<p>Personally, I do believe they need to change the SAT to a certain extent (for example, the essay. especially the essay, in fact)–but for the most part, it’s fine. Let’s be real–it offers an advantage to those who are higher-income and can afford pricey test prep. However, I don’t think they’re setting the bar lower; I know somebody who got new SAT questions in her experimental section and she said they were “really weird.” They’re just changing it up a bit. The concepts will still be the same (except for a bit of vocab, which I didn’t really have a problem with in the first place since I read a lot, but some words are a little… insignificant to daily life; and the essay, which I firmly believe needed to be changed due to the fact that the old essay is scored more on how good you are at BSing sources than your writing skill). Sure, the SAT and the ACT are competing–but I think the change is good.</p>
<p>I’ll be taking all three tests, though–the ACT (this spring), old SAT (next fall, although maybe a bit earlier?), and new SAT (next spring). </p>
<p>My parents happen to be obsessed with me taking (pricey) test prep (whose money I’d rather spend on summer programs and the like), even though I just want to prep on my own. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk them out of it–even my counselor was like, “she doesn’t need test prep at all.”</p>
<p>My parents too. They are obsessed with getting me some sort of test prep (super pricey). I continuously tell them that I can study alone because its not like this material can’t be learned without a teacher, but they are insistent. I would really rather spend that money on summer programs and the like as well.</p>
<p>Odd thing is, my counselor said they SAME EXACT THING</p>
<p>My parents don’t try to get me any test prep materials. They don’t know much about tests or college really, they’ve probably heard of the SAT and ACT and such but they don’t know much else about them. So I just ask if they can take me to Barnes and Noble and then I buy the books (with their money) or I buy books online with my Christmas/birthday money.</p>
<p>We got SAT prep stuff from my neighbor (she’s a senior), actually xD We’re going to get ACT prep stuff from Amazon, though.</p>
<p>I live in a heavily (HEAVILY) college-focused area… Everybody’s pushing to get into the best college. Mainly because of their parents. So all the parents know far too much about the admissions process… But they think the best path is to be in every single honors/AP class and get a 4.0 (while having no life). </p>
<p>My sister also went through the whole college thingy, so my parents know about that. </p>
<p>I’m using my sister’s old prep books from 2011, my sister went through the college process as well but she followed her best friend to SFSU even though she might have been able to go to a cheaper school close to home, but then her friend decided not to go because it was too expensive, so my sister tranferred to a community college in L.A. My sister was very secretive about her test scores and such and wouldn’t let my mom ask any questions at her orientation, so they still don’t know much about colleges.</p>
<p>That’s why I want to go to a good college. So my parents will be able to get over the disappointment of their first child and be happy again.</p>
<p>My parents do know a little bit about colleges, though. For example, when my mother heard from my neighbor that she’s going to UCR, she said to my father “the UCs are all very good schools. That’s where I want [my name] to go.” And my father told me I should go to the University of North Carolina, he said it’s an Ivy League, I don’t know where he got that from.</p>
<p>My parents know nothing about liberal arts colleges (which I’m thinking of attending; of course, I have to figure out what I’m going to major in, first, because right now I’m making sure all the colleges have engineering, which basically rules out 90% of LACs). Honestly, most of the colleges they know of are Cali publics, a few privates nearby, and the Ivies. AKA the colleges that lots of people from my school attend. I intend to widen their scope, however.</p>
<p>@dsi411 Yeah, I guess it would be interesting to hear how a low-income person feels about this.
But I don’t see how the changes being made to the SAT are going to eliminate the ability to prep if they aren’t in fact dumbing it down. This is all rather silly. Having money will always give a person these type of advantages in life, or else money wouldn’t be what it is.</p>
<p>What really bothers me about the test revisions: Their reasons given for the test changes indicate that they are making it easier. They claim that they are concerned that blacks, hispanics, low-income and women score below whites, asians and the upper-class. The only plausible way to fix this disperancy via the test itself is to make the test easier.</p>
<p>And that’s just counter-intuitive. Making the SATs easier isn’t going to make low-income students and minorities more knowledgeable or better prepared for college!</p>
<p>By the way, I get the impression @dsi411 that you’re first-generation. I don’t know where I would be if my parents hadn’t attended college. I know a girl who’s parents didn’t go to college, and her parents are clueless. They don’t know anything about scholarships, financial aid, or these standardized tests. For example, she didn’t get to take the PSAT, because they thought it was “just another practice test”, and didn’t know it’s significance, and they decided to take her out to go Christmas shopping that morning. And, she probably wouldn’t have done good on it anyway, because nobody was stressing to her the importance of the PSAT and what scholarships she could get, so she wasn’t preparing. That’s just one example. Stuff like that makes me face-palm, but at the same time it’s so sad.
