Reveal High SAT?

[mathmom]

As far as I know my son didn't discuss SAT scores with friends, but he might have. Since most of his friends were also NM finalists or commended I doubt there would have been any issues of jealousy. I think he should play it by ear, if he's asked by all means tell, but otherwise keep mum.

I'd be inclined not to tell the teachers. They may well get the word anyway, but my main concern is that they might make their recommendation letters about the scores, when what the colleges are really interested in is how he contributed to those teacher's classes.

BTW my son got the highest PSAT scores in the school when he was a sophomore, it had the effect that his GC who was brand new to the school sat up and noticed him and ended up writing a very nice recommendation and I suspect lobbied for a couple of awards he received.

[CountingDown]

I PM'd you...but generally speaking, the kids know where and when it's safe to share, if at all. This applied to scores, college application lists, and acceptances, in S1's case. S shared scores with teachers when it came time to give them info for recs. There are often enough kids in magnet programs who do well that a stellar score may not be as uncommon as one might think.

When the list of NMSFs comes out, a general sense of scores will become clear, but the more kids at one's school who make NMSF, the less of a big deal it is.

[prefect]

I think your son will find that once he shares his score with a friend, it will spread all around the school and to parents. I think my son probably shared his score with one or two close friends. Well, they told their parents. Parents told other parents and so on and so on. Keep that in mind if he really doesn't want a lot of people to know. In general, I think most kids get a good sense of when it's OK to discuss their scores. I see no harm in letting teachers who are writing recs know the scores.

[Alumother]

What we found was that the kids at my son's school who were in the high SAT cohort all eventually told eachother their scores. This did not happen until senior year. At that point they kind of rooted for eachother, and kind of competed. It was quite friendly - the school is Catholic and known for a "whole child" approach that discourages wild stressing over academic performance. But the kids did figure it out themselves.

In our case, the GC certainly found out his scores. It was a good thing. Then S told the teachers, senior year, where he had a relationship and they were cheering him on anyway. The ones who wrote his recommendations were obviously in this group.

There seems to be an organic path for the communication of these scores, to those who will hear them well, at the appropriate time.

There are many things to worry about so I wouldn't pick this one.

[epiphany]

I completely agree with mammall's posts. The proof of the wisdom of her view lies in the results of her D's college admissions. My D was also circumspect, and happens also to dislike being highly visible. She is modest by nature & by choice. All of those factors did play into her recommendations, as her teachers offered to me some of their comments (unsolicited), which included references to her character. Parents & students should not underestimate the factor of character in admissions -- when character is evident in the application and/or the recommendations. There have been some recent posts on PF from surprised families, regarding this. (i.e., positive stories). It has also been quite evident to me over the last couple of years, minimum, in reviewing some of the results threads over in the student forums. The tone of the results posts revealed quite a bit.

OTOH, I do not think Hunt is out of place is asking the question or should be made to feel embarrased about it. (Post #4)

At our school, the Naviance plots get posted as soon as results come in, which includes Early results, so my D was unsuccessful in keeping hers a secret for too long. At a small school especially, everyone knows everyone.

[Hunt]

I don't feel embarrassed. I am acutely aware, though, that this is a pretty good problem to have.

[horsegirl1050]

If your son is a competitive magnet program, there are likely many kids with comperable scores in his class...he won't be given any extraordinary treatment or be treated any differently.

[Hunt]

Info from previous years suggests that there will be only a handful of scores in that vicinity. I will admit, though, that one of the reasons he's hesitant to reveal his score is the possibility that somebody else may have earned a 2400.

[tokenadult]

What are his summer plans? Such a score might help with a summer program admission process. It's probably good for a teacher to know, and perhaps not necessary for a fellow student to know. (In my day, the top-scoring students in my high school and our buddies in the sister high school in our district all revealed their scores to one another, usually by showing the actual score report to friends. Maybe the culture isn't the same in your high school. Oh, yes, two of the top five students as to test score in my school district dropped out of high school, because they loathed the underchallenging curriculum.)

