<p>2400 is a very impressive score. And it does not mean all 238 students with perfect scores don’t participate in the olympiads and don’t have passion in activities that bode well with their intelligence. And many students don’t bother to send more time to practice SAT when there scores are 2300 or 2350 because they know the perfect score don’t guarantee the acceptance. They’d rather concentrate on activities that help them demonstrate the higher level of creativity and intelligence.</p>
<p>I suggested it in a different post, but how would you like an idea of just one attempt at SAT. Just one sitting and the score is yours…
Would it be more fair?</p>
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<p>And some of them don’t care to work for perfect SAT scores. By the time they take the SAT, they have moved far beyond what the SAT tests. </p>
<p>Let us stipulate that the BC exam tests more advanced knowledge of math than the SAT; let us also stipulate that the AP-English Composition and AP-English Literature test more advanced level of reading and writing than the SAT. These are three exams that match most closely the subject matters covered by the SAT.</p>
<p>Here are some figures from 2006:</p>
<p>AP-Calc BC scores of 5: 24,561.
AP-English scores of 5: 13,850
AP-language scores of 5: 19, 890.</p>
<p>Some more data: 30% of students at Princeton and 30% of students at Harvard are eligible for Advanced Standing. For Princeton, students must be specific distribution requirements, some with score of 4 or above, some with scores of 5. For Harvard, students must have scores of 5 on four full-year APs from an approved list (except for AP-language for which only 1/2 credit is granted).
<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/03/08/news/4593.shtml[/url]”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/03/08/news/4593.shtml</a></p>
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<p>I would agree with all of those stipulations. I’m checking for a data table (there should be a new one posted soon, anyway) of how many National Scholar awards there are in the AP program for students young enough to still be applying to college. (Such students number in the thousands by the time they graduate, but I’m still checking how many juniors are able to report that award as part of a college application.)</p>
<p><a href=“tokenadult:”>quote</a></p>
<p>What kind of evidence would a researcher have to investigate to determine whether math olympiad tests are more or less dependent on parental intervention and SES than SAT I or ACT scores? Do you have citations for any research publications on this issue?
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<p>Do you have citations yourself? Is there some reason that citations should be a prerequisite for discussing this subject, or trump the mountain of relevant first and second-hand (unpublished) knowledge that some people in these forums possess?</p>
<p>Mammall’s comments are absolutely correct about many things in this thread, in particular about accomplishments at the level of RSI and national competitions; at least in the USA, those are almost always dependent on parental involvement of various kinds. It is theoretically possible, and sometimes really happens, that without parental sophistication or support of any kind (or even with abuse from the parents!) somebody will manage to reach the top levels. In practice, among the students at the peak echelons, it is extremely and disproportionately common to have parents who, for example, know what Philips Exeter is and can fork over the money to send a kid there, or are sophisticated enough to go about getting a scholarship to a school of that caliber, or have navigated academia themselves, or have the drive to seek out expert help for their children, or go to CC and its online equivalents for advice, or (name any of a million other forms of parental contribution). </p>
<p>In a few places there are public resources, such as the NYC exam schools, where the needed materials are concentrated and available regardless of parenting, once the student is “hooked up” through admission to the school. Even in those cases, the student will more often than not have been groomed in overt and subtle ways for years before entering that school, and this again is a parent-dependent or parent-driven process in most cases.</p>
<p>^^it may be dependent on some parental involvement, but you have to be really, really talented in order to do well on these exams. In some ways, even professional awards (Fields medalist and Nobel Prize) are dependent on parental involvement, but in the same way you need to be extremely talented in order for it to matter. Mozart’s dad was the best musician in Austria and trained Mozart from an early age; Mozart may not have been as good without this training but I would hardly dismiss his accomplishments.</p>
