<p>Dear emilybee, how long did you hire the private coach ?</p>
<p>his score is 1500/2400… </p>
<p>yes, Embilybee does give me hope too. his grades are from A to B and really relax in the past years.
he told me he’s not worried too much not to get into decent Uni… </p>
<p>I meant a therapist.
The book “The Myth of Laziness” is about ADHD by the way.</p>
<p>The reason I did not take this poster seriously is because the kid is so young and 1500 isn’t bad at all at that age. It seems like it may be satirical-? Or maybe it’s serious, and if so, as I said, I think the student may need support at some point.</p>
<p>The parent actually describes feeling “hopeless.”</p>
<p>kykch - I have a son the same age and I don’t know his SAT scores because he has never taken the test! I really don’t want to know at this point because it’s irrelevant - he’s very young and one year can make an enormous difference. My son has no interest in testing or rote learning, yet he’s smart and has a keen interest in other subjects (arcane and different sorts of things). I’ve learned to be patient because his two older sibs were similar…I wondered how they’d ever get accepted anywhere, but, lo and behold it came together…one just graduated from Brown and the other attends Harvard. My advice is to make sure your son is interested and engaged in and out of school this coming year…leave the test prep until next summer. It’s really counterproductive to raise anxiety about test scores that don’t matter right now. Let him find his interests and his own way with your gentle guidance. </p>
<p>Gee- he hit average for seniors as a freshman. Scores will improve vastly with two more years of living and education. Stanford doesn’t even look at HS freshman grades (darn, in son’s case) probably because they know underperformance then does not mean anything. </p>
<p>I sure hope you don’t call your child lazy or pressure him to perform. That’s the best way for him to rebel by not doing his best. Also do not put labels of any kind on him. Encourage him to learn as much as he can. If he isn’t doing well consider that he may be bored- find out. Then find ways for his school to actively engage his intelligence. This test was a snapshot of where he is right now. </p>
<p>btw- my gifted son did not study for the SAT, 2400 his senior year. His grades, however…he became a slacker. I do not think parents should push a lot of coaching for kids instead of letting the test reflect who they are. OP- do not start prepping your child for this test during his sophomore. Instead concentrate on making sure he learns how to study, studies and does his work. That will be plenty of test prep for the next year.</p>
<p>it seems that it requires over 2100 to get into a decent uni nowadays.</p>
<p>NO! Look at all of the public flagship test score ranges and also at many other good schools, public and private. Many with SATs in the 600’s on each test. Most college students will not have 700’s in their tests. Please do not think that only the top 5 or 50 schools in the US are “decent”. Your own state flagship will have many gifted students populating the ranks. </p>
<p>i am not from the states so it’s even more competitive, i think…</p>
<p>@skykch - IIRC, I think he started with the tutor shortly after he got his PSAT score Jr yr. He took the ACT that March (I think) and got a 26 or 28 (can’t remember which) and then he took the SAT in June - I don’t remember his score but it was an improvement, for sure. He retook both in the fall of his Sr, yr (October?) He did better on the ACT so that was the score he sent to colleges. </p>
<p>In the beginning he was going twice a week and the tutor was strictly for the critical reading. She didn’t teach him the material but just worked on getting him to recognize the different types of questions and what was being asked. She worked on only one type of question per session. I think once school was over he only went once a week and then I hired a Math tutor for a few weeks - I think he saw her maybe 4 times at most. The CR tutor was a retired teacher from my district’s high school and only took a student if you were referred by someone who had used her. The Math tutor was a teacher at my district’s HS and I got her through a referral, too. </p>
<p>His school has all sophomores take the PSAT and I was hoping to see a bigger improvement in his score his junior yr. But, when it was equally bad, I knew he needed a tutor. </p>
<p>Also, one doesn’t need 2100 to get into a decent uni or college, imo… </p>
<p>At this age, it is one step at a time, let them develop some of their own appropriate pride and then work with that. I doubt college is on this kid’s radar at 15. He’s probably more worried about being comfortable in his own skin. You can help or you can hinder.</p>
<p>Is this kid going to BS this fall?
You said he had multiple acceptances. So, how much of this is his slacking, how much is the parent setting expectations so high, so early? </p>
<p>Thanks Emilybee.
Yes, the kid is going boarding school in US. He got acceptance from 2 schools and few were on waitlist.
