<p>I like kluge's analogy: engine horsepower/Sat-IQ and torque/ability to earn good grades. Ideally adcoms would want to see both, but neither by themselves or together are that important. You want a decent car, but the ability to drive the car down the road is more important than the speed or torque.</p>
<p>I think GPA and SAT scores don't predict who is "smarter" or who will be the most "successful." For instance, I am one of my school's 9 unweighted valedictorians. Weighted I am 8th. I have around the sixth highest SAT score. I don't think I'm the smartest, especially in certain subjects, but I think I can both hold my own and will probably do well later on. I work hard, which is the key. I am also extremely efficient (I'll say I'm definately one of the most productive/high quality students in my grade). I am also very well-rounded, which is why I have done well in high school. I think it's important to decide what it means to be "smarter." Are we talking about intellectual prowess, how well someone has done, or what? I can name many students that are naturally better at math and science than me, but for the most part, I can write much better than those students. There is no set formula, which is the most important thing to remember. That's why some students get into certain colleges and not into others. Everything has something that is unique. That is what is important.</p>
<p>At my freshman son's orientation for a science program, a prof asked the group to raise their hands according to how many hours/week they studied; 1-5, 10-15, you get the idea.
He then announced that the ones who studied the most in high school would have the easiest transition to college.
I think his point was that those who had the most perseverence would succeed as the material became harder. </p>
<p>Is there a category for being able to keep the fanny in the chair and the nose in the book through boredom, frustration and temptation?</p>
<p>I think the val/sal thread had people reading too much into what val/sal are: they are what they are (as long as they're defined). School's should clearly state how it's determined and then everyone knows what it means. </p>
<p>Who's smarter - grades or SATs? It's the difference between sprinters and distance runners. Each one has mastered something. I've always thought the smartest person was the one who made me laugh the hardest.</p>
<p>As Kat's wonderful kittens illustrate, real success doesn't equate with pure numeric intelligence, and may not equate with academic achievement, although her D's academic achievements are certainly notable, too. Some people just have IT.
Reminds me of an acquaintance's son and Cosmo. A few years ago Cosmo came to our town and did a piece on beautiful high school kids in obscure, small cities (hey it sells mags), anyhow, they scouted the big public high school, and 2 of the kids they selected to photograph were the friend's son and his GF - took their picture just hanging out on the school steps. If knew this kid and his family, you would say - no way, but if you actually looked at him and thought about it, you would say, yes way, he had that something that makes a model incredibly, strikingly photogenic, memorable, even in somewhat modest clothes - this family is NOT wealthy.
To me achievement is the same way - some people just light up a room, even when they aren't the smartest person there - can you say Bill CLinton? Can you say COndi Rice? (Although those 2 may be the smartest persons in any given room ;))</p>
<p>At my daughter's school, the top kids are so close that val and sal are only a few hundredths of a point. My D just snorted - "Why would I want to do that?! I'd have to give a speech!" and another favorite of mine "I want to learn, I don't care if I get a 92 or a 98". How can you define intelligence or predict success among those kids?</p>
<p>Tests for intelligence, grades for college success and neither for life success.</p>
<p>I will pick essays (just to be contrary). Even if the young person is not - strictly speaking - a good writer, you can often get a glimmer into how they think and reason. Especially if they have tumbled to the reality that a 5 paragraph AP essay does not make an especially good college application essay.</p>
<p>From reading the threads on accepted students at HYP, what I notice is that the hard stats (standardized test scores and grades) are not especially predictive of who gets in once they meet or exceed a certain threshold. Even the list of ec's of the accepted often don't look as grand as some of the denied. So, I've come to the conclusion that in the view of adcoms, those who have the most to offer are those whose essays and recs jump off the page. Based on these factors, the adcoms, I believe, are making a predictive decision about who will really use what they've got to make their mark.</p>
<p>"whose essays and recs jump off the page"</p>
<p>Remember, too, that it takes maybe a minute or two look at the hard stats, and rather longer to read the essay and recs. What a pleasure it must be to read a distinctive essay after a series of mundane ones.</p>
<p>smartest kids i know are the creative kids that bend the rules or look for other ways to do things. they usually test pretty high and have a lower gpa</p>
<p>Valedictorians are much more numerous than peak test-takers, which would be my basis in this discussion for asserting that the peak test-takers have a claim on being smarter. (I, of course, have the usual collection of personal anecdotes that helped me form my opinion, as I'm sure most people do even if they don't have the same opinion. ;) ) </p>
