Colleges should require scores if test is taken
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Anonymous
Except success in life is much more about "high achieving EQ" than true academics. The 1400, 3.8, hard working/driven student is often the person who achieves more than the 1600/4.0UW kid. Sometimes (shocking I know for you to grasp) the 1300/3.4, hard working/driven student who works exceptionally well with teams and everyone will outshine all of "those above them" |
Anonymous
I'm with you 100% and it almost makes me tearful that people think it's a zero-sum game and we are keeping talented kids out like bully gatekeepers. I think I work with plenty of people who probably test(ed) well (and ditto for !!I passed my certification!!) but they can't think or lead or create for sh!t. |
Anonymous
Why Yikes? If the system they came from "is so much better" they are free to send their kid to college in that system. Yet for some reason, everyone still wants to come here for school---wonder why that is? Fact is there are plenty of places around the world where EC are not a part of college app. It's grades and standardized test scores only. So if that's the life you want, then those schools already exist. |
Anonymous
| If test optional is so great, why not grades optional? ECs optional? Essays optional? Just submit the things that make you look good and leave out everything else. |
Anonymous
There are less than 1,000 1600/4.0UW/10AP+ students in any graduating class. If you throw in ACT scores of 36, it's still less than 2,500. 2,500 prospects for 65,000 T20 seats in their collective freshman class. That's one of the major problems here. Too many of you believe the fabricated nonsense that the 1600/36 + 4.00 unweighted + 10 AP+ unicorn is a dime a dozen; when in fact, they are less than enough to fit even 5% of the incoming classes for T20 programs. And if you limited it to single attempts for the ACT/SAT, it's more like less than 2% of the incoming classes. |
Anonymous
Yikes! because I didn't see where the individual identified their native country as India. |
Anonymous
Because the colleges who are admitting the students set the requirements. Start your own college if you want to require test scores. |
Anonymous
Well for MS/HS especially, as a teacher you should recognize that the entire purpose of school is ofor the kid TO LEARN. Done correctly, the retake process does just that, it allows the kids to actually learn the material and show mastery. If not the first try, on the retake. And I have never seen anywhere that the kids just get to retake and it totally replaces the first grade. For my kids, it was always, go trhu each question on original test and submit corrections/explanations. Then retake and you got back at most 1/2 the points you got wrong on the first test. So if you had a 70, you could at most get 15 points back. Also, my kid is at a T30 college, and in most math/STEm courses, the kids do get opportunity to demonstrate they have learned the material. Ex: Math class has a final worth 40%, 3 midterms each worth 15%, and HW/Particpation/Quizzes worth 15%. The final covers the entire course (ie all 3 midterms). If you grade on the final for "Midterm #1 portion" is Higher than your actual Midterm #1 grade, the "final grade for MT1 portion" replaces your midterm #1. And so on. Why? Because the entire purpose is to learn the material. Math builds upon itself (as do most STEM classes). So if a student masters the material for the final and scores better than the midterms, they get the higher score. Because they mastered the material, which is the ultimate goal of learning |
Anonymous
So what? The point is that college admissions isn’t a foot race where the first three who cross the finish line win. You keep trying to make it that and it’s just not. The pool of students who can academically succeed at a T20 college is deep. Isn’t that the point you’re all making about how great students exist anywhere? |
Anonymous
Plus a lot of what might seem like grade inflation is really just the demographics of the students. My kids attended HS where 85% go to a 4 year college, and another 10-12% start at 2 year (we have great options for that and it almost guarantees transfer to State U after 2 years). So 95% of the kids are going to college----most come from households where both parents graduated college and over 60% of the households have both parents with advanced degrees (MS/PHD/Law/Medschool/etc). So the kids grow up knowing education is important in their household. 600 kids in the graduating class. HS does not weigh GPA. about 50% graduate with a 3.5+. Over 450 of them take at least 1 AP course. Over 250 take at least 5+ AP courses. My kids did not see grade inflation. Nobody rounds up---they put it in the syllabus so parents/kids don't ask for it or for extra credit if they are close (we have helicopter parents). My kid had a honors history course freshman year that was as hard as APUSH (teacher used to teach that and thought her job was to teach freshman as if it was a AP course). My kid learned to study for the first time in that course. HS also did not rank---thankfully as that would be ridiculous. It was basically a high pressured public HS. At least 20+ kids get into T25 schools each year (not on the East coast so that's even more impressive as many kids simply want to stay closer to home---not be 2-3K miles from home). |
Anonymous
It was a 26 ACT---they could only raise their SAT by 30. But main point is that despite the inability to "improve on SAT/ACT" they are still excelling in life, and were not relegated to a T300 school. Their GPA demonstrated more about their work ethic and ability than the 4 hour test |
Anonymous
This. |
Anonymous
But I'd rather have the 1520/3.9UW/8AP+ who has stellar ECs and/or stellar volunteering and recommendations. I want someone who is going to be a game changer and make a difference in the world. And I don't think the80 point difference and not perfect gpa means they are "any less". In fact plenty of them are much more what the schools want. Hence why they are fine with TO. The real issue is that some of you as parents have spent the last 18 years telling your kid that the key to success is a 4.0 and 1600 and now when you realize it's not quite that you feel cheated. It never was that---it was just you wanting to believe it. The T25 schools are not accepting "losers" when they turn down your "perfect kid". They are accepting who they think will be the better game changer. Look around you in real life. Highly doubt you work with only people from T25 schools or only people who had 1580+ on their SATs eons ago. Your boss might just be the 1100/2.8 kid who went to state U ranked 200, yet now they are managing you and getting paid more. Why? Because where you go does not matter, nearly as much as what you do while there. |
Anonymous
"they could" The reply was in response to that false statement. They cannot all come close to filling even 5% of their class with unicorns. So if you continue to downplay the incredibly low probability of finding a unicorn for the purpose of degrading what makes a unicorn a unicorn, don't be surprised when someone blocks that noise into the third row. |
Anonymous
I don’t see a false statement that says all of the T20 schools “could” do that. Maybe I missed it. I think the statement was that no college wants that. And if a college like Harvard wanted to, they certainly could try since they only accept 2000 or so students. I’m not sure you’ve blocked anything here. But thanks for playing I guess. |