<p>Congrats to Suzy’s D on the SAT and to Sally’s softballgirl on the all-star team. All good stuff :)</p>
<p>D. got 800 on her subject test. We are very happy!</p>
<p>suzy, Congratulations to your D. It’s a big relief. even if she wants to do it again, this first time success must give her confidence.
I never understand how essay affects the writing score. can someone explain?</p>
<p>D not happy with SAT scores at all. Lower than she scored on soph PSAT and practice tests. Now she is worried she did not do as well as she expected on PSAT. I suspect though that she had a bad test and did better on PSAT. Today was a dress up day for spirit week at her school, so she was in her superhero costume this morning when she checked her scores. Tough to see Supergirl cry.</p>
<p>Congrats to Suzy’s and Maxwell’s Ds! Fantastic!</p>
<p>Vistajay, aw I’m sorry your D cried. I’ve been there with older girls and know it’s tough. She’ll do beautifully next time I’m sure. Maybe you can do something special with her over the weekend?</p>
<p>Yay to Maxwellequations and Suzy’s girls for doing well. Hopefully, Suzy, your D will be happy with her scores. I also don’t know how the essay affects the writing score.</p>
<p>Vistajay, I’m sorry to hear about your D and how hard hit she was by her score. I agree with 3girls - do something over the weekend to take the edge off.</p>
<p>D is taking the ACT this weekend, so sushi tomorrow night! I’m hoping that D actually is studying this time (she carries the ACT book around with her everyday - I’m not sure she knows how these things work: opening the book, putting pencil to paper…).</p>
<p>I believe the essay makes up about 1/3 of the Writing score. I found this: </p>
<p>Students receive three Writing scores: their multiple-choice subscore (ranges between a 20 and an 80), their essay subscore (ranges between a 2 and a 12), and their overall Writing scaled score (ranges between a 200 and an 800). The overall Writing score is calculated by scaling the multiple-choice subscore and the essay subscore. The multiple-choice subscore accounts for about 2/3 of the overall Writing scaled score while the essay subscore accounts for the remaining 1/3. [SAT</a> Scoring | Learn how the SAT is scored](<a href=“http://www.studypoint.com/ed/sat-scoring/]SAT”>SAT Scoring - How SAT Test Scoring Works)</p>
<p>Maxwell - yay for your D! That’s fantastic.</p>
<p>vistajay, I’m really sorry your D did not do as well as she expected. It’s really hard to see them upset like that - I feel for you both.</p>
<p>I am happy with softball girl scores- she was a little disappointed. She didn’t quite make the score she was aiming for, 60 points off. She already was planning to resit in Dec. I think she can do it. I am not sure if she talks with her friends, but I hope she realizes that she has a great score and many students would be delighted with her score. I hope she is not trying to compete with her big sis. When I looked up her percentile ranks she is right in the 90- 95 range that she has scored in all her life.</p>
<p>Suzy - Can I hear a whoo- hoo!!! and another for Maxwell.</p>
<p>My d had a 9 on the essay. I have no idea how she found that out, I can’t find it on her SAT organizer. </p>
<p>Vistajay-she has plenty of time to get her score to where she likes it. Many kids are in that position in their senior year. Hope she has a good day, hard to watch our kids be upset.</p>
<p>Suzy, I’m sure you’ve heard me moan about the SAT essay. I’ll be delighted if the impact to D’s score is only 40 points. In all other respects, she’s ready for the SAT but she so dreads that essay and takes so long to write it that I know she’s going to be hurt by it. I think she got a 740 total with a perfect MC on a mock test (granted, not the real thing). I think that’s a tremendous score that she should be thrilled with if she gets it in real life, so I’m urging her to forget the essay, do her best, and focus on the rest of the test. Sounds like your D did amazingly on the SAT. </p>
<p>Sally, 90-95% sounds pretty great to me! Good for your D! 60 points is really just a question or two so if she wants to go through this again, I bet she’ll make that next level.</p>
<p>Congrats to Maxwells daughter!! Vista I am sorry to hear about your daughter, but she still has time to take it again. Will she take the ACT?</p>
<p>3girls is your daughter having a tough time because of the " perfectionist thing?" She needs to think of a news story or book that she can carve into an essay. It should be simple ( hard for our kids) and take up the 2 (?) pages- no more, no less. I know you have done this- tell her to focus on finishing and not on quality. I feel your frustration.</p>
<p>Ah, twogirls, you know what I am dealing with! She gets annoyed with me when I tell her to be less focused on writing something good and more focused on writing something. She did suggest yesterday that we sit down together over the weekend and practice fast and furious essay writing.</p>
<p>I wish she weren’t so hard on herself. If only I could mix the temperament of my eldest with that of my youngest…</p>
<p>Thanks yes D is doing better as her day progresses. And really she did not score poorly, just 100 points or so below where she expected. She will get there. She does have a lot of fun activities at school over the next two days, and a nice weekend planned, so she won’t dwell on her score for long.</p>
<p>@mihcal1 @twogirls @keepmecruisin thank you so much for your supportive comments.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the parents of Oct SAT students! I hope your kids all did great! My DD is taking the PSAT next week so fingers crossed.</p>
<p>vistajay, so glad to hear your daughter is feeling better.</p>
<p>HI All! So tapping the collective wisdom…I remember for my older S, that there was a place on the Common App to report the Writing Score without the Essay. Am I remembering that wrong?</p>
<p>S15’s SAT scores had the same composite as his older sister’s and were a little lower than his ACT equivalent. It’s the math. 
