Of course, there is also cheating on the SAT and ACT, at least partially enabled by the reuse of entire tests. Use of substitute test takers is also done to cheat (see the Singer scandal).
There have also been cases where portions of the tests have been effectively gamed by test prep companies, such as the SAT writing sample.
I bet no one, ever, would say that about an athletic kid who was disappointed about not achieving what they thought was their personal best. Highly academic kids get to want to do their best, too. They donāt deserve snark or faux compassion for doing so.
Nah. You teach your child to be thankful they did so well. So many kids barely crack a 1000.
When my younger daughter was a competitive trampolinist, she won states her very first year, after skipping two levels. Yet she got off the podium and complained about her score on one event. We immediately had a private sit down conversation about her feelings and that (1) she needed to learn to be happy with her successes without tearing herself down and (2) if she is complaining and she won, imagine how that makes all the other kids feel. So, yes, that carries over to sports for us as well. This kid is one who could barely scrape out at 1100ā¦ but she can dance like she was created for it and she can bounce/flip like she was born for it. On both ends she should find the good and the ok. Itās ok to strive, imo, but not at the expense of seeing the big picture and appreciating what you have and can do.
But @Tigerle that is such a misguided metric to use! Newsflash: there is NO DIFFERENCE between a 1570 and a 1600 in terms of what any school will think*. Those 30 points do not affect admissions decisions one little bit!!!
Way better to attempt a personal best at something meaningful, something the kid is passionate about.
*in the US, anyway
Agree with what you wrote @milgymfam. I will pass on another lesson from sports that applies to life: donāt base your happiness on your outcome, but on your effort. If you have tried your hardest and put in your best effort, you can and should be happy. You have done the best you can. Whether you win or lose is almost irrelevant. Similarly if you slacked and didnāt give your best, you shouldnāt be too pleased, even if you won.
But again, I wouldnāt use the SAT/ACT as the thing that I considered to be most important.
The best athletes donāt achieve perfection or near perfection outside of a subjective evaluation from the Russian gymnastics judge. 
The best baseball hitters hit .350 +/-. The best 3-point shooters in bball make 45% +/- of their shots. The best QBās in football complete about 70% of their passes.
Whether itās trying to achieve 1,600 on an SAT or trying to be the most beautiful in school, thatās not the healthiest way to go about life.
Just my $0.02.
I never said that adcoms werenāt good at spotting a YOLO TO kid. In fact, Iād bet theyāre very skilled at it.
I just meant that IF (and thatās a big IF) colleges want to stick to admitting the same percentage of TO kids as TO kids that applied, the YOLO TO kids makes the TO group a less competitive group overall.
For example, if applications came in with a 50/50 split in TO kids vs Test kids, and you knew adcoms were aiming to have a similar split in their accepted percentages, wouldnāt you rather compete in the group with the YOLO TO kids? They will be the first eliminated, leaving you competing with fewer kids.
Now, Iām not saying there are no YOLO kids in the test submitted group (the 3.0 gpa kid who snagged a 1550 on the SAT). Iām just guessing there are more YOLO kids in the TO group.
I feel like Iām not explaining myself well 
. And, anyway, this is all based on speculation and conjecture. I posted an article way up thread that said Duke was aiming to accept the same percentage of TO kids as the percentage of TO kids that applied.
D21 applied to elite schools in both the US and UK. She applied EA in the US, but not ED because UK schools are rolling admission and she did not want to commit before hearing back. UK admission decisions are based on national exams (GCSE A-level) and university-specific entrance exams. US applicants obviously donāt sit for A-levels so they consider an applicantās SAT / AP / IB scores instead. GPA is not considered because they are not familiar with US HS reputations and donāt have a mechanism to correct for grade inflation / deflation. ECs are are generally not considered unless itās a verifiable national award because most are embellished anyways (school repās words, not mine), LORs are considered but not given much weight and essays are very specific to the area of intended study and is used mainly as a conversation starter for interviews (most elite UK schools do case-type interviews). Anyhow, the point I am making is this. Covid-19 has arguably impacted the UK as much as the US, but they are not moving to TO. For US applicants that can submit the full gamut of scores, this is not an issue. But for those who were not able to sit for exams due to extenuating circumstances, they have offered conditional acceptances and expect applicants to submit qualifying exam scores before the commitment deadline (I think Apr/May) to confirm their placement. In the case of D21, she has received both conditional and unconditional offers so far. I think she needs to submit two SAT subject scores >750 to confirm her spot, but if thatās not possible, she can substitute with AP (4/5) or IB (>5) scores in the same subject (ostensibly because they will be at-home tests again this year and hence no excuses). Iām not saying this is a better system for everyone, but I thought it was fair trade off given the circumstances. All applicants are evaluated on a level playing field and thereās no need to game the system. Accommodations are made for Covid-19, but personal responsibility still rests with the student to make best effort to submit an acceptable score or risk losing his/her slot. No one on the VC was happy which probably means the policy will work. In the US, she has received favorable outcomes from TO schools so far. Letās see how she fares when the TB schools start to release results.
