PSAT boot camps (Plano, Southlake, Princeton: movies, shop, move)

[stan4]

Originally Posted by BLDSoon

Could be. But considering that the US Is the origin of the SAT and it was probably written with American students in mind, how could they possibly expect more from foreign students many of whom I'm guessing speak English as a second language? (At Berkley, Asia is overrepresented for undergrad, followed by Europe then Africa. The Graduate program has majority Asians again, then Africans then Europeans) I highly doubt if the kids in south asia or Africa are getting more academic support than the American kids. I think you and EDS are on to something about it the culture difference.

Oh, dude. That's a story as old as time. It's also why I don't believe it when people complain about the SAT having a cultural bias. I literally had DOZENS of friends in high school who moved here from another country speaking little to no English who ACED that test (Korea, Vietnam, Russia, China, Finland, etc). Our valedictorian at Plano still spoke with a slight Chinese accent.

Kids whose parents didn't even speak that much English.

So explain how a american OF ANY RACE whose family has been here for generations can use the excuse that it's culturally biased?

When I say academic support, I do mean the culture and environment. I remember visiting my cousin (who was doing organic chem in the 10th grade, btw - THAT is the educational standard) in India. Some big test had just been administered. The scores were in the newspaper. Like every kid's score. The whole community cared.

[octo]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I'm happy you are happy but wouldn't the world would be ever so boring if everyone agreed all the time?

Yeah, I was lucky having attended an excellent school so that I didn't need extra prep just to ace a test.

I guess if your school is subpar then a boot camp may make sense.

[BLDSoon]

Originally Posted by stan4

Oh, dude. That's a story as old as time. It's also why I don't believe it when people complain about the SAT having a cultural bias. I literally had DOZENS of friends in high school who moved here from another country speaking little to no English who ACED that test (Korea, Vietnam, Russia, China, Finland, etc). Our valedictorian at Plano still spoke with a slight Chinese accent.

Kids whose parents didn't even speak that much English.

So explain how a american OF ANY RACE whose family has been here for generations can use the excuse that it's culturally biased?

When I say academic support, I do mean the culture and environment. I remember visiting my cousin (who was doing organic chem in the 10th grade, btw - THAT is the educational standard) in India. Some big test had just been administered. The scores were in the newspaper. Like every kid's score. The whole community cared.

Yeah...that would never fly here. Some schools don't even do grades/ rank to preserve feelings.


It definitely explains a lot. If i was just doing Organic chemistry... a test limited to English and Math questions would be a breeze. That does bring the cultural bias issue into question. Is it really a culture bias or a symptom of something else?

Still trying to find numbers on this (Average SAT scores for International students) from other schools... its like pulling teeth. Maybe they dont want to hurt my feelings.

[octo]

Originally Posted by stan4

lI remember visiting my cousin (who was doing organic chem in the 10th grade, btw - THAT is the educational standard) in India.

Is that not the case in Texas?! We had organic chemistry in 9th grade also back in Austria in the 80s. They don't teach that here??

[tcualum]

How Sophisticated Test Scams From China Are Making Their Way Into the U.S. This article was published in The Atlantic but I saw similar articles published online on other websites. If it's anything like India I'm not surprised. My husband had a lot of Indians from overseas in his engineering graduate program and he was appalled by how blase they were about cheating. I'm not saying that all of these high scores are due to cheating but I wonder how common it is.

[BLDSoon]

Originally Posted by tcualum

How Sophisticated Test Scams From China Are Making Their Way Into the U.S. This article was published in The Atlantic but I saw similar articles published online on other websites. If it's anything like India I'm not surprised. My husband had a lot of Indians from overseas in his engineering graduate program and he was appalled by how blase they were about cheating. I'm not saying that all of these high scores are due to cheating but I wonder how common it is.

I have ran i to a few of these reports while doing my 'research' but the numbers I'm looking at can't be explained by cheating. Even if we assumed 10% were cheating, thats still leaves the other 90% and their ridiculous SAT scores.

[stan4]

Originally Posted by octo

Is that not the case in Texas?! We had organic chemistry in 9th grade also back in Austria in the 80s. They don't teach that here??

Chemistry is taught in high school.

Organic chemistry is a college-level course.

I don't know any kid the U.S. who took real ochem in high school.

[stan4]

Originally Posted by tcualum

How Sophisticated Test Scams From China Are Making Their Way Into the U.S. This article was published in The Atlantic but I saw similar articles published online on other websites. If it's anything like India I'm not surprised. My husband had a lot of Indians from overseas in his engineering graduate program and he was appalled by how blase they were about cheating. I'm not saying that all of these high scores are due to cheating but I wonder how common it is.

My wife mentioned the cheating in her MBA stats class by the Chinese students.
But what she meant by 'cheating' was collaboration. Which meant they still needed to know how to do it.
Frankly, the cheating I ever saw in college and grad school was not isolated by race.
My pals in frats/sororities (nearly all white) would have somehow gotten test replicas or old versions of the exam, etc, to hand out to the underclassmen (not as study guides - these would be the same tests and were not released back by the profs).

[tcualum]

The cheating my husband saw was Indian students giving each other answers during tests. The teachers would leave the room during tests because they thought they could trust the students. When the professors were gone the students tell each others the answers. He was so fed up with it that after his final test he went to professors and asked him if he realized that they were cheating on the test. My husband is Indian so noticing that it was just Indians cheating wasn't racism on his part. He is an Indian expat who grew up in a country in Africa.

[BLDSoon]

Originally Posted by stan4

Chemistry is taught in high school.

Organic chemistry is a college-level course.

I don't know any kid the U.S. who took real ochem in high school.

Lots of things are reserved for College here which i think is part of the problem.

College isn't for everyone anyway and if they taught more advanced technical and practical subjects in high school, those kids that wished to opt out of College could do so and move on to trades and those who went to college would not have to waste time with 'English Composition' and would save some money not paying for fluff coursework. Surely one should know how to write before one goes on to higher education?