So kudos to you!</p>
<p>@livelaugh7 Why do you think that if you set the bar lower, hispanics and women would still score below? Could you elaborate on that?
Hey, here’s a funny idea: Do you think they will score lower because they are told they will score lower?</p>
<p>@Princess563 So right now, apparently high achieving males do better than hispanics and women (although I would love to debate this in regards to the material, opportunities etc.).</p>
<p>If you dumb down the test, all three “groups” would rise above the average, now lower, bar. But these more well-off males would still do substantially better merely because they have been doing so. Women would be doing substantially better than hispanics. etc.</p>
<p>If the test is dumbed down, won’t these men be doing better anyways? I don’t know. You can’t just “make” people do better on a test. You can give them an advantage, but you would have to give it to everyone as well, and that in turn would result in just more people scoring higher than “average.”</p>
<p>But then again, the average bar will rise and everything would stay the same.</p>
<p>I don’t think they do worse because they are told too. Of course, there are some outliers. But one has to take into consideration the economic and social backgrounds of each group. I must say though, that I think females (including myself) at my school do substantially better than the males all around. We only have a few hispanics, but they do not have the drive as other minority groups at our school. If, say, asians didn’t have as much drive and hispanics did, we would be having a very different conservation.</p>
<p>@Princess563 I’m not technically first-generation; my mother went to a nursing school in Nigeria and my father went to Alabama A&M university through the military (he is also from Nigeria). But my parents are still very similar to the girl you describe. They don’t know about standardized tests or anything. I just tell them to take me to school if I have an AP exam or the PSAT and they do. Then when I get the scores back the conversation goes a bit like this:
“Mommy, I got a 5 on the AP exam!”
“Oh, is that good?”
“Yes, it’s out of 5 so that’s a good score.”
“Oh, then good job. What test was that again? The one you took on the last day of school?”
“No, the one I took after school in May.”</p>
<p>Luckily, I’ve learned a lot from College Confidential about college.</p>
<p>@dsi411 I was in the same boat. My parents learned about standardized testing and continue to ask questions… but are insistent that I get prep…</p>
<p>Actually, my parents know mainly what they’ve heard about as well (my parents are both immigrants, and although both went to college, they did their degrees in India; my mom took a few courses at UT Austin for English literacy and for an equivalency degree (although Master’s degrees transfer from country to country, Bachelor’s don’t), but that’s about it. The college system there is vastly different–admissions depend entirely upon your test scores and what I guess is the equivalent of a GPA. Therefore, they don’t know the importance of ECs–only what they’ve heard. My dad keeps telling me to do fewer ECs, even though I already do far fewer than the majority of the student population. My parents hear that this person took test prep and got a 2400 on the SAT, and think that I should do the same. </p>
<p>And also about my sister. She was aiming to get into med school, but she didn’t do very well at her first year at UCSD (she was also majoring in BioE, which happens to be one of the most difficult majors there), especially in her Humanities courses, so she ended up going to India for med school instead of finishing her Bachelor’s. Therefore, my parents think I should “finish all my undergrad humanities requirements” at the CC during high school (I actually love the humanities alongside the sciences, and I want to take university courses in them). In addition, they don’t think that any college they haven’t heard of can be any good (for example, take Harvey Mudd. it’s not even ranked in the same category as UC Berkeley when it’s ranked, and my dad’s like “I don’t want to waste my money with you getting a degree from there” (by the way, although it’s expensive, my family would get enough financial aid to make the tuition equivalent to that of a UC, for which we’d probably get little to no financial aid; obviously this is pure speculation that assumes I’d get in, since it’s an incredibly selective school, but can’t I dream?), which really annoys me since I’m particularly interested in LACs). </p>
<p>In California they have this thing for military dependents where you can get free tuition to any California public university if your parent was injured in service. So I pretty much have to go to a UC because it’ll save a lot of money, unless another college gives me enough aid that what I’d be paying is less than what I’d pay for housing and other non-tuition fees at a UC.</p>
<p>Just took the Khan Academy practice SAT:
Composite: 2170
Math: 790 (-1)
Writing: 740 (-2 and assuming 9 on essay)
Critical Reading: 640 (-10 get rekt collegeboard <em>sarcasm</em>)</p>