<p>We just looked at my HS freshman daughter's June SAT scores and she was not happy. She took it after a week of final exams and no prep or specific SAT studying but mainly as a baseline. </p>
<p>CR 690
CM 700
CW 670 ( mc 71 essay 8) 2060</p>
<p>She also took it in March 2011 in 8th grade for the CTY program and these were her scores then:</p>
<p>CR 660
CM 670
CW 680 ( MC 65 essay 10 ) 2010</p>
<p>Her PSAT's as a freshman were 211 so we thought she would have scored a bit better on the SAT.</p>
<p>I view this as an overall improvement and feel she needs to improve her handwriting and focus on two solid, strong examples in her essay. When she took it in 8th grade, she got the prompt about reality shows and she just winged it but received a 10 without even finishing the essay.</p>
<p>Any advice or comments would be much appreciated! She is aiming for the 2200+ if possible. Does this seem achievable?</p>
<p>You should stop obsessing about your daughters test scores. I am sure she is getting this concern & stress from living with you over the years. She should go to school for the education, to develop interpersonal & leadership skills and be able to work with people from all areas of our society. Everyones scores go up as they move from being a freshman to a junior; they gain knowledge as the math classes get harder and their vocabulary grows and their reading gets faster as they move up thru the curriculum over the next two years. I suggest your daughter gets involve in sports and or acting this summer. You seem to be so out of control. Dont worry about scholarships. There will be Colleges & Universities that will offer your daughter school grants and school scholarships that will cover the bulk of the tuition and board and if you need the money they will give you loans for what is remaining. Let your daughter enjoy her life!</p>
<p>all your daughter managed to score was a 2060? AS A FRESHMAN?</p>
<p>I would probably start looking into community college already</p>
<p>edit: on a more serious note, you are a ridiculous parent and should probably feel bad for yourself. also, i got a 141 on my freshman psats and a 2160 on my junior SAT this past June. anything is possible, get over yourself. i have junior friends who would give ANYTHING to get over 2000 and here you are whining about your daughter with a 2060 LOL</p>
<p>Interesting reply sukajoy. Not really what I had in mind, though. By the way, my daughter is involved in 2 varsity level sports and has been a mentor for middle school students as well as a leader on a research project for a class at school. I am not really sure what you mean by “You seem to be so out of control”. My daughter is the one who chooses to strive for higher scores and who wants to take these tests to see how well she can do. As I mentioned in my post, she took the SAT as a baseline with no prep whatsoever. She will not be taking one again until junior year.</p>
<p>Again, as I mentioned, it is my daughter who is not happy with her scores and I am trying to encourage her with what I had hoped would be helpful input from veteran SAT takers. You guys are harsh! She is very competitive and wants to do well. Seems to be an influence from her high school climate and the competitive kids she hangs with more than anything.</p>
<p>Well, perhaps a nicer way to put what sukajoy is saying is that it’s too early to worry about SAT scores, even for a baseline. She should worry now about doing well in school. She can make sure she reads lots of good literature–that’s the best prep for CR and CW, in my opinion, and she has time to do it.</p>
<p>Just to expand on this: I think you should tell her that 2060 is a great score for a freshman, and it will probably go up when she takes it later. What she should not do now, in my opinion, is any kind of prep specifically designed to improve SAT scores. No prep course, no test books, no question of the day, etc. It’s too soon. Read good books and pay attention in math class. A few months before the next time she’s going to take the SAT, she can do some targeted prep.</p>
<p>@ Hunt, yes, I thought reading would be an excellent way to prep and that is actually a very easy thing to encourage as she is an avid reader! The writing is the challenging part and I am no expert but I hear she will have excellent English Lit and Language ( comp) teacher in Junior year so hopefully that will be a start. The actual handwriting is tough because she does all her work on the computer and hates to actually write longhand. Her handwriting is barely legible :(</p>
<p>@ Hunt, she actually loves the SAT question of the day and likes to see how quickly she can do the math in her head. Again, this is not me requiring this but rather it is done as a self challenge sort of thing on her part and one she seems to enjoy. She will frequently save up several questions and then do them at the end of the week. No other SAT prep though.</p>
I suggest she try printing. With a little practice, you can print just about as fast as you can write longhand, and it’s generally much more legible.</p>
<p>2000 in grade 8. I would kill just for a 1900 right now. I’m going into senior year.
