Anonymous
11/07/2025 12:38
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:The digital SAT cut down on cheating, especially international cheating. When the SAT went digital internationally there was huge influx of paper taking foreign students for that interim period when the US was still paper.
Now that it is digital, the organized cheating is harder to accomplish.
And this cheating was MASSIVE, PERVASIVE and NOTORIOUS.
I agree that there was cheating, but how does the switch to digital make it more difficult? By reordering questions (and didn't the paper version do that already)? It seems like anyone can pay someone else to take their test, and making it digital doesn't really make that any more challenging. Just faster, since it's a shorter test.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 10:27
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I thought the SAT was distributed on a curve so there are always the same number of high scorers.
I have never seen data on how many kids submit a super score but my hunch is such a significant amount that the scores are significantly increased. Like maybe makes it so 10% of kids get above a 1500? Also, my older kid took the ACT so there are all those high scorers too.
Ironically and sadly a super score didn’t help my kid. Oh well.
This just underscores how many people in the DCUM bubble have no concept of "average." Average high school in rural Minnesota. Average inner city high school. Average high school across town.
Does 10% of Sidwell or Churchill gets above a 1500 superscore? Maybe. Maaaaaybe. Of all SAT takers - ha!
The top 25 percent of kids in the class of 2026 at our private scored above 1500 according to the School Profile. That’s with around 95 percent of class reporting. Greater DMV area.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 09:41
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
The digital SAT cut down on cheating, especially international cheating. When the SAT went digital internationally there was huge influx of paper taking foreign students for that interim period when the US was still paper.
Now that it is digital, the organized cheating is harder to accomplish.
And this cheating was MASSIVE, PERVASIVE and NOTORIOUS.
Now that it is digital, the organized cheating is harder to accomplish.
And this cheating was MASSIVE, PERVASIVE and NOTORIOUS.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 09:34
Subject: Re:Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The iPhone/E generation is coming out strong…different from the 05 birth year when kids didn’t grow up with iPhones or iPads in their hands since K. My 05 dud t have a phone until almost 9th grade. He is/was a voracious reader…hence the perfect in vocab SAT; and act English & reading.
The math went down for younger Covid kids too. 05 was already through geometry before everything shutdown.
Def see a difference even in my own house. Younger one had to really prep to pull score up.
my kids high school teachers say they can see a difference between pre and post cell phones, but they also say they see a cliff after this year's senior class, which they attribute to either Covid and/or explosion of kids using AI to do writing/math/science etc assignments.
The difference is few teachers teach, there is no spelling, vocabulary, grammar, no reading books in school, etc.
Honestly this. My child has APUSH and AP eng lang this year and there is very little teaching going on. I’m very disappointed- I recall when I took those classes they were lively and the teacher pretty much lectured and taught material the entire class period. It’s all small group “discussions” now to which most of the kids just look at each other silently or putter around on their Chromebooks or phones
Why do they have Chromebooks out during discussion? Why do they have phones during the day? My kid attends a pretty mediocre high school and neither of these things is allowed. Until they put the screens away even engaging lectures won’t help.
Because the teachers don’t care
Anonymous
11/07/2025 09:23
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
SAT cheating and 'prepping' was off the chain at one point.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 09:19
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My friend is an admission consultant and told me that this year's scores have been lower than usual.
but college board releases stats on this and they're not.
College board releases stats the following September for the class that just graduated from high school. Stats for current juniors will not be released for almost two years.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 09:12
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:My friend is an admission consultant and told me that this year's scores have been lower than usual.
but college board releases stats on this and they're not.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 08:29
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
My friend is an admission consultant and told me that this year's scores have been lower than usual.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 08:26
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
for some people, it always seems to "get a lot harder" when it's their kids turn.
true with sports, auditions, SATs, college admissions, job market, housing market, fertility etc etc
true with sports, auditions, SATs, college admissions, job market, housing market, fertility etc etc
Anonymous
11/07/2025 08:23
Subject: Re:Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The iPhone/E generation is coming out strong…different from the 05 birth year when kids didn’t grow up with iPhones or iPads in their hands since K. My 05 dud t have a phone until almost 9th grade. He is/was a voracious reader…hence the perfect in vocab SAT; and act English & reading.