<p>In my experience, the SAT and some other things colleges like to see are far more preppable than the math olympiads. </p>
<p>I went to a public magnet where the average SAT was 1400/1600 and took the smartest people from across the state. The coach of the US Math Olympics team was a math teacher there and coached the math team. Still we had only 6 people in the senior class to make USAMO (at the time, there were about 160 USAMO qualifiers in the country and not 500 like today.) And trust me, people were trying. </p>
<p>There are other reasons why you might not make the elite levels on these tests (i.e., spending a lot of time studying chemistry and/or biology instead of math), but the tests are really hard and the accomplishment is legitimate. </p>
<p>Like I said, there are other things which are more preppable. I’ve seen the accomplishments USA Today all-academic high school team, and most of the stuff they have is not really that impressive. (Lots of community service, etc.) There were guys I knew on the team who were highly packaged, did 1550+ on the SAT, and bombed the AMC. Intel is more packagable than the math olympiads, although there is a screening process to become a finalist where they look at your academic record and decide whether you did it yourself. People rarely come up with intel projects completely on their own–it’s more like they are involved in the project like a graduate student would be. In my experience the people who make Intel tend to have pretty bullet-proof resume’s across-the-board. The guys who make Intel finalist with a math project are pretty much geniuses.</p>
<p>Here is what I’m noticing in this discussion. Most of the defense of the academic competitions as better measures of intellect than the SAT/ACT center around math and science. If a college wants to find the most talented and taught math or science students out there, then I guess intel, RSI, olympiads are the way to go. But remember the SAT/ACT comprises critical reading and writing as well as math and science. And very, very few kids get perfect single sitting scores on them. No doubt some olympiad/intel mavens get 2400s and 36s. But probably not all of them or even most of them. Yes, we can bring in writing contests like scholastic gold key but again I would have reservations because of the very, very likely role of the parent in the submitted products. The SAT and ACT essays written under timed and controlled circumstances are, in my view, much more telling. An extraordinarily small number of kids are getting a 12 on the SAT essay. That says to me that this is an instrument that is quite effective at revealing kids on the extreme high end of the curve.</p>
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<p>You leave out achievement. Again, SAT measures 10th grade level math.<br>
Here are the profiles of some Harvard math students.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sciserv.org/sts/62sts/Byrnes.asp[/url]”>http://www.sciserv.org/sts/62sts/Byrnes.asp</a>
<a href=“http://www.sciserv.org/sts/63sts/Richelson.asp[/url]”>http://www.sciserv.org/sts/63sts/Richelson.asp</a></p>
<p>Byrnes graduated this past June. Other rising seniors include Tiankai Liu and Alison Miller who were both gold medalists in the 2004 IMO.</p>
<p>As for 800 in CR and Writing, these are impressive, but are these really essential achievements for students going into math and science? Conversely, should Tolstoy or Flaubert have demonstrated prowess in math? And would an 800 in writing be a good indication of someone’s promise as a writer? Remember the comments by teachers that Hemingway would have flunked the new SAT?</p>
<p>You use the SAT as a gauge of intelligence–as it is done for Talent Searches. But intelligence is not the same thing as knowledge or being prepared for college. If it were so, the high scorers in Talent Searches would all be applying to college at the age of 12 or 13; they don’t.</p>
<p>The only problem with that (referring to mammall’s praise of the SAT Writing test) is that when you look at what CB put out as model SAT essays, they were just awful – way below the standard I would expect from a humanities student at a top university, or even a top high school. Notwithstanding the UC study that found the old writing SAT II was the best predictor of college success, it is pitched at a level so rudimentary as to be useless at the elite level, even if scads of people don’t score perfectly on it.</p>
<p>One of my kids is a very good writer; she got 800 on the old SAT II. The other is serviceable, but that’s about it. He got 780/11. He worked very hard on his college application essays, but if you want to know why THAT top-scorer didn’t get accepted at a number of elite colleges, one of the main reasons was probably the quality of his essays. (The other was probably lack of focus – a BWRK who is very good at everything but not extraordinary at anything.)</p>
