<p>calmom, you are talking about my S. :-)</p>
<p>Well your son did better on the SAT than my daughter.</p>
<p>I think its just an inherent limitation of the test, and is related to thinking style or personality rather than ability level. Of course people have to be very bright to score highly, but it's also possible to be equally bright and not do as well. When there are discrepancies between demonstrated ability and test scores, the assumption tends to be that the test is right: our low scoring, high achieving kids are labeled as over-achievers, whereas our high scoring, low achieving kids are labeled under-achievers. The reality may simply be that the test is flawed -- it may be useful as a predictive test 70% of the time, but miss the mark the other 30% of the time. </p>
<p>Those "underachievers" may be kids who function very well in a test environment but not so well in other academic settings -- for example, kids who have a harder time learning from spoken information or sustaining focused attention, so find it difficult to follow and retain information in a lecture. So we blame the kid, assuming he's slacking off when the reality may be that he just doesn't learn as well in the classroom context as the lower-scoring kid who happens to have intellectual skills more suited for classroom performance, though less well suited for standardized testing.</p>
<p>:-) "Personally I am very glad to say goodbye to SATs forever( I know, there will be GREs but that is soooo far away ) " . A note written by S on the sheet of scratch paper for the last subject SAT he took. :-)</p>
<p>You just came up with a very good reason that I should encourage my daughter to apply to a 5 year combined AB/MA program at her college -- fortunately she doesn't have to decide on that until junior year. But I think that will be determined based on her academic performance rather than more testing.</p>
<p>It is possible that a val or otherwise-good student may not be a particularly good test taker, and thus may have SAT scores lower than one would expect. However, it's also possible for someone with straight A's, even in the most advanced classes possible, to attain those grades with a lot of hard work, not any particular intellectual brilliance. I would tend to agree that the "smartest" kids are those who perform phenomenally in some other area of interest, not simply in testing or school classes!</p>
<p>Also- </p>
<p>Last year at my HS, the two valedictorians (unbreakable tie) were also the two highest test scorers, and are now at Duke and Yale. This year, I am the highest test scorer and I'm ranked a bare 5th, even though my grades are comparable to those of the valedictorian. Why? Because I chose to take classes with lower weights (in GPA terms), but those that I was genuinely passionate about. (I took the most demanding classes available, AP and all that, but I chose lower-level classes over extra study halls, and thus had a lower GPA.) If I had not taken those classes, I would have missed out on a great experience. Does that make me less intelligent than the four people ranked above me? I would think not. </p>
<p>The salutatorian at my HS this year, who is furious that she isn't valedictorian, has a great work ethic, great grades, pretty good test scores, and an Ivy in line for next year. However, she has a bad academic reputation. She whines and argues over grades and deadlines, pushes for before-school review sessions that she doesn't attend, and half-a$$es most of her extracurriculars/leadership positions; she has work ethic but no intrinsic brilliance, and is known as someone who can't understand complex concepts or even some jokes. When one of her EC leadership roles would have required her to take a certain, low-weight class (Speech and Debate), she said, "Okay, I'll just audit it."- meaning that she would remove it from her transcript, just to save her high GPA. Is she more intelligent than me? I doubt that. Will she succeed? Probably, but I can't see her breaking any molds in the near future. </p>
<p>Intrestingly enough, I was also admitted to the most selective college of anyone graduating this year. But what does that really say about me?</p>
<p>Another view of standardized testing: <a href="http://cartoonbox.slate.com/index/?image=6%5B/url%5D">http://cartoonbox.slate.com/index/?image=6</a></p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, I know there is some value to some standardized testing for some people and some colleges, but I do think that this particular cartoon is a very good one. </p>
<p>Students studying or being tutored for standardized tests to learn the "hows of taking tests", teaching to the tests, etc., all seem very unfortunate to me - though my own just took her SATs last weekend and will take the subject tests in June.</p>
