NY Times: How I Learned to Take the SAT Like a Rich Kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated high school in 1976. In those days, no one took prep courses. I didn't score the highest in my class in either math or verbal but I did get the highest composite score. I guess I was sort of a jack of all trades master of none sort of student. I went to a small private college preparatory school in Phoenix from first grade through twelve and my graduating class had 25 students. 5 of us went East, two to Columbia, one to Princeton, one to Wesleyan, and one to the pre-medical program at Johns Hopkins. The rest went to California, one to Stanford, one to what was then called Claremont Men's College, and I don't remember where the rest went. I don't think money mattered in those days since, as far as I know, there were no prep courses. If money matters now, it's a terrible shame.

Uh, you went to a private prep school? Presumably you or your classmates were wealthy or on financial aid (i.e. Someone wealth was supporting your tuition). How can you not infer money mattered??

This is a very odd post, myopic to the point of dementia? Am I misreading it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated high school in 1976. In those days, no one took prep courses. I didn't score the highest in my class in either math or verbal but I did get the highest composite score. I guess I was sort of a jack of all trades master of none sort of student. I went to a small private college preparatory school in Phoenix from first grade through twelve and my graduating class had 25 students. 5 of us went East, two to Columbia, one to Princeton, one to Wesleyan, and one to the pre-medical program at Johns Hopkins. The rest went to California, one to Stanford, one to what was then called Claremont Men's College, and I don't remember where the rest went. I don't think money mattered in those days since, as far as I know, there were no prep courses. If money matters now, it's a terrible shame.

Uh, you went to a private prep school? Presumably you or your classmates were wealthy or on financial aid (i.e. Someone wealth was supporting your tuition). How can you not infer money mattered??

This is a very odd post, myopic to the point of dementia? Am I misreading it?

Yeah, sounds like he attended a Phoenix prep school with the wealthy offspring of Freeport-McMoRan, Intel, U-Haul, US Airways executives.

[Anonymous]

I graduated high school in 1990 and even then, lots of kids at my middling Kansas high school took prep courses. I didn't have the money for that, but I did take some money from my after-school retail job and bought a couple of prep books. Studied a little every night for a couple of months and aced the SAT and the ACT. Many kids don't need a prep course - they need to know what types of questions will be on the tests and how to answer them. If you don't have the money for a prep course, buy your kid a couple of good prep books- should run you under $40. Have him/her go through the test once, score the exam and see what areas you need to focus on for more study. Take another practice test and continue to focus on the problem areas. Try to do these tests under real-world conditions, timed, so you know how you'll do on test day.

Do this for the PSAT too - I got a lot of scholarship offers because I was a National Merit Scholar, which is done based on the PSAT. (good grades helped, but the high SAT score - perfect on the math portion - was a big factor in schools knowing who I was.)

[Anonymous]

Here we go again blaming the rich for our laziness to educate ourselves.
Being poor does not excuse you from knowing basic facts about what is SAT
and what it takes to get into a good college. When I was in high school my
parents were new immigrants who spoke little English and worked 12 hour
days to pay basic bills. We had to save money by walking instead of taking a bus.
Taking all this into consideration, all my friend and I included, spend a lot of time
educating ourselves about admission process, financial aid and different scholarships,
I personally filled out every application to universities without any help from my parents
not because they did not want to help, but because they couldn't. All of us got admitted
to top state school on full financial aid. Most of us graduated law schools, medical
schools, etc. My point is, you can be what you want to be as long as you take personal
responsibility, prepare to work hard and set correct goals. There are a lot of resources
available all you have to do is just start looking regardless of how much money you have.