He should go for better boarding school however, he only studied his SSAT last min and not so good on critical reading as he didnt read much all along. So the english part really drove his entire score down same as SAT. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why a “better boarding school” matters (except maybe for connections with schoolmates?)</p>
<p>It’s very likely not going to help with college admissions (the quality of the college counselors matter most in that case, but that’s idiosyncratic by school and may not be correlated with being harder to get in to).</p>
<p>In any case, in boarding school, he’ll do what he’ll want to do. Hopefully, he picks up some passions. If he’s bright, the test scores will be fine.</p>
<p>The interesting thing about the US is that, outside of a few industries like management consulting and investment banking, there’s a much bigger gap in entrance difficulty between schools than there is post-graduate opportunity, and most people care more about what you can do than the school you went to (long way of saying that the school you went to doesn’t matter all that much in most industries).</p>
<p>Also, admissions are holistic, so test scores aren’t all that matter.</p>
<p>Now granted, if he wants to go back to his home country after graduation, the name of the school may matter (though even there, some schools are respected but may not be extremely hard to enter).</p>
<p>I think maybe we need to up the frankness here about the elephant in the room: mostly, CC doesn’t take kindly to parents trying to push and package their kids from an early age. </p>
<p>OP’s kid got into two great BS: it’s not good enough, the freshman SAT score and SSAT don’t satisfy, the focus here is on lazy and college chances, maybe a transfer, tutors. It’s too much, at this time. </p>
<p>I think OP needs to give the son a chance to settle in, acclimate to new routines and peers- and get faculty/admin input back on his first semester, maybe the first year. </p>
<p>Imo, we back off, too.</p>
<p>Since the OP is being attacked because his son in only a sophmore, mine is rising Junior and lazy as one can be. GPA is 3.8. PSAT 110. In boarding school. Spends every free moment on youtube. Beyond doing homework which is mostly on time, he does NOT spend one second on anything academic. He is on his a*s all day watching youtube videos. THat is what the dorm parent tells me and I believe it because I see the same exact thing at home. I am concerned. BTW, he bombed in SSAT. Perhaps not good at tests like these. Will be taking ACT. Is currently taking ACT Prep class. No, I am not prepping/packaging him for Ivy. I just want him to get into a decent Engineering school. I am worried how he will fare when I am not around reminding him to work hard college. Not well is my guess. Flame away, fellow parents.</p>
<p>^^^^
It is not at all easy to maintain a 3.8 at most BS’s. So he must be doing something academic. I think you are correct in stating that perhaps he is not good at taking standardized tests.</p>
<p>Make sure there are no learning disabilities or ADHD. And again here is a great list of test-optional schools, many of them highly selective. <a href=“http://fairtest.org/university/optional”>http://fairtest.org/university/optional</a> Otherwise, as people often say, there is a certain need to “accept the kid on the couch,” at least until he or she grows up a little more. (And scores do go up over the high school years, considerably.)</p>
<p>For international parents, in the US it is felt that there are many valuable options for college, and for future success, for students with a wider range of grades, scores and accomplishments. I cannot speak for the educational culture of a particular poster’s country of origin but on CC, it may take some translation so to speak. That said, realize there are many many great schools in this country that offer an excellent education, even if they are not well-known at home. </p>
<p>I won’t go into detail but I personally know several people who were “lazy” and kind of a mess through mid-twenties and then took off like rockets (one is VP of a major tv network). I also know people who had stellar grades and scores and 40 years later have not done much at all in terms of career.</p>
<p>“there is a certain need to accept the kid on the couch”</p>
<p>I agree with this. My friend has a D like this and the best thing the parents ever did was to simply accept that her interests did not lie in academia. My friend and her H are highly educated people with impressive degrees, however one of their D’s leans heavily towards the arts, especially in the area of design. She just didn’t like school all that much. When she was younger it was always a source of much contention as they tried to “re-direct” her. It never worked. She was always the B - C student who would readily admit that “school was not her thing.” She is a gorgeous girl with many artistic talents and the parents finally just let her be.</p>
<p>She actually is attending a 4 year SAT optional college that has a very good reputation in it’s region of the country. I hear she has a new handbag and jewelry line that she is about to launch online. She is happy and thriving so I think it all ended well.</p>
<p>There are SAT test optional schools…many of them.</p>
<p>I have a junior who is definitely not lazy. But…prepping for the PSAT was not happening. He says he plans to prep, wants to do well enough on PSAT for natl merit, etc , but he wasn’t doing anything beyond a few sat questions of the day. This summer I started a practice routine with him after dinner. We have a few old tests and every night he does a section, scores it and goes over the wrong answers. Takes him less than 40 minutes a night. But…he still needs my reminders to actually do it. I have wondered if he is a bit ADHD although he is a 4.0 student at a fairly hard high school, he is extremely fidgety. During the school year he does not need any reminders from parents to do his homework and I generally think of him as self motivated and hard working. I think he is just still young enough to need an outside deadline imposed on him to get the practice done.</p>
<p>Does the BS offer any kind if test prep?</p>