Reply to Banneker SAT averages: 494 Math; 502 Reading

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But...  willingness to sacrifice and do hard work also should correlate to ability to nail SATs.  SAT test prep doesn't have to be a course, nor be an unaffordable expense for any household, if you are resourceful and willing to work at it.[/quote]Well, what you think should be the case and what the research shows don't always go together, eh?[/quote]

What's the research?  I killed this test as a Sophomore, having gotten 2 hours of sleep the night beforehand.  I wasn't well-rested, I certainly took no prep courses, and I got a National Merit anyway.  (The PSAT - Preliminary SAT is also the NMSQT - National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test)[/quote]Congratulations on getting National Merit. So I take it you're saying that nailing the SATs is not necessarily correlated with working hard based on your personal experience?

Anyway, the pp I was responding to seemed to be suggesting that if Banneker students were willing to work hard and get good grades that they should also be able to nail the SATs.  I took her implication to be that this meant they could have scored higher and the fact that they didn't meant that they weren't all that accomplished.  My offhand comment was about the research showing that college success is more correlated with GPA than SAT scores and the research I cited can be found on page 10 of this thread.  But now that I reread her comment, she may not have meant what I thought she did. At any rate, if I had to choose between high SAT scores and high GPA for my kid - and it's a ridiculous question because no one gets to choose these things but if I had to choose, I would definitely pick high GPA because that would give me more confidence that she would be a success in life.

(Not dissing your accomplishment at all, pp.  I wish I could say the same. Fact is, I was so mad at the world at that age that when I went into the testing room and they told us to take our text books out of the room, it made me so mad that I deliberately wrote down all the wrong answers on the PSATs. I was really insulted that they would think we could actually cheat on a national test by looking at our textbooks. Now that I think about it, my adolescence is a perfect example of how being really smart intellectually didn't help me as much as good study habits and hard work would have!) 
[/quote]

Agreed that hard work is important.  The point was really that high SAT scores are ubiquitous in this area, as are Ivy League diplomas and law degrees.  A lot of parents are so accustomed to them that we take them for granted.  I know I do.  It is disturbing to see low scores at a supposedly high-performing school, and the suggestion that it is because the students didn't take a test prep course doesn't hold water.[/quote]

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