<p>Anyway, with writing, the colleges don’t have to rely on the SAT II; they can judge for themselves by reading the essays and other written materials the applicants submit.</p>
<p>Regarding the supposed Wow factor of a 12 on a standardized test essay:</p>
<p>In itself it tells little. That is because there’s a standard rubric by which one achieves a 12, and as long as one ‘hits the points’ in the desired formula, one scores high, whether the essay is interesting or boring. In fact, judging from the comments of students who are known to be fine writers, and their parents who later requested the full scored essay, a more complex, interesting essay can actually damage a score. My d was not required to take the essay portion, so I have no personal axe to grind. However, a very close family friend of ours who is a brilliant essayist (both expository & creative) & whose expository writing always proceeds logically, was alarmed at her disappointing test essay score. Parents ordered the hand-scored test, & figured out that the concepts must have been too complex for the examiner’s expectations. Student re-took test, deliberately dumbed-down her writing, & got the high score. She’s now once again writing impressively for campus publications at one of HYP. I’ve heard many other similar stories.</p>
<p>Siserune,
Then there are those kids who go to <em>public</em> math/science schools and manage to get to Olympiads, RSI, etc. without mom and dad forking out big bucks. It does not cost big bucks for a kid who is self-motivated and passionate to hunt down research opportunities and do the work needed for Olympiads. I’ve seen it done by a variety of kids from a variety of schools. None have a 2400, either.</p>
<p>What gets these kids where they are is the internal drive. I’m not saying that noone’s parents have ever thrown money at a kid or pressured said kid to perform at high levels, but what I <em>am</em> saying is that many kids do it without these factors. At our house, parental support consists of ordering books from Amazon from time to time, one summer program, postage and gas – and giving kids space when they need “think time.” </p>
<p>Some of these kids have been applying for competitive entry school programs since elementary school. They know how to write well, and they know how to prepare a resume. Some schools offer research classes where they hone these skills and get feedback from teachers. They know how to email a professor or reseacher and ask for a mentorship/advice on how to pursue a project. Not all projects require lab space and expensive equipment. I will concede that having a college/univeristy in the area is a big resource, however.</p>
<p>The Writing test wasn’t a big part of the application when I applied–it was only an SATII. I agree with JHS in that the sample essays seem pretty cookie-cutter and shallow. </p>
<p>I do think that performance in the verbal section is indicative of prowess in math and science, though. Right-brained thinking is critical in high-level math and science.</p>
<p>It’s hard not to make mistakes on any test. Even some of my profs at MIT occasionally made arithmetic errors on the board. But in my experience the math olympiad winners do most have at least 1550+/1600 on their SATI, if not a perfect 1600.</p>
<p>“The SAT and ACT essays written under timed and controlled circumstances are, in my view, much more telling.”</p>
<p>It does tell something but it is not the best tool to determine the writing ability and the creativity of the students. 25 minutes to write a SAT essay does not give much room for creativity. Compared to essays written by CTY students in class like Crafting the Essay, The Critical Essay,… the SAT essay looks pale. And the multiple choice questions in the SAT writing are just a little bit above the TOEFL questions for foreign students attending US colleges.</p>
<p>I certainly welcome the idea of having the writing contests for high school students though. Many foreign countries do this.</p>
<p>The “exemplary essays” published by the CB contained misspellings and ungrammatical usages that were to be disregarded because of the timed nature of the tests. Unfortunately, the writing was canned and trite. Creativity and imagination were unrewarded. A five-paragraph structure, however, was.</p>
<p>One of the things college profs struggle to get rid of is the five-paragraph structure.</p>
<p>^As a prof who teaches first year composition, I can attest to that!</p>
<p>And, without belaboring the story yet again, as the mom of two excellent writers who received a 6(!) and an 8 on the SAT 2 essay, I can also attest to how little it means, as far as I can see.</p>