<p>gonewithfergus: Seems to me like she doesn't really have great work ethics if she acts the way she does. Good work ethics means committing yourself to whatever it is your doing even if you don't actually want to do them. She probably just does what she does to get to college, not because of any particular love of an activity. Then again, I could be wrong. </p>
<p>Personally, I think GPA and standardized tests are two different things that usually correlate each other. A person with a high GPA (usually) means that he/she worked very hard to attain those grades and he/she probably remembers many of the topics and has the skills she got along the way, which would help her score high on the standardized tests.</p>
<p>In my school, we've started taking these tests and almost everyone I know took them cold. No reviews or preparation. I did a bit of reviewing for both tests and scored well but many consider it "cheating" because I reviewed. It's as if my scores can't be compred with anyone's at all because I actually spent the time and effort to study. </p>
<p>That was just me feeling a little hurt and ranting a bit.</p>
<p>I believe it has to be a comprehensive evaluation of all things said above: GPA, class rank, SAT scores, EC, and community service hours, in order to be deserving of the label the intelligent ones. Here I've widened the definitions beyond mere academic intelligence most aptly measured by IQ and standardized tests to EQ as demonstrated through volunteering, empathy with fellow human beings, esepecially those who are less fortunate, being big-hearted, etc.</p>
<p>It takes a special quality, more so for a HS kid, to look beyond the prevailing culture of total fixation on grades to touch another human heart through community service. By all means, pay tribute to the high scorers, the Val/Sal, but surely community service beyond the mandated hours have its place too up on the pedestal.</p>
<p>"Well your son did better on the SAT than my daughter.</p>
<p>I think its just an inherent limitation of the test, and is related to thinking style or personality rather than ability level. Of course people have to be very bright to score highly, but it's also possible to be equally bright and not do as well. When there are discrepancies between demonstrated ability and test scores, the assumption tends to be that the test is right: our low scoring, high achieving kids are labeled as over-achievers, whereas our high scoring, low achieving kids are labeled under-achievers. The reality may simply be that the test is flawed -- it may be useful as a predictive test 70% of the time, but miss the mark the other 30% of the time. </p>
<p>Those "underachievers" may be kids who function very well in a test environment but not so well in other academic settings -- for example, kids who have a harder time learning from spoken information or sustaining focused attention, so find it difficult to follow and retain information in a lecture. So we blame the kid, assuming he's slacking off when the reality may be that he just doesn't learn as well in the classroom context as the lower-scoring kid who happens to have intellectual skills more suited for classroom performance, though less well suited for standardized testing"</p>
<p>.......good points! In 20 years of working in High Schools I've seen some really bright kids who score very well on SAT's but aren't great students. Reasons that they aren't great students usually fall into 2 categories: 1) they have a very difficult time making themselves do things that they perceive as "work". These are the kids who were straight A students up until around Middle School. They have excellent reading, math, and writing skills thus they score very well on the SAT's which aren't content-based. However they find things outside of the classroom to be much more interesting than school work. 2) These students have a psysiologically-based condition such as ADD, OCD, anxiety disorder, etc. which makes organization more inheridently difficult for them than the average student. As a result they may miss a homework assignment here and there, be late with a paper, etc. and thus lose points on their average. A lot of kids will grow out of this once they reach high school, but some don't.</p>
<p>There are factors that affect the way standardized test scores should be interpreted to distinguish between students of seemingly comparable abilities and preparations.
1. ceiling effect. A hard-working student may achieve a perfect score by dint of hard work. A more brilliant and more advanced student will achieve the same perfect score and will not be able to show how much more s/he knows than the first one because of the ceiling effect.
2. the attitudes students have toward the test: I have one nervous and one nerveless Ss. The nerveless one does better on standardized tests; the nervous one does better on term papers, etc... where he is not under time pressure.
