes my son took it twice - first time with no prep got a 1360 (i think it was somewhere in that range)… then spent some time in the weeks before his second test doing Khan academy prep and got a 1430. I’m not sure if that helped or not, but it probably didn’t hurt.
I do agree that I think we put way too much pressure on kids getting into the “right” college - at least within the demographic that posts on these boards. I think for kids who did well in high school with a good family support network will do well and have good results in a lot of different colleges.
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I searched the literature and only found a few research studies on the predictive power of HSGPA, SAT on college success. The article by “SARAH CARO AND JAN KIEHNE” showed HSGPA has a stronger association with first year retention. But, SAT math also is significant, even though not as strong as GPA. The relationship between SAT math score, after controlling for GPA, remained significant, indicating its independent contribution.
I think the colleges are too quick getting rid of standardized tests. If it is not a good predictor, they should work to develop a more reliable and valid measure rather than completely dis-regard standardized tests. GPA used to be a good predictor, but with the grade inflation, it will lose its predictivity soon, just like SAT
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In the article “Predicting Student Success in Arcadia University’s Math Courses”, it appeared that SAT is related to some high level math courses (Calculus I
and Business Mathematics), but less so for other courses, eg, Math Concepts.
The models show that the combination of SAT, pre-algebra, algebra, precal, HS calculus predict course success much better. In some courses above 40%.
Very interesting findings.
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VT indicates that it would remain test optional for a total of 5 years? It will be interesting to see the final outcome after it collects 5 years of data.
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I really am somewhat ambivalent on the topic, but I did think this was an interesting read when MIT was going back to requiring.
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This is a good read. The research and analytic team seems doing a great job. At least they convinced me 
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Got accepted into VTech Honor’s College for the Neuroscience Major. How are the pre-med opportunities at Virginia Tech? Are their any clinical volunteering experiences? Does the pre-health advising office prepare the students well for med school admissions or MCAT prep?
100%
It’s only 4 years of what we hope is a very long life - such a small snapshot when you think about it - definitely not going to make or break the rest of their lives. Emotions run high when decisions come out, but when they graduate from whatever college they end up choosing, I guarantee you they won’t be lamenting about where they didn’t get in (plus, if they can’t get the “dream college” out of their minds, they can always transfer).
My older daughter graduated from a highly rated business school, popular on CC, and had many opportunities for recruiting at top firms, which this b-school marketed as being a huge advantage of attending there, vs lower rated b-schools. My younger daughter is in Pamplin at VT and is attending the same recruitment events that my older daughter attended - the firms send the same info to VT as they do to the Ivies & T20’s. As a matter of fact, she is finishing up at a recruiting event today and reported that she has run into quite a few fellow Hokies!
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Late to this thread-
Mine is in! EIT Management/ Pamplin
3.8 unweighted, Ap, DE
Theatre, sports, Corp Commander of HS ROTC
Also in at Citdel, VMI, University of Utah, Northern Arizona, Colorado State, Perdue
Waitlisted at University of Maryland
Rejected- Tennessee! (This gave us all a good laugh since she got into much better Entrepreneurship programs. We think they are having a high application year bc of their football season and all the new country songs, lol)
She has already accepted her spot and put the sticker on her car, she is thrilled to be joining VTCC in the fall!
Where are the rest of the VTCC families?
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Congratulations to your daughter! If you haven’t already joined, there is a VTCC parents group on FB, and also a very active VT parents group.
This is a question about regular decision. Our son missed the EA deadline. Applying to so many colleges I don’t think he realized Regular Decision was based on space available. I didn’t realize it until recently either. His senior courses are tough and got straight As first semester so I was not too concerned, but probably should have been. Anyone have experience of getting in Regular Decision? Or denied/waitlisted? I am thinking maybe Wait list would be the best outcome. He’s at 75% for stats and non engineering (in his favor) but from big public competitive NOVA high school (not in his favor). He already knows people with higher stats deferred but engineering. Also do we think RD will come out this Friday 3/3? Feedback appreciated.