@User1254 Very interesting postā¦thank you! Itās fascinating to read about how different countries have handled the covid situation in terms of not being able to sit for exams.
I was very interested to read about the UK not considering ECs really highly as they can be exaggerated. This is true. We know someone who joined a club just last year and is highly embellishing their role in terms of leadership on their college applications.
There isnāt a ton of oversight in terms of what kids submit. Maybe some kidās ECs get auditedābut most donāt.
But are school level clubs interesting enough to college admission readers to have much effect to begin with?
Again . . . Donāt worry about what other kids are doing! You donāt think a school can see through an EC that just started ladt year? Have a little more faith in the AOs!
No seriously, if there are 30,000 high schools (I made that number up) there are 30,000 school presidents!! (And personally Iām impressed by school presidents!) And valedictorians! Add in newspaper editors, debate champions, all state athletes and you have a pool of something like 100,000 kids! So some kid joining Key Club and becoming Secretary or even president. . . . Um, isnāt impressive and isnāt moving the needle.
Ucb, right. Again, it helps to separate the hs ābig dealsā from the sort of responsibilities , etc, a (an elite) college looks for.
That doesnāt mean pricey or contest wins, and certainly not just titles. Itās a pattern and a balance, small things are ok.
Fwiw, during the Q&A, someone asked the school rep what type of EC they look favorably on. From the top of my head I remember them mentioning some robotics competition called Vex (?) is recognized internationally as well as hackathons sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Facebook (I think?). They also mentioned some national math / science medals but I forget the name. There were others but sounded more technical / STEM-focused. MUN, ASB, FBLA, NHS, NMS didnāt seem to get much consideration. Athletic excellence didnāt seem to interest them much either unless the applicant was Olympic-level.
This!I am dumbfounded that many think that the only students who didnāt submit scores are those that would have had lower scores than those who did submitā¦As if the hundreds of thousands of kids whose tests were cancelled and thus have no scores couldnāt possibly have scored well.
Oh, I forgot to mention published research. They are very big on any research that has been published in a scholarly journal
Didnāt say it was a big deal or that we were concerning ourselves with itā¦just an example of the fact that ECs can be embellished. Kids can do what they want on their own appsā¦Iām certainly not the app police
āIn a normal year, if he gets a high scoreā¦he competes with the entirety of the applicant pool.ā
I donāt think that would be true for engineering or other stem majors. Engineering, specifically at selective colleges, has a self-selecting applicant pool. Unless you have a hook, youāre not applying to MITs of the world without a 1500 min and a 790 or 800 on the math and 800s across the board on the subject tests. This is why these colleges look at other things like AMC scores, Olympiad, science fair results to figure out the academic readiness of class, along with transcript (like Calculus in tenth or earlier).
TO helped non-stem or stem at less selective colleges.
āWell no, we donāt. What we prefer are things which may coincide with higher SAT scores. For example, a student who receives a gold medal at the IMO is probably more likely to score an 800 on the math SAT than a 740. But if we take an IMO medalist (with an 800) over random applicant X (with a 740), does that mean we preferred an 800 to a 740? No. It means we preferred the IMO medalist, who also happened to get an 800!ā
I think MIT is one of the more transparent schools when it comes to college admissions but you have to take that quote with a grain of salt. IMO medalists cruise through the SATs and subject tests, and a kids getting a 740 on the math are taking again for MIT, no doubt.
So, yes, Vex and FRC are nationally recognized robotics competitions. So, if for example, a girl over represented her leadership role on a team, it may move the needle in her direction a bit as girls in stem are recruited more heavily at tech schools.
Just an example of embellished leadership in a school-sponsored club that may have an effect.
If MIT is looking for calculus in 10th grade or earlier, why would it even have to offer 18.01 (single variable calculus) to its students?