But anyways, she should wait on the studying as mention in the above posts in my opinion. As she grows older she will mature and will learn strategies as she goes through high school. Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>I actually mis-read the report: the CR was 670 and the CW was 690 so her improvement was best in math with 30 points higher and just 10 points on CW and CR. I think reading some classics and not re-taking until junior year is the current plan. The poor kid feels like she needs to score that elusive 2300+ but I told her schools look at a lot more than standardized tests. Does anyone know where that article is from the MIT admissions official who basically said MIT rejects plenty of perfect score?? I would love for my kid to read that!</p>
<p>She should also take the PSAT as a junior to try to qualify for National Merit scholarships ans awards. It is my understanding that they only will look at junior year PSAT.</p>
<p>Yes, I think her school requires them to take it ( or the ACT Plan test) as sophomores then they take the PSAT as juniors. The only reason she took the PSAT as a freshman is because her gifted teacher encouraged all his students to try it.</p>
<p>It’s summer. There’s a lot of open time. She sounds like a great kid who wants to do better. I would let her buy a vocab book and read it for fun. Not so much an SAT prep book, but a book about how Latin and Greek have shaped our language. Something that takes a particular Latin word and then describes how that Latin root is found in many different words.</p>
<p>Funny you should mention that about Latin! She actually is taking Latin in school and competed in the Junior Classical league for Latin and Greek. When we looked at her SAT report, we saw she got all the questions correct for sentence completion. Her area of difficulty seems to be with the passages especially fiction. She is more of a “facts” kid rather than “feelings”. The passage based reading questions that deal with what an author is trying to convey or what a character might be feeling is what trips her up the most.</p>
No offense, but yuck. Unless she’s really fascinated by this, a much better use of time would be to read good, interesting fiction.</p>
<p>Besides, I am convinced that the only way to REALLY learn and understand vocabulary is to encounter the words used in context. What they mean in a dictionary, and how they are actually used in English writing, are not the same. Even reading a good newspaper every day is a better use of time (in my humble opinion) than studying vocabulary.</p>
<p>I think instead of encouraging your daughter’s obsessive behavior, you should get her to read some good books. She can hone her comprehension skills in a context that doesn’t relate to test prep… because the SAT is really just the tip of the iceberg. The questions aren’t an adequate measure of what’ll be expected of her in high level English classes.</p>
<p>I agree with you, nelkypie. A former student who graduated last year gave her all his old books from various AP lit and English classes. They are all paperback and most are fairly short. I told her to give one a try. She is a science fiction/fantasy genre lover so The Great Gatsby doesn’t really appeal too much right now but it would expend her horizons. :)</p>
<p>In some ways, DD2 was like your D, in that she had been required to take the ACT since 6th grade as part of GT program. Her freshman year scores on ACT and SAT were 31 and 2070 respectively. She is a logical, just the facts ma’am kind of kid who, when she reads, veers towards trashy teen fiction (think Clique, Gossip Girl). Her writing scores were horrid. Fast forward 2 years, and her scores were through the roof. Why, because she had taken higher level english courses that required lots of writing and analysis of good literature and fiction. Her vocabulary improved too. PS, her math scores also went way up once she was through precalc (soph yr). </p>
<p>Kids need the exposure to more advanced classes to improve. They don’t need prep courses. The improved scores come as a direct result of teaching. </p>
<p>She should focus on the things she is already doing - extra curriculars, regular school coursework, etc. If she takes the SAT in Feb next year, I’m absolutely sure she will see marked improvement just from taking this advice.</p>
If she is so capable now, she will do better later. For now all she can do is read a lot.</p>