<p>The above said, colleges seem to strongly prefer applicants with top grades but maybe not top test scores over applicants with top test scores but less-than-top grades. That's too bad for bright kids who are turned off by boring schoolwork--the only thing to do is hold your nose and do the schoolwork anyway, or else find another school. </p>
<p>P.S. I liked the "gearhead" explanation.</p>
<p>The title of this thread asks who is "smarter"...the Val or the "top test taker"? But being val doesn't mean necessarily you are the smartest person in the school. It means you have the best grades in the school. Nobody would claim a val is the smartest person (though COULD be)....because by definition, the designation isn't "smartest person in class" but it is best grade point average in the class. A very smart person could be lazy or just not get good grades. So, I have never thought of Val meaning you are the smartest but only that you have the best academic record in the coursework. </p>
<p>However, this discussion doesn't seem to be addressing the literal question as I took it. Rather, it seems to be addressing...which should count more for admissions.....GPA/rank or standardized tests? That, in my opinion, is a different question. And even THAT question is not about which indicator means "'smarter" but simply those are two different pieces of info. about a candidate (and even so, admissions is based on far more information about a candidate). A GPA indicates achievement in coursework and of course, the rigor of the coursework in relation to what is offered in that school would factor into interpretting the grades....if they were in Honors or AP classes or the easiest level classes, etc. Rank reflects a student's standings roughly amongst his/her peers in that school. Standardized tests are just one measure that is standardized amongst all HS students whereas GPAs and coursework are not standardized. </p>
<p>For me, grades indicate more about how a person might function in school....work ethic and achievement. Standardized tests give a little idea of capability on one measure, a measure that all applicants took. Other than that, the tests don't really tell me that much but are a piece to consider amongst a much larger set of indicators and information about a person. Lots of people can achieve highly who don't have extremely high SATs. And lots of people with extremely high SATs don't necessarily apply themselves in school. So, lots of information is needed about a person in terms of assessing whether to admit. If it was simply a numbers game, we could do away with applications and just use a test. But I don't think doing that alone would yield the best candidates. </p>
<p>In any case, the discussion seems to center on which indicator reveals "smartness" or which should be used for admissions. But as far as smartness...Val was never an award for "smartest" in class, but simply an award for the best academic record in the class. As far as admissions, colleges don't just admit based on "smartness" and thankfully they weigh many things and when it comes to the academic aspect, they want to feel you can do the work at the level of that school. A test score is one piece but if used alone, would not be the best indicator of who might succeed at the college.</p>
<p>The beauty of applications is that all does not ride on ONE piece of information. So, they have the test scores, AND the GPA/rank and transcript. Then there are recs, essays, EC's, etc. I don't think any ONE particular piece tells it all. I think the conglomeration of all of it shows more of who a person is and if they are an attractive candidate. I'm glad it is not all about ONE particular number (be it the SAT, the rank, or the GPA). People are complex, not just a number. If I had only one piece of information about a candidate, I just would not feel I knew enough about whether to admit or not.</p>
<p>I find SAT results indicative of only one thing-the ability to take this particular test. From personal experience( 20 years with mathematician-husband) I learned that the ability to think deep not always has anything to do with the ability to think fast. So the smartest person may not nesessarily succeed on standard SAT which require to solve a large number of easy problems fast. But of course the school GPA is even less accurate way to judge who the smartest person is( too many different ways to calculate) . My S considers SATs a huge waste of time and I tend to agree. He manages to get As in all his classes and scored decently on SATs( 680M, 770CR, 730W) , but for me it has nothing to do with how smart he is, or what his academic potential is going to be. :-)</p>
<p>There are always kids who hate to play the games of high school, but have the natural ability to retain information (often in spite of the fact that they don't do HS very well) and end up doing well on standardized tests. In my expereince,this is often true of boys. They are the ones who refuse to devote so much time/effort to school work, but come through like gang-busters on their SATs. I've often heard this phrase: "Those girls have NO life. All they do is study!" Maybe those girls have their eyes on the prize a bit earlier than this group of boys, or maybe the boys have made the choice that they'd rather have a life than a high GPA. Suppose it's anybody's guess as to which is true--probably somewhere in the middle. </p>
<p>Work ethic certainly plays a role, but I think many on this forum will admit that some HS work is silly. Aren't some kids better off being involved in a hobby, sport or other activity--rather than struggling over a fifth rewrite in order to get a 98% rather than a 95%? Is that work ethic? Does doing your best mean neglecting other aspects of one's life in order to get another couple of percentage points on an English essay? OTH social life is probably overrated! </p>
