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4) Acing the SAT/ACT begins in grade/middle school, and it all comes down to two things that are not taught in ANY school anymore - reading and practice. If you read 3-4 books per month starting around 5th grade, and keep that up until you take that test...just that alone will get you in the top 20% of all reading/English scores on those tests. If you can take Alg 2/Trig and Bio/Chem by your sophomore year, you then have two years of knowing everything those tests will ask you and the same amount of time to practice. With a couple friends, some mechanical pencils and a few packs of college ruled paper, you can take like 20 practice tests for about $1 per test. And that's if you go pure retail. The school and public libraries have past practice books typically for the last 5-10 years, and you can take those too. Bottom line, for maybe $100 over two years, roughly $5 per month, you can take close to a hundred practice SAT/ACT tests, with detailed explanations of every answer.
5) You know how many Asian kids start working to contribute to the family before age 10? Lots of them. Asian kids (and I have tutored many) get pushed for not just academics, but extra curricular and real work from middle school forward. They have bigger time demands than most non-Asian kids even comprehend, and mostly because their parents know there is active discrimination against them at elite universities, so hey have to bigger, faster, smarter and more accomplished just to stay even. And somehow, they still get 4.5-5.0 GPAs, perfect SAT/ACT scores, and ridiculous super-citizen extracurricular resumes. And many are lower or straight middle class living in perfectly average neighborhoods. But all that should take a backseat to race and zip code crime rates? Really?
To your first paragraph - I have heard this point of view before, and I think there are a few misperceptions baked into there. First, there are a TREMENDOUS number of schools in low income neighborhoods where the average student does not take alegebra 2 until senior year. To be "college track" it is strongly recommended that one takes alegebra 1 in the 8th grade so you can be done with geometry and algebra 2/trig in time to be prepared for the PSATs/SATs in junior year, but the number of black and brown kids who actually attend schools that are tracked that way is not very large. There is a big difference between kids who have covered all the SAT math by sophmore/junior year and kids who have not competed all the classes yet at the time they sit for the SAT. That is a huge contributor to the difference in math scores, and why colleges will look at where the kid went to school and evaluate them in context.
This is why when people say the SAT is "objective", I always push back. Not everyone is being prepared to the same level.
To your second paragraph... many Asian families have parents/gradparents who migrated from countries where standardized tests determine everything.... where you go to college, even job placement can be determined soley by test score. So, of course, there is a culture oriented heavily towards power studying for and acing tests. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (many immigrant group have similar practices), but America has never had an educational system quite like that so American parents have not handed down these practices from generation to generation. I think it's worth the conversation as to what super high scores really mean in that context. That said I agree working outside of school is the norm for many types of kids and does not in and of itself indicate anything about adversity or ability.
To your first paragraph - I have heard this point of view before, and I think there are a few misperceptions baked into there. First, there are a TREMENDOUS number of schools in low income neighborhoods where the average student does not take alegebra 2 until senior year. To be "college track" it is strongly recommended that one takes alegebra 1 in the 8th grade so you can be done with geometry and algebra 2/trig in time to be prepared for the PSATs/SATs in junior year, but the number of black and brown kids who actually attend schools that are tracked that way is not very large. There is a big difference between kids who have covered all the SAT math by sophmore/junior year and kids who have not competed all the classes yet at the time they sit for the SAT. That is a huge contributor to the difference in math scores, and why colleges will look at where the kid went to school and evaluate them in context.
This is why when people say the SAT is "objective", I always push back. Not everyone is being prepared to the same level.
To your second paragraph... many Asian families have parents/gradparents who migrated from countries where standardized tests determine everything.... where you go to college, even job placement can be determined soley by test score. So, of course, there is a culture oriented heavily towards power studying for and acing tests. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (many immigrant group have similar practices), but America has never had an educational system quite like that so American parents have not handed down these practices from generation to generation. I think it's worth the conversation as to what super high scores really mean in that context. That said I agree working outside of school is the norm for many types of kids and does not in and of itself indicate anything about adversity or ability.
So f-ing stupid. Your scores should be the scores. The SAT board should not be doing this. Instead, the student can indicate on their applications if they come from a challenged background.
Your scores ARE the scores. The test taker sees only their standard SAT score. And the college gets your standard SAT score. The college is also going to have access to the "diversity" score.
If these Universities are going to admit "at risk" students in the name of "diversity"............it might be good to see if there are any patterns to determine which "at risk" students are going to succeed.
Your scores ARE the scores. The test taker sees only their standard SAT score. And the college gets your standard SAT score. The college is also going to have access to the "diversity" score.
If these Universities are going to admit "at risk" students in the name of "diversity"............it might be good to see if there are any patterns to determine which "at risk" students are going to succeed.
Like I posted earlier, I think potential hurdles would be best described in essays or interviews much better than they could be in conglomerates scores.
If we want to open this "everything is about the score" door, then where do we draw the line? What is fairness?
