Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

The vast majority of kids with a 4.0, not rigorous HS courses and a 1290 going TO is NOT getting into T20 schools. For people who are "so smart" you seem to have a difficult time understanding math---if there are 40K applications for 2K spots, and the school accepts 3K to get the yield they need, that means a 7% acceptance rate and 93% are getting rejected. That means many many many many highly qualified kids are gonna get rejected.

What it does mean though is that a kid with a 1490/1500 and rigorous course load and good gpa makes the cut just the same as your 1560 kid. Your kid doesn't get a bump for being 60-70 points higher on the SAT.

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to sound mean or judgey, but I am curious. I grew up poor in a developing, non-English speaking country, learned English as a second language in high school, studied the SAT books on my own for about 6 months and got higher than 1,300 on the first try, in a language other than my native one. So how are American kids with with educated parents and privileged backgrounds getting below 1,200? And yes, I had top grades at school, worked on the side too etc.

I don’t want to sound mean or judgy either, but here’s the answer:

Not all kids are as bright and motivated as you are. This is no doubt true in your home country, and it’s true here in America, too.

Kids have different abilities. They also have different motivations and personalities. Finally, kids mature at different times. Just like adults, kids are not all the same.

It’s simple, really. I’m so happy for you that you were able to excel on your own at an early age, and in a second language, too. But not all kids are like you.

Even with the best resources in the world, there are tons of kids who are not ready, willing, or able to score high on the SAT or in school. There’s a wide range of normal.

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Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

I don’t think that’s quite right because they are still considering the school context, among factors.

The topic was brought up on all three podcasts, and they all said the same thing. I assume that students have access to advanced classes at J-R and Walls, but the student body is economically diverse. That is the scenario that was discussed on the podcasts. The exception would be a high school that doesn't have APs/IB or advanced curriculum (e.g., magnet)-- a low-resource school. I'm sure it is rare that a UMC kid would attend a school that didn't offer a good number of APs/IBs or had a magnet program, so most AOs wouldn't encounter that scenario.

It is interesting...so "well resourced" might just mean opportunities to take advanced classes. But there will still be enormous differences in the experiences in a large urban public school like J-R--which does have a ton of AP classes but also huge classes and overextended support staff--versus elite private schools and wealthy public schools that small class sizes, individual attention, reasonable counselor-to-student ratios, and all manner of connections to things like internships. It seems to me that both school context and family income/wealth are independent (and interrelated) factors that should each be taken into consideration (individually and in combination).

Yes, from what I can conclude based on the podcast discussions, "well-resourced" means access to an advanced curriculum, and the majority of students go to college after graduating from high school. I'm not sure if that means as low as 60% or more than 80%. I agree with your point (my kid is at a similar school in Maryland), but I think AOs at selective institutions assume that UMC kids in schools like J-R will have access to outside enrichment because of their parents to make up for the large class sizes, counselor-to-student ratios, etc.

This all makes a lot of sense but do they look at the family income level when making this assessment? The "UMC" families at J-R have household incomes ranging from $200K to $1million+...both would be technically be considered UMC but in DC with 3 kids the former family would have a very hard time affording much in the way of outside enrichment. Obviously, both of profiles are very different than the J-R families that are at or below 200 percent of the poverty line but they are also very different from each other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

Yet Ivies admit the second type of kids, if they like their story, and they end up doing just fine.

Anonymous wrote:Are they happy? Where did they apply and get in/not get in? Merit anywhere?

To a test optional school.

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Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

I don’t think that’s quite right because they are still considering the school context, among factors.

The topic was brought up on all three podcasts, and they all said the same thing. I assume that students have access to advanced classes at J-R and Walls, but the student body is economically diverse. That is the scenario that was discussed on the podcasts. The exception would be a high school that doesn't have APs/IB or advanced curriculum (e.g., magnet)-- a low-resource school. I'm sure it is rare that a UMC kid would attend a school that didn't offer a good number of APs/IBs or had a magnet program, so most AOs wouldn't encounter that scenario.

It is interesting...so "well resourced" might just mean opportunities to take advanced classes. But there will still be enormous differences in the experiences in a large urban public school like J-R--which does have a ton of AP classes but also huge classes and overextended support staff--versus elite private schools and wealthy public schools that small class sizes, individual attention, reasonable counselor-to-student ratios, and all manner of connections to things like internships. It seems to me that both school context and family income/wealth are independent (and interrelated) factors that should each be taken into consideration (individually and in combination).

Yes, from what I can conclude based on the podcast discussions, "well-resourced" means access to an advanced curriculum, and the majority of students go to college after graduating from high school. I'm not sure if that means as low as 60% or more than 80%. I agree with your point (my kid is at a similar school in Maryland), but I think AOs at selective institutions assume that UMC kids in schools like J-R will have access to outside enrichment because of their parents to make up for the large class sizes, counselor-to-student ratios, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to sound mean or judgey, but I am curious. I grew up poor in a developing, non-English speaking country, learned English as a second language in high school, studied the SAT books on my own for about 6 months and got higher than 1,300 on the first try, in a language other than my native one. So how are American kids with with educated parents and privileged backgrounds getting below 1,200? And yes, I had top grades at school, worked on the side too etc.

I never knew having educated parents and a privileged background was all that was needed to do well on the SAT.

