Advice (and maybe some reassurance) needed for DC who has strong grades but low SATs
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Anonymous
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DC is a student at a private school in the D.C. area and is working towards a full IB diploma. DC has strong grades (top 20-25% of class) for 9th and 10th grade and we have no reason to think that the next two years will not be equally strong. However, DC is not good at taking standardized, multiple choice tests. We will soon start the process of SAT/ACT tutoring for DC to take the exam in spring and summer of next year. The first practice test DC took came back with a score of only 500 in Math. English was closer to 650. While we hope the results will go up with tutoring and more practice, we are preparing for them to be average due to DC's anxiety about standardized tests.
We would love some advice from parents whose kids were strong students at a private school and had a solid transcript but did not have good SAT results. What types of schools did your DC get into? What sort of help - outside the usual tutoring - did you get them to boost their scores? |
Anonymous
| There a fair number of really great schools that have moved towards not requiring that an applicant submit test scores. Perhaps suggest to your child that they do the best they can and when the time comes you will sit down and strategically decide which colleges to apply to based on the results. A friend's son went to public in VA and chose not to sit for any of the standardized tests and he was admitted into Wake Forest on his GPA, essay and interview (which he did via Skype). Best of luck to your son! |
Anonymous
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Many of the liberal arts colleges have moved faster than others to the test optional approach -- Oberlin and schools like that. But plenty of options. That said, I think you are giving up way to soon on standardized tests. With practice, younger kids can go up a lot when they are a bit older -- if starting at 500 you can easily see a 100 and maybe even up to a 200 point increase.
Also, you should probe why DC doesn't do better. Does he pick the wrong answer or not finish the test (or finish but actually guess the last 20 questions because rushed). Our DC is very bright -- had high GPA, but also a slow processing speed so he did not do well on standardized tests (this wasn't usually an issue in school where tests were designed to take up less than the entire class period for an average speed kid.) The extra time accommodation (after all the required psycho-testing) made a huge difference for DC. Find out what's going on. |
Anonymous
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Oberlin is not test optional. Wesleyan, Trinity, Bowdoin are some examples that are. |
Anonymous
Before you get too worried, have him take a practice ACT. Many, many kids who do well in school but don't knock it out of the park on the SAT do much better on the ACT. practice and test prep can also help, and, finally, the college counselors may be able to tell you which schools play significantly more emphasis on grades and recommendations (some of the other posters have already listed test optional colleges). |
Anonymous
| Take a full length sample SAT and a ACT ---see what areas need to be strengthened... |
Anonymous
And then you may want to choose just one test or the other to focus test prep on and forget the other (and any colleges who require that exam). |
Anonymous
| We did Princeton Review. My child went from "average" SAT scores to Ivy League admittance. Good luck. Practice really does make perfect. |
Anonymous
| Search the colleges and universities forum for some good discussions of schools that don't require SATs. Some good choices there, if SAT or ACT don't go well. |
Anonymous
Statistically unlikely. |
Anonymous
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Depends on the extent to which test anxiety or other factors were at play in the first score.
If a kid is bright and has high processing speeds, but gets nervous on tests, prepping can raise scores several hundred points. Prepping doesn't do as much for kids whose intelligence and processing speeds aren't that high to begin with. |
Anonymous
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I was that kid. Had great grades in high school and college, did just okay on the SAT and LSAT. I get super anxious about standardized tests and overthink everything, meaning I often second guess my answers. It's not a great combination.
This was a while ago (I am in my 30s), but I don't think things change that much. BUT I did a lot of test prep both times, and was able to improve my score on the SAT from average to the lower range or good (1290 on the old system - first score was just 1100). Have your DC take a lot of practice tests so s/he is so comfortable with the process that it is it feels like a practice. I ended up getting into a fantastic undergrad and an okay law school and have a great career doing something I LOVE that also pays well, so no complaints. One more caution: I'm sure you know this, but Jr. and Sr. year of HS can be a pretty significant ramp up from the first two years - school gets a lot more demanding, extracurricular a pick up in competition, and there is significantly more social pressure and "distraction." Just because your DC has been a great student so far doesn't mean that s/he will easily weather jr and sr year, so keep an eye out. |
Anonymous
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Like PP. I had some degree of test anxiety. Like PP, I also prepped for tests where I initially did not perform that well.
SAT: first score 1160. Post prep score - 1580 LSAT: First sample test: 162. Post-test prep: 174 So, to refute the person who thinks that significant jumps in score are statistically unlikely, I submit that statistics can be misleading. For me, practice and the steady improvement of scores allayed my anxiety, so by the time I actually took the exam, I was calm and confident. To OP, if your child has test anxiety, however, I suggest you have your child start practicing now. For the LSAT, I prepped for over a year. I took the Princeton Review about a year before I planned to take the test, then practiced on my own for the remaining nine months. Starting prep a few months before just adds to the pressure. Prepping over a longer period of time helps to keep it lower key. Also, keep in mind that not all kids are going to be at the top of the class. If you're kids not among the brightest, please focus on supporting him or her in whatever paths are open to them. There are many qualities more important than intelligence, for example character and kindness. |
Anonymous
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My child is not as old as yours, and the test they prepped for was the ISEE, not the SAT. But we did have a neurospych evaluation a few years ago and my ds has a very high IQ but low processing speed and low coding subscores. When he gets where he is going, he is much farther along than most kids, but he is not fast to get there.
We prepped him for the ISEE at home and did practice tests under timed conditions. He needed all the information about how to strategize test responses - like is it better to guess? or better to not answer? and he needed practice under timed conditions. For cases like yours and mine (where the kid is bright but is not a great test taker) then knowing HOW to take the test and the timing of the test can cause the scores to go up HUGE amounts when the child is prepared, because the first scores are artificially low. Ds did very, very well on the ISEE (and later on his standardized test scores at school, because he used the skills he gained prepping for the ISEE) and as a result we are unlikely to request accommodations for him to have special testing for the SAT or ACT later. (His neuropsych scores would allow him to be granted special accommodations. ) I would prep your child (either with a tutor or yourself) and see what the practice scores are like, and I would focus on either the SAT or the ACT, not both, and if you need to, get a neuropsych eval to request accommodations if you feel the scores are still not reflective of his abilities. Good luck to you and your child. |
Anonymous
174! Congratulations!!! |