3. Different learning styles (that may include LDs as well). Some are more visual, some are more verbal learners. The standardized tests only test a narrow range of knowledge and advantage some learning styles over others.</p>
<p>GPAs are highly subject to manipulation and subjective grading as well as to the incorporation of non-academic criteria. I've heard of teachers who would not accept a paper that was turned in on the day it was due if it was not turned in during class. The student had not benefitted from extra time; s/he had just temporarily forgotten to turn the paper in. There are many other instances of non-academic factors that creep into course grades.</p>
<p>Given all these variables, the question is unanswerable.</p>
<p>"GPAs are highly subject to manipulation and subjective grading as well as to the incorporation of non-academic criteria."</p>
<p>I've heard this now for 1.5 years on CC, on a variety of threads. I guess my D's have gone to a diff. type of h.school or something (& I guess I did, too). The grades at their school are based on their coursework, regardless of the pluses and minuses of personality interactions between them and their teachers. If they don't do A work, they don't get an A, regardless of how fond a teacher may be of either of them, (or vice-versa), and regardless of the level of participation in class, enthusiasm shown for the subject matter, etc. One of my D's scored consistently between 93% and 98% on all of her non-test work in one of the sciences. Yet her testing in that class (a few major tests, such as midterms) brought her grade down, & partly because the teacher heavily weighted tests, not unlike in college. She also had to work extremely hard to achieve those A's -- as did other students in that class -- because the teacher poorly introduced & explained new material. So while well over 90% of her individual marks were A's, she received no halo effect from that demonstrated achievement, and ended up with a B. I wonder if there are high schools that have a reputation for such standards - among colleges.</p>
<p>I've also noticed at this school that no teacher reflexively advantages the outspoken class participant. Students who orally participate less often, but whose comments are thoughtful, insightful, (perhaps showing more preparation & attention to the material than the frequent participant) and whose actual class work is superior, will be acknowledged for such superior work with a grade that reflects that -- & regardless of whether the teacher seems to show personal preference for the outspoken student & discomfort with that quieter one. </p>
<p>"A hard-working student may achieve a perfect score by dint of hard work. A more brilliant and more advanced student will achieve the same perfect score and will not be able to show how much more s/he knows than the first one because of the ceiling effect."</p>
<p>"Different learning styles (that may include LDs as well). Some are more visual, some are more verbal learners. The standardized tests only test a narrow range of knowledge and advantage some learning styles over others."</p>
<p>I agree with both of the above quotes. I think, btw, that the ceiling effect can be an underestimated factor, & obviously applies significantly to schools which are less demanding & to student bodies less endowed with brilliance.</p>
<p>As to standardized tests, not only do they test a narrow range of knowledge; they test a narrow range of aptitude & a narrow range of intellectual skill, adroitness. </p>
<p>An aside as to LD's: They are at least thrice affected by standardized tests:
- learning differences not addressed by the test content or format are compounded by learning disability (2 discrete situations, but nevertheless overlapping, & the overlapping is important);
- intellectual-processing (recall, ordering of categories, retrieval of data) are more impaired in testing situations than for the non-LD student;
- the anxiety component (which can obviously be present in the non-LD'er, too -- the "nerves" factor mentioned above) is magnified in standardized testing situations because of disorientation, which is a major dynamic for the LD'er. (The milieu is distant from previous learning tasks.) That anxiety is compounded by the time pressures (which is why true LD'ers are supposed to get accommodated, but the bureaucratic hurdles with CB often make that impossible).</p>
<p>(That was just an informational supplement, LD not being the subject of this thread. I'll bet it's rare anyway for an LD'er to be Val, at least from a very rigorous high school; generally there is so much advanced work being offered as a matter of course, & expectations are so high, that time constraints & timing challenges would make it quite a reach to achieve that status at a demanding school.)</p>
<p>Even psychologists can't agree on one definition for intelligence. </p>
<p>I know of a Val whose SATs weren't higher than the 1150 range until that Val participated in extenuous amounts of SAT prep-- probably over $1000 worth of books, computer programs, group classes, private tutors, etc. I can't help but wonder how accurate the SAT system is when students such as that one are given strategies on how to take the test and essentially don't take it as an unbiased reflection of their aptitude. This Val was also not very involved in activities in or out of school, but chose to spend any free time studying, writing papers, etc. There's nothing wrong with the Val's choice, but certainly "natural intelligence" was not the factor in determining success.</p>
<p>On the other hand, much of my free time was spent at dance lessons, play rehearsals, choir recitals, internships, etc. I'm in the top 4% of my class, with a weighted GPA well over 4.0, and even though I'm certainly not valedictorian, I'm happy with the choices I made (to balance work and enjoyment) and where I'm ending up.</p>
<p>I know plenty of people who have no desire to apply themselves in school, but probably have remarkably high IQs. Intelligence is a very difficult thing to define.</p>