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to sound mean or judgey, but I am curious. I grew up poor in a developing, non-English speaking country, learned English as a second language in high school, studied the SAT books on my own for about 6 months and got higher than 1,300 on the first try, in a language other than my native one. So how are American kids with with educated parents and privileged backgrounds getting below 1,200? And yes, I had top grades at school, worked on the side too etc.

The majority of kids with educated parents score above 1200 (based on SAT/ACT research data). I believe the score is in the 1300s (e.g., the NY Times recently published an article that used current data to explain elite college admissions). Also, in the US, the weaker score is the Math section on the SAT. Of course, there will be kids, no matter their socioeconomic status, scoring in the average range (1000-1100).

I don't want to sound mean or judgey, but I am curious. I grew up poor in a developing, non-English speaking country, learned English as a second language in high school, studied the SAT books on my own for about 6 months and got higher than 1,300 on the first try, in a language other than my native one. So how are American kids with with educated parents and privileged backgrounds getting below 1,200? And yes, I had top grades at school, worked on the side too etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to have a low test score than a GPA lower than 3.75UW. They say our kids shouldn't stress about grades -- then they make it ALL about grades. You can't have a bad day or a bad year because your 1500 SAT won't make up for those Bs even if was in AP classes.

This is why TO should go away. Someone who has a UW3.6 but took high rigor classes and gets a 1560 on SAT belongs in a elite college, someone who has a UW4.0 but took easier classes , or has grade inflation, and gets a 1290 does not.

+1,000,000

Anonymous wrote:What's the YCBK?

Your college bound kid - excellent podcast!!

What's the YCBK?

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Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

I don’t think that’s quite right because they are still considering the school context, among factors.

The topic was brought up on all three podcasts, and they all said the same thing. I assume that students have access to advanced classes at J-R and Walls, but the student body is economically diverse. That is the scenario that was discussed on the podcasts. The exception would be a high school that doesn't have APs/IB or advanced curriculum (e.g., magnet)-- a low-resource school. I'm sure it is rare that a UMC kid would attend a school that didn't offer a good number of APs/IBs or had a magnet program, so most AOs wouldn't encounter that scenario.

It is interesting...so "well resourced" might just mean opportunities to take advanced classes. But there will still be enormous differences in the experiences in a large urban public school like J-R--which does have a ton of AP classes but also huge classes and overextended support staff--versus elite private schools and wealthy public schools that small class sizes, individual attention, reasonable counselor-to-student ratios, and all manner of connections to things like internships. It seems to me that both school context and family income/wealth are independent (and interrelated) factors that should each be taken into consideration (individually and in combination).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

I don’t think that’s quite right because they are still considering the school context, among factors.

The topic was brought up on all three podcasts, and they all said the same thing. I assume that students have access to advanced classes at J-R and Walls, but the student body is economically diverse. That is the scenario that was discussed on the podcasts. The exception would be a high school that doesn't have APs/IB or advanced curriculum (e.g., magnet)-- a low-resource school. I'm sure it is rare that a UMC kid would attend a school that didn't offer a good number of APs/IBs or had a magnet program, so most AOs wouldn't encounter that scenario.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Above 1300 is still a really high SAT score!

Yes...people on DCUM act like it's not but it is a very good score (1350= 94th/90th national/test taker percentile, respectively; 1390 gets you to 97th/92nd). Now, I assume those numbers are for a single sitting and superscoring and multiple test taking skews things but people here act like a 1350 is subpar. It's absurd.

The issue is that it’s a good NATIONAL score, but not particularly competitive for DMV area.
For example, even if you scored in the high 1400s, which is GREAT—you have to consider that Stanford isn’t going to admit an entire entering class (or even more than 30 or so) from one geographic area. So your 1480 might get you a good look if you’re that one kid who lives on a farm in Montana, but not from DMV where 600 other 4.0 applicants (with major ECs) scored 1550+ than you.

I wonder about this. Is "DMV" treated like a monolith? Is the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from an underresourced DCPS school that has an average score of 950 treated the same as the "DMV kid" with a 1400 from one of the top privates where that score may very well be the average? I honestly don't know the answer to that question...but assuming that neither kid is first generation and that the colleges can't consider race, do they look at the school resources to contextualize the school?

The majority of selective colleges consider the resources available at the high school level. A kid at Dunbar who scores 1400 will not be compared to a Sidwell kid who scores 1400. This board assumes that every kid is from a well-resourced public or private high school. Plenty of AOs have gone on the record explaining this, e.g., Yale, UVA, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

Let's split the difference: what about a kid with 1400 at Walls or J-R? Definitely underresourced schools compared to Sidwell...but presumbably those kids are not going to get the same kind of "contextual" advantage, except they may only have a handful of kids applying from their school versus 30 from Sidwell.

It depends on the average SAT score for Walls or J-R and also the socioeconomic status of the individual student. If a kid is low-income at Walls scores 1400, and the average score is 1100, that kid will get a contextual advantage compared to a student at Sidwell. For example, a Yale AO explained this in their admissions podcast.

That makes sense...what if the average score at Walls is 110 but the 1400 kid there is upper income? I'm guessing that is actually a realistic scenario.

According to the YCBK, Yale, and Dartmouth podcasts, the UMC kid wouldn't have an advantage in that context because colleges also consider parent education, job titles, zip code, etc. Schools are looking for low-income/first-generation outliers.

I don’t think that’s quite right because they are still considering the school context, among factors.