<p>I wouldn’t impose my beliefs on to someone else’s culture (such as making education important), but if it were MY culture I would.</p>
<p>It’s not a question of making education important or not. Education could not possibly be more important to the families and faculty at UHSSF, or at the Philadelphia school I described above. But they don’t see public recognition of NMFs as necessary, or even desirable, for promoting their educational values. They don’t need to inspire any of their students to achieve in school – if anything, they sometimes want to tone them down a bit – and they certainly don’t need to do any remedial award-giving to remind their students that something other than sports is valued. (The reason the Philadelphia school DOES give athletic awards is that it’s making a half-hearted attempt to show that it values sports at least a little. No one is really fooled, but the athletes do appreciate it.)</p>
<p>I think bulk mailing the score reports to the HS is a great idea. S’s HS held an evening workshop for parents and students, where they gave the students the score reports and explained what the scores meant. You wouldn’t get that if the score reports were mailed home. The workshop described the NMS program and also gave information on the SAT and ACT. At the end of the evening, a number of SAT prep books were given out as door prizes.</p>
<p>This is a school with 42% free/reduced price meals; many of the parents have not been to college and were unfamiliar with the exams, so the workshop was very helpful. A translator was provided for the many parents who don’t speak English. I don’t remember if the test was free or $10-15, but it was given during the school day and all students were encouraged to take it.</p>
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<p>Why not? Does delivery by the US Postal Service prohibit your HS from holding an open meeting for parents? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>But more importantly, what does your HS do with all of the NCLB test results? Our state mails test results home in August, with explanations…</p>
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<p>Our h.s. did this and I hated it. It didn’t matter whether you had already attended one of these with an older child, or whether you were perfectly capable of figuring out the meaning yourself, you were required to wait until the prescribed evening (after Christmas break) to receive the scores back. They were assembled in a stack with the score right on top, where anyone could see them. Our PSAT was not paid for by the school, but by us, so in my mind the scores were my kids’ property and none of anyone else’s (including the GC’s) business. </p>
<p>Apparently enough parents must have complained, because now the students can pick them up the GCs office as soon as they arrive. (They still hold the meeting at a later date). I still object to the fact that the GC has any right to see my kids’ scores.</p>
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<p>History would suggest that you are wrong about that motivation for using the PSAT. There used to be a completely separate NMSQT: National Merit Scholar Qualifying Test. It had five parts, including science and social studies/history as well as verbal and math, and was rather more fact-based than the PSAT or SAT, although it had a similar format. I know, because when I was in high school I took it and I was a NMF. Going to the PSAT instead probably meant that more kids were likely to take the qualifying test–even at my wealthy CT suburban HS not everyone took the NMSQT, only the better students–and probably saved money for both the families and the NM organization.</p>
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<p>My S was scheduled to take 5 AP exams senior year. We had paid for the previous three. I went in and told the G/T coordinator that we couldn’t afford to pay over $400 for him to take the tests. She said the school would pay and she would take care of it. End of story.</p>
<p>That was a great story Consolation. Congratulations and best wishes to your son!</p>
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<p>1) The post I responded to said that high PSAT/SAT scores require hard work and good grades. I think it’s pretty clear that this isn’t the case.</p>
<p>2) If we’re giving people recognition for their ability to <em>run</em> (apparently under the assumption that it’s the product of hard work), why should we care about their ability to <em>walk</em> (given that <em>walking</em> is not the product of hard work)?</p>
<p>To be clear, I don’t object to the use of the SAT in admissions. But I don’t think that it’s any measure of earned merit, and if I had to rank my academic achievements by the pride I had in them, NMF would be rather low.</p>
<p>(And yes, my brother was merely a SF, though he received a full scholarship for it anyway. Ironically, my other brother essentially received nothing for being a real NM Scholar, as he already had an unrelated full ride - probably due to his real academic accomplishments ;))</p>