SAT 8/26/23 -- What did your kid think?

[Anonymous]

Dd took in WV at Shepherd University. Almost everyone in the room (IEP kids) was from Maryland. (The proctor asked.) Guess that was the location with open slots.

It was pleasant, test taking wise, not a zoo.

Dd said the math was harder than the practice tests she's been taking all summer and the English was easier. (She bombed the math taking the test the first time in the spring, but her practice tests have been getting scored in 600s math, so crossing fingers. English segment, I'm not worried about. )

We'll see. Crossing fingers.

[Anonymous]

DS (who had a 1460 in the bank from last March) was taking to try to raise his math score (730) and said the short math section was hard and writing was harder and that he probably didn't improve his score on either math or verbal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone take it at Mt Vernon today. Kid said they started an hour late, the desks were size of an iPad, kids had phones on them, some kids were moved to cafeteria, proctor was not bothered. Is it worth it to put in a complaint?

My kid also took it at Mt Vernon on Saturday. Very poorly organized based on what I saw and kid reported.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

This is driving me crazy. I have a 1200/1250 kid who I think should be proud of her scores. But she's afraid to submit them anywhere. Some of the colleges she's looking at claim 50th percentiles close to 1300 and I'm just not sure that's true when you factor in all the kids who don't submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Annoyed how late they started - over an hour - two people checking in. Why aren't they better prepared?

My DS complained about the test starting 30 minutes late because students were late and the proctors waited for them. In my opinion, if you’re not there at 745, too bad, you don’t get to take it today.

The traffic was impossible to get to our testing site.
MoCo knows they are having however many people signed up driving to the location.
Why can't they have police directing traffic? People were letting their kids out in the middle of the street and the kids were running the last 1/2 mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

This is driving me crazy. I have a 1200/1250 kid who I think should be proud of her scores. But she's afraid to submit them anywhere. Some of the colleges she's looking at claim 50th percentiles close to 1300 and I'm just not sure that's true when you factor in all the kids who don't submit.

This is correct. A college’s average test score range is merely the average for the (often small) percentage of students who submitted. It is *not* the average for their students.

The Common Data set will also tell you the percentage of students who submit and don’t. So where your daughter is below the 50th percentile, she can also see that she could be part of a large majority in not submitting. Maybe seeing that 72% of applicants also didn’t submit (which might well be the case) will help.

Please encourage her to separate the decision whether to submit from whether she should be proud of her scores. These two things should have nothing to do with one another.

Your daughter is great. She *should* be proud of her scores. There’s nothing she can’t do in this world. Unfortunately, the rankings have gamified admission for the colleges. They get “points” for specific things, and higher scores = more points. The more points, the stronger their business model. This has nothing to do with your daughter as a student or a human being. Truly.

(And for what it’s worth, even the AOs know this! Nearly all are good people who are genuinely rooting for their applicants and are trapped in the rankings game against better judgment).

[Anonymous]

Cluster at JR (Wilson), as usual. Some proctors were a no show. So a scramble to find seats for those kids in rooms with open seats.

[Anonymous]

How is this going to work when the switch to the digital SAT? Will testing centers provide the tech for the students? At our DC school so many of the computers don't work / WIFI is iffy in some rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

This is driving me crazy. I have a 1200/1250 kid who I think should be proud of her scores. But she's afraid to submit them anywhere. Some of the colleges she's looking at claim 50th percentiles close to 1300 and I'm just not sure that's true when you factor in all the kids who don't submit.

This is correct. A college’s average test score range is merely the average for the (often small) percentage of students who submitted. It is *not* the average for their students.

The Common Data set will also tell you the percentage of students who submit and don’t. So where your daughter is below the 50th percentile, she can also see that she could be part of a large majority in not submitting. Maybe seeing that 72% of applicants also didn’t submit (which might well be the case) will help.

Please encourage her to separate the decision whether to submit from whether she should be proud of her scores. These two things should have nothing to do with one another.

Your daughter is great. She *should* be proud of her scores. There’s nothing she can’t do in this world. Unfortunately, the rankings have gamified admission for the colleges. They get “points” for specific things, and higher scores = more points. The more points, the stronger their business model. This has nothing to do with your daughter as a student or a human being. Truly.

(And for what it’s worth, even the AOs know this! Nearly all are good people who are genuinely rooting for their applicants and are trapped in the rankings game against better judgment).

Thanks ... this is helpful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cluster at JR (Wilson), as usual. Some proctors were a no show. So a scramble to find seats for those kids in rooms with open seats.

What locations were good?

On a Facebook page devoted to SAT prep, the consensus for yesterday’s test was verbal was hard and Math was not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this going to work when the switch to the digital SAT? Will testing centers provide the tech for the students? At our DC school so many of the computers don't work / WIFI is iffy in some rooms.

kids must provide their own computer, unless they apply to receive a loaner.

If the Wi-Fi at certain schools is not good, that school would not be a testing location.

For what it’s worth, I personally think the digital SAT is going to invalidate testing even more, as it widens gap between the have and the have-Nots; and more and more kids will not be submitting SAT scores. scores are eventually going to become useless with only the applicants scoring the highest submitting and half not submitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

This is driving me crazy. I have a 1200/1250 kid who I think should be proud of her scores. But she's afraid to submit them anywhere. Some of the colleges she's looking at claim 50th percentiles close to 1300 and I'm just not sure that's true when you factor in all the kids who don't submit.

She should be proud of her scores. She should also absolutely not submit them unless she’s at the 50th percentile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He said “great” after working with a tutor all summer. And this is a brag, not a humble brag. Well, hopefully it will be a brag when he gets he results. His last score was 1000, and now it feels like 1200 might be within reach.

Is your DS inclined to submit a 1200 score if that ends up being his highest score?

If not, what's the cutoff?

NP. I believe the general rule is: if a applicant’s score is at the 50th percentile or higher for that specific college (which can be found on the college’s most recent Common Data Set), submit. If lower than 50th percentile, don’t.

Standardized tests once existed largely to show colleges that a student, if enrolled, was capable of doing the work at that school. Now the scores serve dual purposes. One of those, unfortunately, is to boost/maintain schools’ rankings (USNWR uses test scores in their rankings formula). So these days applicants have to ask, “might my score bring down this school’s average and thereby hurt their ranking?”

Personally, I think it’s absurd. Now, at plenty of schools only a fraction of students submit scores, which renders them fairly meaningless. But here we are.

(I hope I’m answering the Q you asked!)

This is driving me crazy. I have a 1200/1250 kid who I think should be proud of her scores. But she's afraid to submit them anywhere. Some of the colleges she's looking at claim 50th percentiles close to 1300 and I'm just not sure that's true when you factor in all the kids who don't submit.

She should be proud of her scores. She should also absolutely not submit them unless she’s at the 50th percentile.

Not the PP, but in the case of uneven math/verbal scores, is it the *combined* score that should be at 50th percentile? My kid had near perfect verbal, but math scores are lower — 25th percentile for most schools. Do both scores need to be at 50th?

[Anonymous]

Son reported one part of the math was very difficult. Overall slightly easier than June.