Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's. So. Hard.

My kid has taken it 4 times but can't get out of the slums despite her best efforts. She has a 4.0 average and 8 APs btw.

Why on earth would you keep taking it? Plenty of test optional choices and plenty of great options for every score range.

Not actually that many choices if you don’t want small. My high grades/lots of leadership daughter with a 1400 SAT feels locked out of schools she knows she can succeed at in her humanities major. Very ironically, she provides homework help to a couple kids who have really high scores and they are applying to the type of school she wants. She knows she could do the work. She really wants a big school with good academics and those are virtually impossible OOS without a top score. This is not uncommon.

Of course she is trying to make the best of it and she will be fine. But likely not at her dream school (which is not an Ivy or anything close).

To another earlier poster, I wish she would have tried the ACT. She took a practice of both and scored similarly but went with the SAT bc ACT changing midstream for her. In retrospect was a bad decision perhaps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. 1510 and every score above that is a 99th percentile score. Does that mean exactly one percent of students get 1510+ scores?

1510 is in the 98th percentile as derived from the past 3 years of actual student test-takers.[/quote



Ok. So that's 2/100 kids. The OP is either totally misunderstanding the distribution of scores, or is trying to say something else that she isn't articulating.

Wrong math. 98 percentiles tells you how many are below that level and not above it .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8th grade way too late. Bummer.

If you don’t take practice test in pre k YOU SUCK!! I don’t care if you call me a tiger mom. My kid will go to TOP college and TO is EVIL and DEAD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The digital SAT cut down on cheating, especially international cheating. When the SAT went digital internationally there was huge influx of paper taking foreign students for that interim period when the US was still paper.

Now that it is digital, the organized cheating is harder to accomplish.

And this cheating was MASSIVE, PERVASIVE and NOTORIOUS.

I agree that there was cheating, but how does the switch to digital make it more difficult? By reordering questions (and didn't the paper version do that already)? It seems like anyone can pay someone else to take their test, and making it digital doesn't really make that any more challenging. Just faster, since it's a shorter test.

Imposter cheating still happens. 7 or 8 years ago the FBI busted a cheating ring for Chinese students that took over a 1,000 tests. However, the leak of tests, memorized/recycled tests packaged and sold was much more predominant. Thousands of tests were canceled for this every year since 2010 or so. Not a few, mind you. But tens of thousands.

The digital test has cut down on in-class cheating. It's harder to organize. I'm not sure if better security for Chinese cheating is why there are fewer high scorers. Too bad the College Board doesn't release the number of 1500+ scorers pre-digital and post-digital, broken down by country of origin.

There is a Chinese site referenced on reddit that claims to have all digital administrations and they are free. I've looked at the site. I'm surprised but I guess not shocked.

I call BS on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had one kid taking the SAT in 2022 (when it was on paper) and one who took the digital year. Lots of kids at their private getting over 1500 both years

Average SAT at TJ was around 1520 before the unqualified kids were let in.

TJ still has the highest SAT scores than any other high school in the DMV. C

Why is the TJ average below 1600? The SAT will be mastered by 9th grade tops for my high IQ kid that is actually too smart for TJ.

Sure, Jan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's. So. Hard.

My kid has taken it 4 times but can't get out of the slums despite her best efforts. She has a 4.0 average and 8 APs btw.

Why on earth would you keep taking it? Plenty of test optional choices and plenty of great options for every score range.

Not actually that many choices if you don’t want small. My high grades/lots of leadership daughter with a 1400 SAT feels locked out of schools she knows she can succeed at in her humanities major. Very ironically, she provides homework help to a couple kids who have really high scores and they are applying to the type of school she wants. She knows she could do the work. She really wants a big school with good academics and those are virtually impossible OOS without a top score. This is not uncommon.

Of course she is trying to make the best of it and she will be fine. But likely not at her dream school (which is not an Ivy or anything close).

To another earlier poster, I wish she would have tried the ACT. She took a practice of both and scored similarly but went with the SAT bc ACT changing midstream for her. In retrospect was a bad decision perhaps.

UCs are test blind and other than UCLA and UCB they are not hard to get into OOS. UW Seattle is also not very SAT-centric (except for STEM majors) because they take so many California kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The digital SAT cut down on cheating, especially international cheating. When the SAT went digital internationally there was huge influx of paper taking foreign students for that interim period when the US was still paper.

Now that it is digital, the organized cheating is harder to accomplish.

And this cheating was MASSIVE, PERVASIVE and NOTORIOUS.

I agree that there was cheating, but how does the switch to digital make it more difficult? By reordering questions (and didn't the paper version do that already)? It seems like anyone can pay someone else to take their test, and making it digital doesn't really make that any more challenging. Just faster, since it's a shorter test.

