Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One other thing: your study comment was a little off. With all the test optional (not flexible, optional) choices out there today, including schools like Bowdoin, Wake Forest, Bates, Mount Holyoke and Smith, they've done studies comparing grades of students who submitted their scores with grades of students who chose not to submit their scores in the admission process.
A working assumption, and a reasonable one, is that kids who don't submit have scores below that school's threshold numbers derived from those who do. Said another way, it is safe to assume that those who did NOT submit their scores had lower scores on average than those that did submit.
Bowdoin is a great example. This is a rigorous place to go to school. My wife is a Bowdoin graduate, and runs intellectual circles around me. It is top 5 with Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Middlebury. Only school in Texas that can run with those schools is Rice.
And yet, even at a place like Bowdoin, with all those really super smart kids, the kids who didn't submit their SAT scores do just as well as those who do (and trust me, those who do have REALLY high scores at that school).
Kind of throws a monkey wrench into your theory about how screwed your "friend's" kid is huh?
If anyone believes EDS' goals in this thread are out of pure concern for his "friend's" kid, you deserve the hoodwink you were given.
The journey through this thread has been creepy at best. Normal people are not this invested in other people's children ... family friend or not. If this were real, it would really be none of your business. Real or not, it doesn't matter though; for it seems you have another agenda. Of course, I can't possibly know what that is, but you're not talented enough to have pulled off the pretext you've been trying to sell here. So in your honor, here are my numerically identified guesses at what you're really up to:
1. You wanted to create a pretext within which to gloat about your own kid's success, but you know that just showing up and bragging will get you a response of the sort you're getting from me now; or
2. You like to argue with people about the relative importance of standardized tests, and you created this pretext within which to make your point, which you have made, dogmatically, in each post (if it's this, I really feel sorry for you and hope you someday find a more fruitful hobby); or
3. This all really happened, as you say, and you are just a tool who can only really enjoy celebrating your own victory when it occurs within proximity to someone else's failure ("Oh, gee, sorry Ralph, that's really too bad about Sally. I hope she's ok." / "Hey Billy, did you hear about Sally's SAT score? Ha! You nailed it man! She's screwed!").
What gives you away? The incredibly dramatic predictions about this kid's future. Those comments make me wonder if you're even an adult with a kid, or instead you're really just a kid yourself who is out-of-control competitive, and you are just indulging yourself on this subject. No adult who is allowed out of the house would ever predict that some 18-year old kid who had a bad day on the SAT is screwed for life. Yeah, yeah, I know you didn't say that outright, but the few people in this thread who see through you pretty much pegged your agenda on that one point at least. Good God man.
Let me give you some advice, whoever you are. I am a relatively successful corporate lawyer who makes a good living and who likes his job. I'm not rich, but we have all we need, and a lot that we don't. No profession is more obsessed with school prestige than mine, so I've been down this road. I attended undergrad and law school at a good state university - top 40 US News. Not quite at the level of a Michigan, UVa or Berkeley, but at about, or above, the level of a UT Austin, a Wisconsin Madison and the like. I did well. Not the best or even close, but top 25%. Law review, high court clerkship and that kind of crap. I did ok. I also got into law school at Penn, and I'm doing now what I would have done had I chosen to go there.
I now work for a company whose General Counsel, my boss, is a Harvard AB/Harvard JD, whose CFO is a BYU BS/Harvard MBA, whose COO is a UWashington BA/Harvard MBA and so on and so forth. We also have a West Point/MIT guy. We all have one thing in common: each one us asks "how high sir?" when the guy who went to San Jose State tells us to jump. The moral? Never underestimate anybody. There is little to no upside.
Good luck. You are going to need it with that personality.
Brilliant post. I hope more people learn from this. Went to a top 10 school myself that beats out at least 4 Ivy leagues. Pegging oneself to just SAT all the time is short-sighted. May be folks like these want to live and learn only from their own experience. It is more important in my mind to raise kids that are well-rounded and enable themselves to get humbled by and learn from folks who might not have tested well but went to be as or more successful in life.
Grit and determination are more important than one's SAT score. And this girl , despite her "pedestrian"SAT score has plenty of options, especially to become an NP. There are plenty of NPs that got an RN and then did an RN to MSN program after gaining a couple of years of experience. Those programs are very flexible, and those NPs get hired and paid the same as the ones that went to high-priced, big-name schools. This girl's GPA suggests that she has the work ethic and ability to do the work. She also apparently has a good head on her shoulders. And if she wants to go into business, she'll also be fine. It seems this thread was started as an excuse to gloat.