The math went down for younger Covid kids too. 05 was already through geometry before everything shutdown.
Def see a difference even in my own house. Younger one had to really prep to pull score up.
my kids high school teachers say they can see a difference between pre and post cell phones, but they also say they see a cliff after this year's senior class, which they attribute to either Covid and/or explosion of kids using AI to do writing/math/science etc assignments.
The difference is few teachers teach, there is no spelling, vocabulary, grammar, no reading books in school, etc.
Honestly this. My child has APUSH and AP eng lang this year and there is very little teaching going on. I’m very disappointed- I recall when I took those classes they were lively and the teacher pretty much lectured and taught material the entire class period. It’s all small group “discussions” now to which most of the kids just look at each other silently or putter around on their Chromebooks or phones
Why do they have Chromebooks out during discussion? Why do they have phones during the day? My kid attends a pretty mediocre high school and neither of these things is allowed. Until they put the screens away even engaging lectures won’t help.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 08:10
Subject: Re:Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The iPhone/E generation is coming out strong…different from the 05 birth year when kids didn’t grow up with iPhones or iPads in their hands since K. My 05 dud t have a phone until almost 9th grade. He is/was a voracious reader…hence the perfect in vocab SAT; and act English & reading.
The math went down for younger Covid kids too. 05 was already through geometry before everything shutdown.
Def see a difference even in my own house. Younger one had to really prep to pull score up.
my kids high school teachers say they can see a difference between pre and post cell phones, but they also say they see a cliff after this year's senior class, which they attribute to either Covid and/or explosion of kids using AI to do writing/math/science etc assignments.
The difference is few teachers teach, there is no spelling, vocabulary, grammar, no reading books in school, etc.
Honestly this. My child has APUSH and AP eng lang this year and there is very little teaching going on. I’m very disappointed- I recall when I took those classes they were lively and the teacher pretty much lectured and taught material the entire class period. It’s all small group “discussions” now to which most of the kids just look at each other silently or putter around on their Chromebooks or phones
Anonymous
11/07/2025 07:48
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
People need to understand that high scores are very highly concentrated, geographically. That’s why AOs are so keen to consider scores in the context of the high school. A lot of the difference between a 1460 and a 1560 is how motivated your kid is to make that leap. And nothing motivates a teenager like peer pressure.
Anonymous
11/07/2025 07:21
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our oldest is a junior so only recently started taking SAT/ACT. Before we had or own first hand experience, we used to hear everyone got 1560-1590 in their SAT. After the first couple tries, all the so called smart kids at our school only got 1420-1480. Is the scoring tougher now or were people always exaggerating?
1560-1590 is higher thank 99.5% of the people who took the SAT.
No, you don't know multiple kids at your school who scored in that range.
Look at your school's naviance. It shows the scores.
Maybe 1 or 2 kids per school score that high, on a good year.
Where do you see scores in Naviance? Do you mean in the scattergrams? Or is there a better way to see number of top scorers per grade?
Anonymous
11/07/2025 07:17
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I had one kid taking the SAT in 2022 (when it was on paper) and one who took the digital year. Lots of kids at their private getting over 1500 both years
I bet if you looked at Naviance, you eould see that very few kids at your private school scored over 1500.
Our high performing high school has between 625-725 seniors on a given year. In all the years we have had kids there, naviance only shows around a dozen kids breaking 1500 on the SAT.
There is zero chance that your private school with a senior class of a couple hundred kids has "lots" of kids scoring over 1500.
What is “lots”? Our public school in NJ has about 80 in a class of 375.
Anecdotal bullshit
Anonymous
11/07/2025 07:14
Subject: Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?
Anonymous wrote:You are way more likely to hear about the high scorers. No one is going around bragging about a 1350 or 1420.
And it’s not because those aren’t great scores. It’s more likely that the parents of a 1300-1400’s scorer don’t make their child’s test scores their entire identity.