That is an amazing accomplishment, even for a fast reader. The ERW portion of the SAT is tough to crack. Bravo to him!
2 Likes
The mess results from choices made and colleges have contributed to the mess by introducing āsuper scoringā in part to help their stats but also to help those who may be weak or uneven testers. But despite the noise and the mess, it actually IS possible to be very sensible about test-taking and to understand its context in an admission decision.
1 Like
Agree on that. My daughter prepped for 2 years and then decided not to submit.
Iām not sure what your point is. My kids took the SSAT for private school. The scale is proportionally higher than the SAT(in the sense that it is harder to get a perfect score) . My kid had a perfect score in math/never perfect otherwise. Does than mean s/he is the best student in the grade in math? Not at all.
Testing is only one dimension of learning. Some do really well, some less well. They are necessary but no test is designed to pinpoint the next nobel laureate.
I get tired of the idea that the US system is better/worse than country X. I went to school in Europe( university level as well). There are pluses and minuses to any system. And there are serious deficiencies in many areas the few like to focus on.
For Americans, the SAT is the scoring system. So while itās interesting to note how they are testing in the UK/Sweden or Mexico, I think itās off thread.
2 Likes
Whatās interesting is that for someone who scores an 800 w/o prep, thereās no code to crack. They just seem to get it. My son - also a fast analytical reader - scored tops in both the PSAT ERW (750) and the SAT (790; perfect on writing). But math - well, he had to prep for that! For him THAT was the code to crack. The verbal section was easy.
1000%. It has become more common to be asked to take a test of some kind for job compatibility, skills assessment etc. Some are pure thinking tests and others are based on baseline knowledge. I know that Google used to give one that focused quite a bit on coming up with original solutions.
No it wouldnāt. Because as long as the 50% or some other astounding number of kids are now āAā students, the ones who attend schools where Aās are not the rule would lose out. Not to mention kids in low SES schools with poor educational standards who break the curve. With the SAT, that kid gets a chance to attend a totally different school. Versus some written report by a guidance counselor.
The national standard levels the playing field in a single data point across all candidates. Thatās why people hate it. They hate the idea that some kid is going to get a 1600 and knock it out of the park.
Itās the same thing with national math tests and science tests, the history bee and some other tests where you have to get the top score to be in the top category.
Some folks seems to really dislike this, esp on CC where they may/may have never seen other kids who excel and supersede what they can do and have done.
Test optional is just another manifestation of the cancel culture. Cuz if my kid canāt score a perfect score, the test must be flawed. So do away with the test(s). And if my kid gets a B in a class, its the teachers fault - so Iāll hound the teacher and the school until my school inflates grades.
Because every kid is super smart and deserves Harvard like a participant trophy, right?
Test optional is a disservice to kids, because its a disservice to society.
4 Likes
Wholly agree. My guess is many/most of the kids over 1500/1550 on the SAT have done little to no testing at all. And Iād assume most of these kids would do well on standard IQ tests.
Little/no choice this year though. We will see how it evolves going forward. I do love a good test score as a datapoint, but not sure we have the right test for a variety of reasons.
Sorry you are beyond wrong. I had 2 kids with super high scores but I think test-optional is the way to go. There is no denying that there are issues with tests and lower socioeconomic kids.
3 Likes
Thanks, but you donāt decide who is right or wrong. Stick with opinions. Nobody said there arenāt problems. We donāt just throw out anything that is a shade of gray. Or at least we didnāt used to.
2 Likes
Around 1,000 colleges had gone test optional prior to the pandemic because studies show that test scores add very little in addition to GPA and course rigor with regard to predicting success in college. Some schools have been TO for decades and have no problem identifying strong students without test scores who are likely to succeed at their colleges.
4 Likes
Anyone else notice thereās an odd edginess to this thread?
9 Likes
I donāt say that the US HS system is better or worse elsewhere, I just say that the kids there are less stressed. Base on my very limited sample of two countries, Canada where my nephews live and my small home country in Europe where I have tons of friends. I do not have any experience with the UK HS system; my US-educated daughter picked Oxford University over Brown, Columbia and Stanford (where she was also accepted) for her bachelor degree. We shall see whether that was the right decision but so far she is very happy there.
In Canada, the rules of the admission game are clearer - to get in McGill U in engineering, you have to have a gPA of 95%. Kids with 93% just donāt apply, they go to a different and probably not worse public U and are equally happy. The application takes 1/2 hr to fill in, there are no essays unless you are applying for a scholarship. Tuition is between CAD10k (Ontario) and CAD4k (Quebec). Nobody has to play piano or do academic research to get in.
Same for my home country where University is free, parents do not hover like crazy and certainly do not spend their days shuttling their kids to activities and dealing with meltdowns due to high pressure.
Compare this with my kids HS which was all over the news for teen suicides a few years ago, and we spent years talking about nothing else but mental health problems. I do think that the high-stress culture has something to do with this, in our particular area of high achieving kids with equally high-achieving parents.
2 Likes
Our youngest is a junior in high school. Unlike her older sibs, she is not a strong tester and will not be prepping endlessly or taking/retaking these tests. She may not take them at all (our state currently doesnāt require a test score for graduation). Admission criteria are in a state of flux anyway, and itās not clear to me that her colleges of interest will even be interested in test scores going forward. So we are holding back a bit and just observing how things unfold. To me itās much easier to fit the choice of schools to the application rather than the other way around.
Anyone else notice thereās an odd edginess to this thread?
I think you are repeating yourself by mistake again.
^ Thatās an example of what I mean.
2 Likes
As you know, some people have strong opinions about tests.
1 Like