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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP. The piece about test score matching is so interesting to me.

I’ve always dismissed the idea that test scores were a legit predictor of college performance. I’ve viewed them more as an indicator of a kid’s ability to excel at standardized tests, plus their access/commitment to good test prep. (I say this as someone who had excellent test scores but struggled at my top-tier college (probably due to lack of preparation at my relatively easy HS) and then excelled in grad school (no doubt due to the rigor of my college experience.))

So … as DC builds their list of schools, maybe we should be paying closer attention to where their SAT scores fall in the distribution for each schoo? Not just to try to predict admissions, but also to consider fit and college experience. What do others think? DC will still apply to reaches, of course. But if they end up accepted somewhere where their SAT is at the lower end of the range, that may be an indicator of their fit/success at that school. (I’m thinking about college grades but also about other opportunities - their connections with classmates and professors, extracurriculars and internships etc.)

Thoughts? Others’ experiences with this?

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No, I absolutely wouldn't give test scores that power.  I used to work for ETS on the SAT.

You would be making a determination on college choice based on a few multiple choice questions your child answered differently than another child. Those questions were selected for inclusion because they were tricky enough to trip up the majority of lower-scoring test-takers and trip up fewer ultra-high scoring test-takers. But that's not the same as requiring advanced skills to answer the question. Think about an ambiguously constructed question on a passage of literature. There could be two answers that could be arguably reasonable, but if the "right" one is picked most of the time by the ultra high scorers and not by the other kids, that's a useful question for the test. Picking the "wrong" one doesn't mean you couldn't do college level work at the same level as another child. [/quote]

One of the funniest things I ever read was an opinion piece by a poet whose poem got incorporated into a middle school level standardized test.  She felt the "correct" answer was wrong.

I was a National Merit Finalist.  When I look at how my kids make mistakes on reading passage interpretation, they often pick an answer that's less likely but still defensible. Huge amounts of reading helped me have more of an ear or probabalistic guess at the right answer.  But it doesn't mean my kids are less intelligent or capable than me. They may have less insight due to background.  But college courses are supposed to provide background and allow some leeway for well-argued differences of opinion.

So SATs aren't everything.  I think, as a person who was weaker in math, the math score is more indicative of success potential (especially for quant majors).

I think school fit is very important.  It's more emotionally satisfactory to master a subject than to struggle.  My oldest was WL at an Ivy that is legacy in our family. I'm glad now, that he didn't get in.  It wasn't his top choice and not the best fit or best value.  He knew that and did not send a LOCI.[/quote]
This is why so many boys prefer math/eng/CS majors over humanities major.  The answer to a question is either right or wrong. It's not nebulous, like some of the q & a on English portion of standardized tests.

FWIW, my DS is an IBDP grad, 780 on English part of SAT, 800 on Math.  He did not find IBDP all that difficult, but he prefers the certainty of math.

IDK.. maybe, as PP stated, part of it is maturity and being able to pick up on nuances, which boys tend to not be good at. [/quote]

Boys are plenty good at nuance if it’s something they care about. Ask them about the nuances of their favorite video game or sports team and they can talk for hours. Ask them about the nuances of some poem or literary passage… nah they are probably just not interested. That’s like asking a woman to discuss the nuances of different pistol calibers.[/quote]

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