A rich kid who is suffering from life threatening illness vs a poor perfectly healthy kid comes from single family background
How about this?? We get rid of every single Social Justice Initiative (such as this one).
And then YOU and YOURS can simply "get a grip", because getting rid of those things "is nothing to worry about".
Fair??
lol
Sounds like it's a fool's errand to have a lucent, cogent conversation with you.
To your first paragraph - I have heard this point of view before, and I think there are a few misperceptions baked into there. First, there are a TREMENDOUS number of schools in low income neighborhoods where the average student does not take alegebra 2 until senior year. To be "college track" it is strongly recommended that one takes alegebra 1 in the 8th grade so you can be done with geometry and algebra 2/trig in time to be prepared for the PSATs/SATs in junior year, but the number of black and brown kids who actually attend schools that are tracked that way is not very large. There is a big difference between kids who have covered all the SAT math by sophmore/junior year and kids who have not competed all the classes yet at the time they sit for the SAT. That is a huge contributor to the difference in math scores, and why colleges will look at where the kid went to school and evaluate them in context.
This is why when people say the SAT is "objective", I always push back. Not everyone is being prepared to the same level.
To your second paragraph... many Asian families have parents/gradparents who migrated from countries where standardized tests determine everything.... where you go to college, even job placement can be determined soley by test score. So, of course, there is a culture oriented heavily towards power studying for and acing tests. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (many immigrant group have similar practices), but America has never had an educational system quite like that so American parents have not handed down these practices from generation to generation. I think it's worth the conversation as to what super high scores really mean in that context. That said I agree working outside of school is the norm for many types of kids and does not in and of itself indicate anything about adversity or ability.
Interesting points.
My son took Algebra II/Trig as a freshman. Non-accelerated in our district wouldn't take that until junior year. The PSAT, which determines National Merit, must be taken here in October of junior year. You can take it as a practice as a sophomore, but it doesn't count.
I see that with Asian cultures here. There's a big dispute over NYC public high schools. Everyone takes a test, and only the best scores( I don't believe anything else is factored in) get into the top schools. Asian communities know the score, and have all types of classes and review sessions to prep the kids. I'm not saying a non-Asian couldn't attend, but the parents and the kids may not be as well-informed, or easily able to get to where the classes are held. The percentage of AA kids attending the top schools is in the single digits.
One of my friends was born in Korea. She's always pushed her son, who was born in the US and has a Caucasian, very laid-back father, really hard. About a year ago she tearfully told me she'd decided to stop doing that as she knew too many kids who committed suicide because of the pressure. It didn't take long before she was back at it, though. Decades of culture are a hard thing to give up.
To your first paragraph - I have heard this point of view before, and I think there are a few misperceptions baked into there. First, there are a TREMENDOUS number of schools in low income neighborhoods where the average student does not take alegebra 2 until senior year. To be "college track" it is strongly recommended that one takes alegebra 1 in the 8th grade so you can be done with geometry and algebra 2/trig in time to be prepared for the PSATs/SATs in junior year, but the number of black and brown kids who actually attend schools that are tracked that way is not very large. There is a big difference between kids who have covered all the SAT math by sophmore/junior year and kids who have not competed all the classes yet at the time they sit for the SAT. That is a huge contributor to the difference in math scores, and why colleges will look at where the kid went to school and evaluate them in context.
This is why when people say the SAT is "objective", I always push back. Not everyone is being prepared to the same level.
To your second paragraph... many Asian families have parents/gradparents who migrated from countries where standardized tests determine everything.... where you go to college, even job placement can be determined soley by test score. So, of course, there is a culture oriented heavily towards power studying for and acing tests. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that (many immigrant group have similar practices), but America has never had an educational system quite like that so American parents have not handed down these practices from generation to generation. I think it's worth the conversation as to what super high scores really mean in that context. That said I agree working outside of school is the norm for many types of kids and does not in and of itself indicate anything about adversity or ability.
Well said. Context is very important in terms of where the applicant went to school and what's available.
To the bold, that's actually a problem if these Asian families think that test scores and grades are everything. They don't measure heart, interest - and if they spend all their time doing test prep at the expense of say, exploring extracurricular activities, that won't help them. It can just mean you're a good test taker.
I speak from experience being Asian American and working in a field with such so-called tiger parents and their mentality.
One of my friends was born in Korea. She's always pushed her son, who was born in the US and has a Caucasian, very laid-back father, really hard. About a year ago she tearfully told me she'd decided to stop doing that as she knew too many kids who committed suicide because of the pressure. It didn't take long before she was back at it, though. Decades of culture are a hard thing to give up.
I'm unfortunately too well-acquianted with this. We've had a few suicides at our local high school over the past several years. I think in time hopefully we will get more families to understand the need to have a healthy school-life balance, and I think it has been improving a bit in this aspect in our area.
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The test taker sees only their standard SAT score. And the college gets your standard SAT score. The college is also going to have access to the "diversity" score. 
