I hate test optional!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I think this social justice experiment is going to sink the top colleges though. So it doesn't matter if you don't get in because the names won't be worth anything in a few years anyway.

Change is always hard for those who feel disadvantaged by a change.... The top schools are here to stay. It took 100s of years to get so powerful/popular/famous and it will take decades to change the paradigm. The feelings of certain UMC white parents are meaningless as long as elite kids and the likes of Amanda Gore are getting in to T30 colleges and making outsize marks on the United States. This approach to admissions is working very well for top universities.

The point posters are missing is that there is an overall decrease in advantages UMC whites have received for any american prize (education/job). Elite people of any race are now getting those advantages over typical UMC whites. The sooner UMC white parents realize this the better for their kids-- develop an excellence at anything your kid likes and they glide through the door to all the advantages White UMC families had in the past.

Who is Amanda Gore and what is her relevance? I googled but there were several people with that name.

[Anonymous]

SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it. I think this social justice experiment is going to sink the top colleges though. So it doesn't matter if you don't get in because the names won't be worth anything in a few years anyway.

Change is always hard for those who feel disadvantaged by a change.... The top schools are here to stay. It took 100s of years to get so powerful/popular/famous and it will take decades to change the paradigm. The feelings of certain UMC white parents are meaningless as long as elite kids and the likes of Amanda Gore are getting in to T30 colleges and making outsize marks on the United States. This approach to admissions is working very well for top universities.

The point posters are missing is that there is an overall decrease in advantages UMC whites have received for any american prize (education/job). Elite people of any race are now getting those advantages over typical UMC whites. The sooner UMC white parents realize this the better for their kids-- develop an excellence at anything your kid likes and they glide through the door to all the advantages White UMC families had in the past.

Who is Amanda Gore and what is her relevance? I googled but there were several people with that name.

Pretty sure the poster meant Amanda Gorman
https://www.vogue.com/article/amanda-gorman-cover-may-2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Gorman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT helped my DS get into schools.

Was that this year?
35 ACT didn’t do much for mine this admission season.

What colleges were they rejected from?

7 ivies, duke, and northwestern. GPA was way up there and activities also excellent. They're a crapshoot.

[Anonymous]

I always laugh at people whose kids have mediocre grades but expect to get into elite colleges based on their SAT scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

If you have 10-15K to throw at the test almost any kids can get a high score and those with major learning disabilities. Months of practice, individualized teaching to the test and extreme individual coaching can get almost any kid a top score. I guess to you that means the kid is ready for college.

[Anonymous]

What about the kids who get great scores without all that effort and money?

[Anonymous]

Shhh, those are the students no one wants to acknowledge. It doesn't fit The Narrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

If you have 10-15K to throw at the test almost any kids can get a high score and those with major learning disabilities. Months of practice, individualized teaching to the test and extreme individual coaching can get almost any kid a top score. I guess to you that means the kid is ready for college.

So I guess the children of all rich families get 1600 on their SAT? /s Actually, rich families with mediocre students hate the SAT because there is much less opportunity to massage the score. You can hire someone to write their personal essay. and get them impressive sounding extracurricular activities. Cheating on their high school tests is relatively easy. But intensive training for the SAT won't change their score by more than 80 points, and the opportunities for cheating are tiny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shhh, those are the students no one wants to acknowledge. It doesn't fit The Narrative.

? You are awfully obtuse. What exactly is "The Narrative"? For one thing, no way to know which kid didn't spent thousands on prep... more than likely the private school kid did though so you can infer that pretty well. If the kid is truly a bright individual and has the grades to back it up, I'm sure they get in where they want if they are well rounded and have other strong parts of their application.

I know a girl (UMC white girl BTW) in our school, probably will be the salutatorian, top grades, lots of sports and activities which she is really good at and she was accepted to a lower Ivy as well as state university, nowhere else. Deferred from EA at Harvard and ultimately didn't get in. Super sharp and talented girl. No joke, she took the SAT every single time it was offered throughout her sophomore and junior year trying to get a perfect score. Every... single... time. She was probably an expert in the damn thing when she was done. Well she got into ONE Ivy... I guess it was worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

If you have 10-15K to throw at the test almost any kids can get a high score and those with major learning disabilities. Months of practice, individualized teaching to the test and extreme individual coaching can get almost any kid a top score. I guess to you that means the kid is ready for college.

