Reply to All AP/DE classes, 1580 SAT, strong grades, but terrible attendance. Does it matter?

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Reply to "All AP/DE classes, 1580 SAT, strong grades, but terrible attendance. Does it matter?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Great SAT but 7 APs is barely anything these days.  Any good extracurriculars?[/quote]

Yes, they have a bunch of projects with other kids from school. The irony is that some of the missed school time has been to work on these outside projects with those same kids. So in my kid's mind, it is worth it.

This whole version of high school feels bizarre to me. I grew up thinking the formula was: attend school every day, get good grades, take challenging classes, get a high 1300s SAT or above, and that was the path. But now, if a kid is aiming for highly competitive schools, it seems like that alone is not enough anymore. They have to time-slice everything and sometimes even miss school to focus on extracurriculars, projects, and competitions.

Look at this data. It is wild. In the 1970s and 1980s, MIT average SAT scores were roughly around 1350, which carried a much higher percentile ranking than a similar score today. In the early 1990s, MIT's average SAT scores were around 1370. Since 2015, SAT scores for admitted students have increased by roughly 55 points, and current admitted students are averaging around 1550 to 1560. The recent middle 50% range is about 1510 to 1580, with Math often near perfect.

I am not saying attendance does not matter, but the system feels very strange when the same schools and colleges seem to reward the extras that sometimes require students to miss school. Some kids are even flying during the school week for competitions tied to these projects and missing three days of school at a time.[/quote]

The SAT as it is written now is very different from the SAT of the 1990s. No analogies. Shorter reading passages. Designed to be taking in a shorter amount of time and requiring less stamina to complete.

For attendance, if your DC is missing school to work on projects and this appears on the transcript, explain this in the additional info section. Missing school for an enrichment project sounds different from skipping class to smoke weed behind the shed. 
[/quote]

Yes its not just sports clubs etc, its actual volunteering work in other countries areas, engineering competitions etc at this point some of these kids I would hire as second year software engineers with all the experience (right now). I think some of the kids get it that there is no such thing as internship entry level anymore and have to put themselves through this crazyness. I am not saying my kid is going to ivy league or whatever but they feel this is the minmium for upper end state schools and a hail marry to a few ivies. [/quote]

You dreaming if you think your kid going to Ivy [/quote]

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