[hikids]

At D's school they mostly did not tell, other than they would or would not take them again. Which is a clue. However, I think the HS got copies.

[kenf1234]

So far he has told people that he was happy with his score.

That sounds like the correct response to me. I can't see how he can benefit by telling his score to his peers. However, sometimes it can help if teachers know his score. Let's say he is competing to be on the academic decathlon team or quiz bowl or whatever. If the head teacher knows he has a very high SAT, they might be more inclined to put him on the team.

[Northstarmom]

"In our case, the GC certainly found out his scores. It was a good thing. Then S told the teachers, senior year, where he had a relationship and they were cheering him on anyway. The ones who wrote his recommendations were obviously in this group."

Scores are automatically sent to the school. That doesn't mean that the GC --particularly of juniors-- will look at them or that teachers will know.

When we had a conference with older S's teachers fall of senior year (because older S had major senioritis), the teachers were surprised to hear that S's PSAT qualified him for NM commended.

S was getting a "D" in AP English, and was 99th percentile SAT in that. S was getting a D in part because S wasn't doing assignments that required him to look up any words that he didn't know in reading assignments. Truth was, S's vocabulary was extraordinary, so he didn't have much to look up.

S was getting a D in his math class, and his math teacher had heard that S was talented verbally, and thought that S just wasn't that talented in math. Meanwhile, S's SAT math scores were among the highest in his IB program. S just wasn't bothering to do math assignments or study.

Anyway, our sharing S's scores with the teachers helped them correctly view him as a smart, lazy student, instead of treating him like a student who was trying, but wasn't bright enough to do better.

[NewHope33]

Hunt - Your question made me sigh. Of course you should have a (brief!) discussion with your S about this. Yes it's his decision, but 17 year olds aren't good with concepts like "ramifications" and "unanticipated outcomes." Besides, a decision NOT to tell won't be warmly received by friends and teachers who ASK. We suggested our daughter share her lowest subscore only "Oh I did really well. I got a 670 on the writing part!"

As for teachers, the capable ones already knew D was smart. But not all teachers are capable. Like Northstarmom we did share scores with the occasional dense teacher -- for attitude adjustment purposes only.

Good luck with it all. At minimum resolving this problem will be good practice for the unanticipated issues that come up during application season!

[Northstarmom]

"We suggested our daughter share her lowest subscore only "Oh I did really well. I got a 670 on the writing part!" "

Why? What's wrong with sharing one's high scores if one wants to and others ask?

When I was in h.s., I was happy to have smart friends, including some who scored higher than I did. In fact, some of us were in friendly competitions over scores.

I don't see anything wrong with a student's not wanting to share scores, but I don't understand why one would advise a student to share scores in a way that makes them seem to have accomplished less than they did. Unfortunately, when I taught college at a 2nd-3rd tier, I had several excellent students who hid their accomplishments from their friends by acting like they were barely passing when actually they were going to graduate magna.

Sadly, their friends actually were having major grade problems. The students with low grades also happened to be admirers of the top students (who were gregarious, popular, etc.) and had no clue that the students whom they admired actually were people with high grades who studied hard. If the students who did have high grades had admitted that, they may have inspired some of their peers to do much better, while also shattering the idea that if you're smart, you couldn't be popular and cool.

[momreads]

My son, who is a junior, does not discuss his SAT scores with his peers, partly because he does not want some of the others to feel badly. He also does not like to brag. One of his classmates has taken the SAT four times. He plans to go back and take it again in the fall, because he is seeking a particular score for a highly selective school. (The young man needs to raise his math score about 100-130 points) He will talk about it with teachers, because they are generally interested.

In fact, his AP English teacher and his dad, a math whiz, have this friendly little rivalry going. When he took the SAT in January, the two joked that this would be a battle to see if he were more of a math kid or an English kid. That morning, we all got up to check his scores. His teacher awaited a phone call from him. He got the same score on the two sessions! Satisfied, my son went back to bed for an hour. He didn't call his teacher, so she just thought the worse. Fortunately for her and my husband, they still laugh and joke that they can share him!