Agree completely. SAT is a fair and unbiased way to judge where each student is on a standardized test. It's about as neutral as you can get. The thing about HS grades and GPA is it is way too subjective. It's all about how the teacher lays the material out and grades. Some teachers are ridiculously easy and curve every single test. Some give no slack at all. HS is more about absorbing the information given over a period of time and just spitting it back out on a test i.e. lots of memorization. There is none of that on the SAT. You can take prep classes but you can't just memorize info and recall it.
I guess the SAT has changed their scoring. 1600 used to be a perfect score. Guess not anymore. I took the ACT in 2002. Got a 23 of 36 without preparing one bit. But I had no intentions of going to a university out of school. I just went to 2 years at Eastfield and transferred with no problem to UTA. I was an A-B student all throughout high school.
As others have said, some kids just don't test well. I went to school with a girl who made straight As effortlessly throughout school, and I did not go to public school. Admissions at my school were competitive. Back in those days the maximum SAT score was 1600. I scored between 1300 and 1400 (can't remember exactly) without studying or any prep of any kind; my goal was to go to UT and I easily scored high enough first time out, so that was good enough for me. Her best was 950 after taking the test several times and going to classes. She was slightly ahead of me in terms of class rank but both of us were very close to the top. We ended up at the same university (UT-Austin) and she did just fine. She graduated the same year I did and is very successful.
I totally agree, I was a C+ at worst and B- at best but my SAT scores were in the mid 1400s without any prep and I wanted to go to PSU mainly out my hatered of Pitt. I did fairly well considering I was going back and forth in the military during the war and now will be heading to grad school. You also have to take into consideration what is going on in the school itself (distractions and other activites)
A lot of good points have been brought up including, how SAT “prepping” may falsely inflate scores without any real depth of knowledge. You also have those who just take the tests and do well no matter what. Then you have the other students who freak at the thought of any standardized test. It is a necessary evil of education but it’s a shame that there are so many students who get shut out of programs like the OP mentioned. The brain’s amygdala is known as the emotional part of the brain and is responsible for the “fight or flight” response. This is the survival instinct and causes the chemical electrical reaction that affects how one absorbs material. Sometimes when students have severe test anxiety, this greatly inhibits learning and the ability to interpret, understand and recall material. If there is a marked inverse correlation between IQ and grades, then a LD issue may be suspect but I’m not sure about if the same holds true for something like the SAT. I don’t know enough about that test but I had done some research re: high stakes testing in schools. Often there was a stronger positive relationship between GPA and how a kid would do in their first year of college than that predicated by SAT scores.
I personally never tested well and was relieved when it came time to apply to grad school again. They weighed my GPA more heavily than my GRE scores because I already had an MA. I went for a 60 credit MS this time while juggling kids, parents' failing health, etc. One rises to the occasion if the desire is there. I busted my butt for 3 years and maintained a 4.0, so it was a real-life example for me of that disconnect. I also passed my state licensing board exam the first time...and that was major stress! Of course I wouldn’t want to be treated by someone who failed their boards but testing is not the only factor. I also found it interesting that the research showed that high GPA (albeit somewhat subjective) was a better indicator than standardized testing scores of many skills that predict higher overall success.
Take a look at this article...I found it interesting. In a nutshell, the researchers claim that raw intelligence is but a snippet of the whole picture. Competence is needed to learn both in the classroom and also to be successful in life. Intelligence has been shown to affect how a person solves complex problems and is more accurately measured by IQ tests and other standardized testing instruments. Self-control, which is commonly measured by report card grades, is just as important for academic success. Self-control is linked to the ability to regulate emotion, attention and behavior to attain goals and values of personal importance. Studying, completing homework and positive conduct in the classroom all relate to self-control. The student who focuses on long-term gains over short-term impulsive behavior is also less likely to get involved in criminal activity, abuse drugs/alcohol, unhealthy weight gain or exhibit other external symptomatology. These students have an increased level of life satisfaction, positive relationships and an overall happier and productive outlook. Various studies have also found that high school GPA, gleaned from report card grades, was a better predictor of graduation success and future college GPA than standardized SAT scores (What No Child Left Behind Leaves Behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades).
I agree with some of the others that there are multiple forms of intelligence and all can point to a successful future. I hope this girl finds her path and isn’t too greatly discouraged.
One other thing: your study comment was a little off. With all the test optional (not flexible, optional) choices out there today, including schools like Bowdoin, Wake Forest, Bates, Mount Holyoke and Smith, they've done studies comparing grades of students who submitted their scores with grades of students who chose not to submit their scores in the admission process.