They are really good scores but it’s disappointing that he couldn’t hit 700 on math. He did say that the PSAT seemed easier so maybe he will hit the necessary PSAT score.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear there are a few of our kids upset by test scores, I hate that this is so highstakes for them but at least we are at a point where they can decide to take it again…</p>
<p>D’s scores are good. CR fantastic, math was ok, Writing multiple choice was excellent but essay she got a 7! I knew it. She really lacks the ability to crank out an essay like that in 25 minutes. She can do it if she is knowledgeable about the subject, but the SAT essay format stresses her out. The part where you are supposed to list three examples, even if completely untrue, is something she finds so ridiculous. So math + CR are good enough for admissions at most of the schools on her list, and for some decent merit. She would need to go up 30 points to get the full tuition awards at a couple of schools so she probably will retake again in January after working on the math a bit over winter break. She does not have math this year- she took Calc as a sophmore but really hates math, so she is taking AP Computer Science which counts as a math credit. Working out well except she has not done much math in the last 6 months so I think with some additional practice time she can bump it up a bit.</p>
<p>So ACT in December which I think will be better than SAT, then SAT in January and she should be done ( other than 3 AP tests in the spring plus any subject tests she decides to do). </p>
<p>Congrats to those whose kids know they are done with the SAT. Must feel great. Very impressed by the workload some of your kids take on. My D has had a tough road emotionally so we are very proud of her, but I can’t imagine how some of your kids cope with all they do…</p>
<p>D2 was very happy with her SAT results. Nice increase over last spring, so I’m fairly certain she’s done with SAT. She’ll take ACT again through the school in the spring since it’s a mandatory part of the MEAP for juniors, and she’ll have 4 AP tests (worried parental face) as well. But for now, she’s just hoping her PSAT scores are aligned with her SAT scores (hopeful parental face).</p>
<p>I know not everyone’s kids are interested in public state universities , but I did an informal visit to Oklahoma State U today and was really impressed. If D2 thinks Nat’l Merit is on the table after scores come out in December, I’m fairly certain she’ll be putting it on her “official” OOS visit list. Alumni (T Boone Pickens in particular) have pumped a TON of money into the school in recent years (ala Nike CEO into U of Oregon) and the campus is GREAT. The new student union (I believe) has been voted #1 in the country. It’s certainly the most impressive union I’ve seen. Looking forward to a possible formal tour in the spring and looking into the Honors College, major specific programs, etc. to see if the “book” matches the “cover”.</p>
<p>Wolverine86 – That’s great to hear about Oklahoma State. I think it will be on DS list too regardless of NM status, but we haven’t figured out yet when we will visit. If DS has a chance of making Semifinalist based on his score, we will probably put off the visit to OSU to senior year. We found with older D that the schools with very attractive NMF packages bent over backward to provide extremely well-organized personalized tours. However, they are reluctant to spend the money until the student has actually applied there and semifinalist status is known.</p>
<p>STEM…Our goal for the spring break OOS campus visit extravaganza is for D2 to at least nail down a safety school (NM if that’s a player, large automatic merit school if not). That way she can apply to any other school she wants and see what happens. If she falls in love with one of the safety schools…so much the better!! If she narrows the list down enough and if she does make NMSF, she can name her first choice school right from the outset. Lots of different strategies for different folks, but we’re just hoping to get in the mix at this point. December can’t get here fast enough for D2. :)</p>
<p>Same here anxiously waiting for those scores, although it looks like the OSU merit scholarship is pretty good even for commended scholars. I agree that the decision of when to visit is highly dependent on the individual and the family. I think my S already knows enough based on things gleaned from the website and visiting with an admissions rep who visited his high school that he will apply. Thus, in our case, the visit will be mainly to determine whether he will choose to attend. We will use the same strategy to determine when to visit the University of Nebraska because he already knows he will apply and the merit packages for NMSF or for test scores and grades without NMSF are very similar to OSU. Plus I really want UNL to make an impression because it is my alma mater :)</p>
<p>Also, since official NM scholarships are not awarded until beginning in March, it isn’t necessary to name the first choice school before then, and in some cases not even before the end of April or beginning of May. The student can change that designation at any time up until a school-sponsored scholarship is actually awarded (although it may have also have implications if the student is awarded a different type of NM scholarship too). My D received award letters promising the particular school’s National Merit package in the fall semester. They were just contingent on obtaining NMF status, naming that school as first choice by around May 1, and eventual enrollment. </p>
<p>Not suggesting you should change your strategy. Time away from school also limits how many visits a kid can doing during the senior year. Just mainly putting that info out there for anyone who may be interested.</p>