<p>This thread is a spinoff of another one discussing the hype behind 2400 (and close to it) SAT scores. </p>
<p>Some schools assume that high SAT scores involved prep classes. Many schools superscore as an administrative function before presenting a student’s file to the ad comm – so the actual admissions committee would not see if a 2400, 2350, 2280 was earned in one sitting, is a superscore, or is the single highest result of several diligent attempts. How do schools distinguish between these different levels of achievement? Should they?</p>
<p>The question we’ve raised is this:<br>
If adcomms don’t see the raw data (CB score reports), does it make sense to have the GC letter mention that a score was earned in a single sitting, without prep? </p>
<p>Would love to hear from admissions folks on this one, too!</p>
<p>This is just off the top of my head, but I think that if the admissions committee of a particular university has decided that the optimal way to evaluate SAT scores is to examine the student’s highest score on each section of the test, what you’re suggesting might be offensive because it tends to imply that another way of looking at SAT scores would be preferable. To me, it sounds as though you’re second-guessing the admissions committee’s policy.</p>
<p>I also don’t know whether an admissions committee would necessarily think that “without prep” is better than “with prep.” Since when is it better to not study for a test?</p>
<p>Marian, I think the point is that students who don’t study for a test and score very high are seen as better equipped than students who take several SAT prep classes and get the same score, or that students who do well on all of the sections in a single sitting might be seen as better equipped than students who did well on Math but did badly on Writing, studied a lot for Writing, then did well on Writing but scored badly on Math.</p>
<p>I’ve heard elsewhere in cyberspace that at least one professional school that formerly asked applicants if they did test prep has since abandoned the question on its application. Apparently that question didn’t provide the professional school with useful information. </p>
<p>It’s unclear, today, how many students applying to the top colleges took the SAT I multiple times as middle-school-age Talent Search participants. Those scores vanish from a student’s record of scores by default. There isn’t any definitive way to know for sure who sat for the SAT I only once.</p>
<p>I think it’s a big mistake to have the GC talking about scores. The GC should be talking about something personal to the kid – that kid’s accomplishments, or personality, etc. </p>
<p>Example: my daughter’s g.c. went to teachers at the school who had taught my daughter but were <em>not</em> the ones writing her recs, and asked them to submit a short note with 3 adjectives that came to mind when describing my d, and other comments welcome. Then he included a short summary of what he received in his report, with what he said were the 3-most common adjectives, and a few quotes of some of the best comments. I remember one of the words was “ambitious”. I thought that was the kind of thing that probably had a lot of impact, because it was giving a portrayal of my daughter as seen by the school community as a whole. </p>
<p>The test scores are what they are, and all of the top colleges require that SAT scores be transmitted directly from the College Board - so they are going to know about multiple sittings. I think focusing on trying to bolster the score with a g.c. report would backfire, because it would suggest that the kid doesn’t have much to offer other having people brag about his scores. </p>
<p>When I first saw the thread title, I thought you were asking about something different – what about the kid who needs to explain poor scores? For example, a kid with recognized LD’s who was denied accommodations by the College Board, despite having a 504 plan in place in the high school? In that case a word of explanation might be in order.</p>
<p>Of course, calmom, the GC should be talking about something personal to the kid. But I think that maybe, just maybe, the fact that on the first time at bat a particular kid self-studied for 3 or 4 hours, took the SAT or ACT, and earned a 2400 or a 36, is a noteworthy personal accomplishment in and of itself, one worth mentioning along with other accomplishments.</p>
<p>Also, admission committees typically do NOT know about multiple sittings. In general, at the clerical level folks sift through subscores from multiple sittings to cherry-pick the student’s highest subscores. The committee receives the redacted version of a kid’s scores. And the committee doesn’t know whether a student took the SAT once or five times. Perhaps they don’t care. But like Counting Down, I’d love to hear from one of our resident admissions reps.</p>
<p>How would the g.c. know what prep the kid had? As we all know, Xiggi studied very systematically for the SATs on his own, by a self-described method that probably rivals what the best test prep programs do, and which took a tremendous amount of inner discipline… but did he tell his school g.c. what he had done?</p>
<p>*does it make sense to have the GC letter mention that a score was earned in a single sitting, without prep? *</p>
<p>Well if that is what you want your GC to mention- in my experience, GCs will emphasize whatever you want.
I don’t know how relevant it would be to illustrating how much they can get out of college though.