<p>The part that I still don’t get is all the underlying negative anticipation. I have worked with gifted students for many years. I have yet to know of a single student of superior ability who is not motivated, indeed eager, to go far beyond assigned classroom work and required, standardized tests. This is completely apart from academic competitions, although again, when merely presented with the information that competitions are out there – information acquired accidentally by the student, info casually mentioned by a teacher or parent or friend – it tends to be that there is high interest on the part of the student to participate. Nor do I think that merely informing such a student of competitive opportunities equates to “pushing” a student.</p>
<p>But again, setting that aside, I have yet to encounter a truly gifted student lacking in any passion to pursue knowledge or refine achievement. It is difficult to restrain such a student, usually. (Which is why those teachers who are not themselves gifted sometimes are perplexed, frustrated by the presence of those students in the classroom.) Heck, marite’s son took 9 college courses. My own daughters have requested to take unique summer courses taught at a research university – subjects which are not, & would never be, available at even private high schools. Was I “pushing” them because I agreed to drive them there? (Sounds as if they were pushing me, actually, and they were, and all gifted students have the “push” to learn.)</p>
<p>Whether or not a student of superior ability is “proud to have no e.c.'s,” I have never known one to be content, let alone proud, to do nothing else but get good grades & high scores. It doesn’t have to be Intel or Olympiads or some other academic “brand” name. Students come up with “first” achievements all the time – things an admissions committee may never previously have heard of, and some of the positive results of those “first” or “obscure” achievements can be read on Acceptance threads on CC. My next door neighbor’s son travels every couple of months to various locations to participate in some tournament I have never heard of. It’s not chess, but some other pursuit requiring brains & skill. This is definitely not a privately schooled child, nor are Mom and son rich, & it was the student that found & pursued the activity. The Mom is just the legally mandated traveling companion.</p>
<p>I don’t see the point of deciding in advance that securing a seat in an Elite U should be guaranteed by a perfect standardized test score and nothing else, because it seems to me that implies an assumption that there will <em>be</em> nothing else.</p>
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<p>A very thoughtful comment.</p>
<p>Note: I haven’t read through this entire thread, and so someone may have told a similar anecdote.</p>
<p>Even though I was one of my elite school’s top students, for a long time I didn’t break 650 on any of the sections. This was a mystery to me (as I had peers who were in easier classes and were less academically inclined who were polevaulting my scores and telling me about it), but not one I dwelled on for that long. </p>
<p>For me, (who ended up scoring a 1400/1600 and a 2070/2400), there were a few reasons I didn’t do well on the test. The first was that I wasn’t particularly motivated to do it-- I found the questions either incredibly boring or incredibly confusing, I rushed through each of the sections because I just didn’t want to look at the questions any more, and unlike most of my peers, I refused private tutoring. The second was that I had a difficult time thinking through the logic of the test, and I constantly overthought questions or would start in on a math problem, AIME-style, before realizing that the variables are given numerical values on the diagram.</p>
<p>The fact that I didn’t perform as expected was more than made up for by my essay, transcript, recommendations, EC’s, etc, which told another story about my reading, writing, and quantitative abilities.</p>
<p>I’m sure this point was made pages and pages ago, but is it clear that there’s a factual predicate for this whole discussion? While I certainly know high-stat kids who have been turned down by this or that “top school”, I don’t know any high-stat kids who wanted to go to a “top school” who aren’t at one. Maybe they don’t get to pick, or maybe they pick between Brown and Chicago rather than between Princeton and Stanford, but they’re far from deprived. And many of them, maybe even most, DO get to pick among the HYPS schools, or at least some of them, if that’s where they apply. </p>
<p>Sure, there are outliers. But, in the end, I think it takes a combination of arrogance, poor strategy, and bad luck for a kid with very high scores on a broad range of standardized tests, and any kind of record of academic achievement consistent with that, to be shut out of “top schools” altogether. I would also like to know whether, anecdotes notwithstanding, there are actually enough of such kids to worry about.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s as much of top scorers getting shut out of the elite schools as it is the shock of being replaced by far less qualified admits.</p>