<p>As to poor test taking (although, take this with a grain of salt because I'm talking about myself here ;) plus, I'm not a parent), I seem to fit the bill. As a very young child my teachers immediatly began pushing my parents to have me skip a grade. I was bored to tears with school and constantly asking for more work. I was the first child, parents didn't know what to do, decided to just leave me in my grade. Then the schools started to test me to get into a "gifted" program (I hate that word). Only I never passed. </p>
<p>Fast forward to fifth grade. My teacher told my parents I HAD to take the gifted test. I'm now in a new state, blah blah. I got registered. At this point, my district had three "tiers" of classes: Gifted, Honors, Regular. You had to get a certain score to get into Honors and a higher score on this thing to get into Gifted. I recall it was about five hours, some multiple choice, some essay, lots of parts. Well, I barely squeaked my way into honors. In sixth grade I was miserable again, perfect scores across the board and bored as none other. The school district claimed no one could retest because it was a "standardized test" so people's scores didn't get higher. After a few monthes of several teachers arguing on my behalf, the district grudgingly let me retake the test. I distinctly remember a conversation with the principal or something where she said, "You think you're so smart. Don't be surprised when you fail to meet qualifications again. No one scores higher on the test." I took the test and nearly hit the ceiling of the test. My score improved by nearly 25 points, where they were convinced it would only improve one or two. I got into the "gifted" program and spent the last two years of middle school actually challenged and growing. In fact, my college-like middle school program was infinitely better prep for college than my AP high school stuff. </p>
<p>Of course, with high school we get all sorts of new testing, a constant pain in the neck for me. For whatever reason, multiple choice tests scare the bejeebers out of me. I sit down and immediatly can't focus. Sometimes I figure out the right answer and just fill in a completely different one. For example, in 10th grade I was in in AP Language Englishy thing. We took a sample test and I scored nearly perfect on it, the strongest five in the class. I repeated this for two more sample tests. Then, on the real deal I freaked out and scraped a four. Now, a four isn't bad, but it was a big drop from my earlier performance. </p>
<p>I don't even like to think about PSAT, SAT, ACT... I didn't do "badly" on these by any measure, although I scored considerably lower than all of my friends from the middle school "gifted" program. They were all the 1500-1600 types, wheras I was in the 1200-1300 range. My math scores were hideous even though I was in AP Calc BC and doing well. I missed all the easiest problems, got the hard ones. I hated that testing period because everyone expected me to do really well on these things, and I didn't do that sort of "really well" that they wanted. </p>
<p>Now, comes something I've thought about. Even though I've been told I'm "smart" "gifted" or whatever I've never really believed it. My mind is weird and quirky. There are certain bits to my learning style I can't explain, but I know people who really are smart, if by smart we're talking about those with natural ability toward whatever tests call up. However, what I think a lot of people assume is some sort of "intelligence" is really work ethic. </p>
<p>When I first got into my middle school program, all the holes in my work ethic became far too evident. I struggled the first year because I'd never had to study in my life. Then, at the end of seventh grade I told my teachers that I was never going to miss an assignment again. Even if it was late, I was going to turn it in. They laughed at the time, but I ended up holding true to that to this day. </p>
<p>I now attend Reed college, which is full of really smart people. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) I feel like some sort of imposter because of the sheer intellectuality of the place. I love the challenge, don't get me wrong, but I feel almost stupid next to these kids who are bubbling over with ideas. However, some of the brightest people I know are struggling, whereas I'm somehow managing a 3.7 (of course, I'm also a freshperson and haven't hit the "real work" yet, if rumors are true). The difference? They are really involved, social, and have all sorts of things they like to do. I'm involved a little (getting into more) but make time for work, no matter what. I never miss assignments, I don't miss class, and I keep academics as a top priority. However, I'm also more of the "never has fun" cliche and the other people who may not be doing as well academically may be better people in the end. I love my academics, though, and wouldn't change my experiences for the world. </p>
<p>And now, I've rambled long enough. Take what you will from this... XP If you get a conclusion... well... you're better then me. I don't even know what I'm saying.</p>
<p>Subjective grading by teachers:
1. In middle school my S's teachers held him to much higher standards than mos of his classmates because they knew he was capable of better work than they (a few others were also held to the same exacting standards). It was fine by the parents because it was a way of pushing the students to give their best and combat complacency.
2. Shortly after my S sent his college application, he received his first quarter transcript--the same that had just been sent out. To his horror, he discovered a C+. He immediately got to the teacher and she told him he had not turned in some homework. Very puzzled, he said he had. Could she please check. She rummaged in her drawer, and there it was. She immediately changed the grade and the GC notified the college of the correct grade. She believed him because she knew him to be capable of far better work than the C+ and thus made the effort to look for the missing homework. And luckily, she had not thrown it away. I don't know whether another student would have similarly been given the benefit of the doubt.
3. Students are advised, usually by other students, occasionally by GCs to avoid certain teachers because they are medicore or tough graders or both. We've heard both kinds of rumors about specific teachers.
Of course all this can happen in college, too.</p>
<p>Do valedictorians tend to receive monetary awards from their High Schools as well as the metal medals?</p>