So I guess the children of all rich families get 1600 on their SAT? /s Actually, rich families with mediocre students hate the SAT because there is much less opportunity to massage the score. You can hire someone to write their personal essay. and get them impressive sounding extracurricular activities. Cheating on their high school tests is relatively easy. But intensive training for the SAT won't change their score by more than 80 points, and the opportunities for cheating are tiny.

haha if you say so! Obviously kids who have expensive prep and one on one tutoring to prepare do better. That's a fact. I spent about $500 on SAT prep for my kid, it was all I could afford. Pretty sure the rich families spent WAY more, and guess what, their mediocre kids get better scores. They just do because the SAT is all about test taking, 100% that is it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 ACT helped my DS get into schools.

Was that this year?
35 ACT didn’t do much for mine this admission season.

What colleges were they rejected from?

7 ivies, duke, and northwestern. GPA was way up there and activities also excellent. They're a crapshoot.

All "reaches for everyone" colleges. You realize that other 16,000 students got at 35 or 36, right? And that is more seats than are available in those 9 colleges? Add the 20,000 1500+ SAT kids (many overlap I know) then subtract for hooks, and you are talking about AT BEST, 8,000-9,000 seats at those colleges for 30,000 high test scoring kids. The majority of them get rejected.

What colleges accepted your kid?

This is not a criticism in any way, in fact it is just trying to show the math so people know what they are up against.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

If you have 10-15K to throw at the test almost any kids can get a high score and those with major learning disabilities. Months of practice, individualized teaching to the test and extreme individual coaching can get almost any kid a top score. I guess to you that means the kid is ready for college.

So I guess the children of all rich families get 1600 on their SAT? /s Actually, rich families with mediocre students hate the SAT because there is much less opportunity to massage the score. You can hire someone to write their personal essay. and get them impressive sounding extracurricular activities. Cheating on their high school tests is relatively easy. But intensive training for the SAT won't change their score by more than 80 points, and the opportunities for cheating are tiny.

haha if you say so! Obviously kids who have expensive prep and one on one tutoring to prepare do better. That's a fact. I spent about $500 on SAT prep for my kid, it was all I could afford. Pretty sure the rich families spent WAY more, and guess what, their mediocre kids get better scores. They just do because the SAT is all about test taking, 100% that is it.

Your perspective is outdated. My child did great with just khan academy and many, many kids do. It requires discipline but zero dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT scores do not measure intelligence. They do measure how prepared for college a student is. I always laugh at people who make the distinction that they or their student “isn’t good at taking tests” but deserve special attention because they are really smart otherwise and tests are designed to not help rich, privileged people. Pathetic really.

If you have 10-15K to throw at the test almost any kids can get a high score and those with major learning disabilities. Months of practice, individualized teaching to the test and extreme individual coaching can get almost any kid a top score. I guess to you that means the kid is ready for college.

So I guess the children of all rich families get 1600 on their SAT? /s Actually, rich families with mediocre students hate the SAT because there is much less opportunity to massage the score. You can hire someone to write their personal essay. and get them impressive sounding extracurricular activities. Cheating on their high school tests is relatively easy. But intensive training for the SAT won't change their score by more than 80 points, and the opportunities for cheating are tiny.

haha if you say so! Obviously kids who have expensive prep and one on one tutoring to prepare do better. That's a fact. I spent about $500 on SAT prep for my kid, it was all I could afford. Pretty sure the rich families spent WAY more, and guess what, their mediocre kids get better scores. They just do because the SAT is all about test taking, 100% that is it.

Your perspective is outdated. My child did great with just khan academy and many, many kids do. It requires discipline but zero dollars.

It's really not outdated. I have seniors, I've just been through this. I paid a tutor to help my kid get where they needed to be with math because not a math person, only did a few hours, and the rest he took practice tests on Khan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about the kids who get great scores without all that effort and money?

They’re indistinguishable from those that did. That’s why it’s flawed.