<p>All this supports why I'm glad there are so many good schools out there. Can success come from Hartwick AND from HYP? Certainly. Can leaders of our country or great scientists come from the local SUNY as well as from Stanford? Thankfully! At the end of the day, is it life-or-death as to where our kids go to college? IMO, no. If the decision is made that Supreme Court justices must come out of Ivy law schools rather than from SMU, and the goal is to sit on the highest bench one day, it probably carries more weight than I'm willing to give it! :-)</p>
<p>There are so many schools (secondary AND higher ed.) out there that do a great job of educating our kids! Defining 'Success' is no easier than defining 'Smart'!</p>
<p>Panhandlegal...do you know my S? I think your exact words came out of his mouth! He was in the top 10 in his class(there were 4 boys,6 girls. Val was a girl and #'s 3,4,5 were girls. S was #6). When I teasingly asked if he could have been number 1 if he had worked harder (this was a family joke because we rarely saw him do homework, no SAT prep, just fly by the seat of his pants kid), he replied "maybe but I had more fun than they did".</p>
<p>Some students think studying IS fun.</p>
<p>One indicator of "smart" that cannot be measured is the ability to apply the knowledge that one has accumulated (some what in the vein of common sense). I supervised interns for many year and I knew too many "top" students who were able tp regurgitate all of the facts they had memorized but could not apply it to solving problems in the workplace.</p>
<p>Great point, parabella: " ...the ability to think deep not always has anything to do with the ability to think fast".</p>
<p>For both my kids, most of their SAT prep had to do with learning to finish the test on time.</p>
<p>In fact, when they were younger, thinking "deep" often tripped them up on easy test questions.</p>
<p>I take choice C: The person who is bored in school and has been sleeping or clowning through class or simply irritating the teachers and then gets a 2200 or higher on the SAT while barely holding a 2.3 average in AP courses.</p>
<p>I've known several guys like this, and even gave birth to one.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, colleges would be idiotic to select students based on IQ. High scores in the absence of decent grades more than likely mean that a student will flunk out no matter how smart the student is compared to the overall student body at their college.</p>
<p>I think if you are gonna compare which is more important for admissions as an indicator of success in college...SATs or GPA....then make it that....not which is the indicator of being "smarter". Being admitted to college isn't even all about who is "smarter". Academically speaking, they want to know who is capable of the work at that college and who is capable of succeeding there. Then there are the other factors of who would contribute to campus life and to the classroom life and so forth. </p>
<p>For the record, I really deplore the standardized tests and see them as a necessary evil. I understand that they are the one measure that is standard across the country and so I take it as one piece of information about a student for compartative purposes but clearly not the main or only indicator of admissions criteria for the college. I think for many selective colleges, one just need be over a certain threshhold on scores and then everything else applies. If it were only about scores, then we'd wouldn't see higher scoring kids rejected and some with relatively lower scores admitted. All perfect 2400 scorers would get in but they do not. If the majority of admitted students at a particular college have SATs over 1400, for example, then a candidate does need to be in that ballpark or over that general threshhold. But once he/she is, a lot of other factors will come into play (including GPA) and so the 1440 kid may still get in over the 1540 kid because the 1440 kid is attractive in numerous other ways, but both had the SAT scores considered necessary to succeed at that college.</p>
<p>Panhandlegal wrote:
"Work ethic certainly plays a role, but I think many on this forum will admit that some HS work is silly. Aren't some kids better off being involved in a hobby, sport or other activity--rather than struggling over a fifth rewrite in order to get a 98% rather than a 95%? Is that work ethic? Does doing your best mean neglecting other aspects of one's life in order to get another couple of percentage points on an English essay?"</p>
<p>I don't quite see it that way. I have kids who worked their butts off and got high grades and ALSO were involved in heavy duty ECs including sports (which you named). It is possible to do BOTH. In fact, an attractive candidate at selective schools has managed to achieve in the classroom and also out of the classroom. It isn't either/or at that level. It is true that those who do slave for hours with homework AND are heavily commited to ECs every day and weekend, don't have a lot of free time to hang out socially and so forth. My kids did not have a lot of extra time. However, they were happy. Their activities were things they were passionate about and in many ways, were their social times. Living in a rural area, as we do, I felt all the years they were growing up and heavily engaged in a myriad of activities, that that was when they were with other kids as there is no neighborhood here and also no place where teens hang out, etc. Being on a team, working on a theater production, etc. were all their social and "fun times", and they also still maintained high grades (one was val...since that is part of this discussion).</p>