Imposter cheating still happens. 7 or 8 years ago the FBI busted a cheating ring for Chinese students that took over a 1,000 tests. However, the leak of tests, memorized/recycled tests packaged and sold was much more predominant. Thousands of tests were canceled for this every year since 2010 or so. Not a few, mind you. But tens of thousands.

The digital test has cut down on in-class cheating. It's harder to organize. I'm not sure if better security for Chinese cheating is why there are fewer high scorers. Too bad the College Board doesn't release the number of 1500+ scorers pre-digital and post-digital, broken down by country of origin.

There is a Chinese site referenced on reddit that claims to have all digital administrations and they are free. I've looked at the site. I'm surprised but I guess not shocked.

I call BS on this.

Why? Y’all such big sterotypers, why wouldn’t Chinese parents cheat to get into MIT? The group that has their kids in math classes staring in kindergarten and violin at 2 years old. It’s easy to believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's. So. Hard.

My kid has taken it 4 times but can't get out of the slums despite her best efforts. She has a 4.0 average and 8 APs btw.

Why on earth would you keep taking it? Plenty of test optional choices and plenty of great options for every score range.

Not actually that many choices if you don’t want small. My high grades/lots of leadership daughter with a 1400 SAT feels locked out of schools she knows she can succeed at in her humanities major. Very ironically, she provides homework help to a couple kids who have really high scores and they are applying to the type of school she wants. She knows she could do the work. She really wants a big school with good academics and those are virtually impossible OOS without a top score. This is not uncommon.

Of course she is trying to make the best of it and she will be fine. But likely not at her dream school (which is not an Ivy or anything close).

To another earlier poster, I wish she would have tried the ACT. She took a practice of both and scored similarly but went with the SAT bc ACT changing midstream for her. In retrospect was a bad decision perhaps.

UCs are test blind and other than UCLA and UCB they are not hard to get into OOS. UW Seattle is also not very SAT-centric (except for STEM majors) because they take so many California kids.

Doesn’t want to be in California or west coast but thank you for suggesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

this is how most kids superscore now. very few kids taking this more than 2x. even fewer taking it 3x. if you know kids taking it many times, you are an outlier. And maybe that's your environment, but it's not the applicant pool at even top 5 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

this is how most kids superscore now. very few kids taking this more than 2x. even fewer taking it 3x. if you know kids taking it many times, you are an outlier. And maybe that's your environment, but it's not the applicant pool at even top 5 schools.

Two friends of daughter have (different) outside CCs - both told my kid independently that a lot of kids are taking digital test 5 times or more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

this is how most kids superscore now. very few kids taking this more than 2x. even fewer taking it 3x. if you know kids taking it many times, you are an outlier. And maybe that's your environment, but it's not the applicant pool at even top 5 schools.

Two friends of daughter have (different) outside CCs - both told my kid independently that a lot of kids are taking digital test 5 times or more.

again, this is two kids. and any of us with kids who have taken paper vs digital, it's not the different. the kids taking digital 5 times took paper 5 times. it's a tiny tiny subset. And .. hey, anyone can do that if they want. They're likely overthinking this or not great test takers. Smart kids try to get that 1540 or so by middle of junior year and move on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

this is how most kids superscore now. very few kids taking this more than 2x. even fewer taking it 3x. if you know kids taking it many times, you are an outlier. And maybe that's your environment, but it's not the applicant pool at even top 5 schools.

Two friends of daughter have (different) outside CCs - both told my kid independently that a lot of kids are taking digital test 5 times or more.

again, this is two kids. and any of us with kids who have taken paper vs digital, it's not the different. the kids taking digital 5 times took paper 5 times. it's a tiny tiny subset. And .. hey, anyone can do that if they want. They're likely overthinking this or not great test takers. Smart kids try to get that 1540 or so by middle of junior year and move on

Wasn’t clear - these independent college counselors were saying many/most of clients taking test 5 times, not these two particular girls.

[Anonymous]

Sure, if you are a client of that guy from The Game or any other $$$ consultancy and your mom start using words like "optimize your candidacy", a kid may see themselves in the SAT room 10 weekends a year trying to move from a 1540 to a 1560.

there are better uses for your time imo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, if you are a client of that guy from The Game or any other $$$ consultancy and your mom start using words like "optimize your candidacy", a kid may see themselves in the SAT room 10 weekends a year trying to move from a 1540 to a 1560.

there are better uses for your time imo

Not commenting on whether good or bad just providing anecdotal evidence that kids are taking digital test more times.