A working assumption, and a reasonable one, is that kids who don't submit have scores below that school's threshold numbers derived from those who do. Said another way, it is safe to assume that those who did NOT submit their scores had lower scores on average than those that did submit.
Bowdoin is a great example. This is a rigorous place to go to school. My wife is a Bowdoin graduate, and runs intellectual circles around me. It is top 5 with Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Middlebury. Only school in Texas that can run with those schools is Rice.
And yet, even at a place like Bowdoin, with all those really super smart kids, the kids who didn't submit their SAT scores do just as well as those who do (and trust me, those who do have REALLY high scores at that school).
Kind of throws a monkey wrench into your theory about how screwed your "friend's" kid is huh?
No the monkey wrench is still in your hands.
I'm certain you are a great lawyer. However, you might want to leave the jailhouse psychology to others. I'm not sure if you deleted the other post or what but I can see it.
The kid wanted to be a doctor or something like an NP or physical therapist the other options came about as the MD track become more bleak. These education/career paths are laden with all sorts of high stakes tests that make the SAT/ACT seem trival. The logic is simple. If the SAT caused her trouble what would the MACT and others be like for her? For allopathic docs there is no workaround. It's MCAT - USMLE Step 1 - USMLE Step 2, and more and no matter how bright otherwise a kid cannot advance towards becoming a doc with bad MCAT scores, excepting a very few oddball occurrences generally at lower end schools. And if you read what I wrote you'd notice that even with her great grades she was declined admission across a large number of universities and particular programs. She was auto admitted into both Texas and Texas A&M but not into any of the programs she was interested in at either school - no biological sciences and no business at either.
A lot of good points have been brought up including, how SAT “prepping” may falsely inflate scores without any real depth of knowledge. You also have those who just take the tests and do well no matter what. Then you have the other students who freak at the thought of any standardized test. It is a necessary evil of education but it’s a shame that there are so many students who get shut out of programs like the OP mentioned. The brain’s amygdala is known as the emotional part of the brain and is responsible for the “fight or flight” response. This is the survival instinct and causes the chemical electrical reaction that affects how one absorbs material. Sometimes when students have severe test anxiety, this greatly inhibits learning and the ability to interpret, understand and recall material. If there is a marked inverse correlation between IQ and grades, then a LD issue may be suspect but I’m not sure about if the same holds true for something like the SAT. I don’t know enough about that test but I had done some research re: high stakes testing in schools. Often there was a stronger positive relationship between GPA and how a kid would do in their first year of college than that predicated by SAT scores.
I personally never tested well and was relieved when it came time to apply to grad school again. They weighed my GPA more heavily than my GRE scores because I already had an MA. I went for a 60 credit MS this time while juggling kids, parents' failing health, etc. One rises to the occasion if the desire is there. I busted my butt for 3 years and maintained a 4.0, so it was a real-life example for me of that disconnect. I also passed my state licensing board exam the first time...and that was major stress! Of course I wouldn’t want to be treated by someone who failed their boards but testing is not the only factor. I also found it interesting that the research showed that high GPA (albeit somewhat subjective) was a better indicator than standardized testing scores of many skills that predict higher overall success.
Take a look at this article...I found it interesting. In a nutshell, the researchers claim that raw intelligence is but a snippet of the whole picture. Competence is needed to learn both in the classroom and also to be successful in life. Intelligence has been shown to affect how a person solves complex problems and is more accurately measured by IQ tests and other standardized testing instruments. Self-control, which is commonly measured by report card grades, is just as important for academic success. Self-control is linked to the ability to regulate emotion, attention and behavior to attain goals and values of personal importance. Studying, completing homework and positive conduct in the classroom all relate to self-control. The student who focuses on long-term gains over short-term impulsive behavior is also less likely to get involved in criminal activity, abuse drugs/alcohol, unhealthy weight gain or exhibit other external symptomatology. These students have an increased level of life satisfaction, positive relationships and an overall happier and productive outlook. Various studies have also found that high school GPA, gleaned from report card grades, was a better predictor of graduation success and future college GPA than standardized SAT scores (What No Child Left Behind Leaves Behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades).
I agree with some of the others that there are multiple forms of intelligence and all can point to a successful future. I hope this girl finds her path and isn’t too greatly discouraged.
That's a wonderfully informative post. The part about IQ and standardized testing seems especially topical - read somewhere recently the SAT is an excellent proxy for IQ testing.
The kid is fine. She's chosen a different path and seems content even happy. So far as the MD angle it's likely better for her to cast that notion off now than to have doggedly pursued something that was exceptionally unlikely to work out.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Some kids (and adults) just don't test well
