<p>tomthecat
it seems to me you can’t have it both ways. The misunderstanding seems to stem from the fact that the ssat and the sat are different populations. everyone has to take the sat whereas the people taking the ssat are well known to be a more select motivated group. This means that for good reason we expect the same kid to score in a higher percentile in the sat than in the ssat. the only question is how much higher. I continue to find it surprising that if you have kids that on average are around the 95th percentile of an elite group they are only around the 97th percentile of the general population after a great education. Of course 700 is ‘a very good score’ in an absolute sense and of course it is great to be in the 97th percentile. That isn’t the question. Maybe you are right that 750 on every section is too much but 720 or 730 isn’t, surely?</p>
<p>mhmm
I can absolutely tell you that as a matter of fact there are plenty kids who get 750 and above without tutoring programs. An excellent education absolutely prepares you for the SAT. Most of the english sections is vocabulary and comprehension which plenty of reading and writing is absolutely the BEST preparation. The math is not hard and plenty of kids do extremly well (say >720) with no preparation just by having the kind of mathematical maturity that a decent high school math education provides.
Incidentally, you can’t directly compare the SAT of 20 years ago with the SAT today because they were renormed. A 700 today is not the same as a 700 20 years ago. Today’s higher scores are nothing to do with prep classes. As I write this I am thinking of a kid you would consider a ‘genius child’ who I know personally who did precisely NO preparation and scored 2400. Incidentally, your speculation about the detailed distribution of kids taking the ssat and isee, with the best will in the world, really has no bearing on how the ssat and sat relate.</p>