Some schools are deemphasizing test scores, and looking for other attributes that contribute to a well rounded class ( note I didn’t say well rounded applicant)
Although certainly you could argue that someone who doesn’t study for tests and sits down and gets 100% is part of a well rounded class.
( as are the students who don’t test well, but make great contributions to class discussions)</p>
<p>I don’t see the point. If the schools care they can see exactly which scores you got when. There’s no way for a GC to know if you took a course or not. The one thing a GC could say that I could imagine being helpful is, “This is the highest SAT score anyone in our school has ever gotten”, that might mean something.</p>
<p>I’ll join the chorus here asking for responses from college admission officers who care to comment on this issue. </p>
<p>Hi, CountingDown, to you I’ll ask the question that maybe I should have asked at first: what help would you expect such a letter to provide to the applicant’s overall college application? What favorable inference would you expect the admission committee to make on the basis of such a letter that they wouldn’t make anyway on the basis of the other materials that appear in the admission file?</p>
<p>High scores following much lower scores, or inconsistent with the rest of the file, or a moderately large jump in score after a series of retakings with no jumps, are suggestive of test prep. If such a pattern were seen in an applicant from a university-obsessed demographic such as affluent children of yuppies, private school students, or suburban Asians, it would strongly suggest test prep. High scores per se don’t necessarily indicate anything. </p>
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<p>It is known both as common sense and the result of calculations (under various assumptions) that superscoring introduces a positive bias, on the order of 10-15 extra points per section per retaking. Admissions officers know this in some form. If and where it is important to them, I’m sure they can take it into account. </p>
<p>As has been covered and referenced on CC many times, for the schools at which a 2400 is not uncommon in the applicant pool, the clerical function of computing superscores applies only to formal aspects of admission, i.e., as part of the Academic Index formula, as an item for the AdCom summary sheets, for determining eligibility for scholarships based on SAT cutoffs, etc.
It would be very surprising if universities do anything but mechanically follow the formula for all applicants for those objective aspects of the process.</p>
<p>However, in addition to the formal aspect, at the most selective schools, between one and three readers examine and annotate the entire application, assigning qualitative ratings for academics, EC and other factors. These readers have access to the whole score report and the option to consider it in their ratings, whether or not the score report is present at AdCom meetings. In particular, if the reader sees a single sitting of 2400 and no other scores, probably that would make a better first impression than a 2400 composed from several scores. Whether it’s marginally, significantly, irrelevantly or decisively better would, one assumes, depend on the score report and the rest of the application.</p>
<p>Schools went to superscoring because of the complaint that too much pressure is created by having the result of one day’s testing count for so much. To begin to value a high score on a single date above the super score undoes the purpose of this change. I agree with those that suggest you be happy with the high score and the ability to focus on other things rather than retesting and forget the GC letter.</p>
<p>I am unimpressed by those who tell me that the score involved no test prep. Did you not read? Did you avoid math for a year? Did you carefully avoid writting between the exams?</p>
<p>curious, there’s normal school work level, and then there’s frantically flipping through SAT vocab lists and doing practice test after practice test.</p>
<p>Curious–if the purpose of reading, taking a math class, etc, is to get a high SAT, I guess you could stretch and call that test prep. It is certainly not the generally assumed meaning of the term, though, and I doubt it’s the reason most people read.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d much rather see my kids reading than studying vocab lists. Read enough and vocab lists are superfluous. You can decipher most vocab from a) context or b) with knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, and roots (and thank your 5th grade reading teacher!).</p>
<p>I agree with Counting Down on vocab. My oldest reads at least 100 sci-fi or fantasy books a year. He got an 800 twice on the SAT verbal section without spending a second studying vocabulary. He’s a B student in English because he’s a major procrastinator when it comes to writing papers. (Somehow though he never pulled off an 800 in math even though he’s much, much better at math!)</p>
<p>I agree. A few challenging books on varied subjects makes for excellent test prep and is lot more interesting than test prep courses. There is this notion out there that some kind of secret advantage is conferred by test prep courses. I think the test prep companies my help spread this myth. Really the best prep is to take a couple of practice tests, read broadly, and take your course work seriously (especially math). None of this takes any money to speak of just some time and discipline.</p>
<p>Curious14,
Yup! That’s the extent of “prep” at our house. Read a lot from an early age, know the format/types of questions, and avoid bonehead math mistakes.</p>
<p>DS1 also reads a ton of SF, as well as various current events magazines, a couple of national newspapers online, and when he was small, British children’s authors (Kiddie Brit Lit is MOST excellent for vocab).</p>