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Because not all URMs are the same (in terms of benefits).
Native Americans > Black/AA >>>>>>> Hispanic</p>
<p>Username, to people like you, me, and many others test taking comes naturally and easy. It happens to be a good measure of how much we know, what we’ve learned, etc. In fact, I’d say for most people, test scores measure how much we know, even if we don’t wish to acknowledge it. But for a rare few, like I’m assuming 1300/2400 girl who got admitted at Stanford, test scores are not a fair representation of what they know and how eligible they are to take courses at a high level. Now I’m not saying she’s going to find it easy. It’s going to be tough, but I’m sure the admissions officers would not admitted her if she didn’t belong. Sure you may consider it hand-wavy, but let me give you an example. I am really not good at doing labs under a time constraint. Even though I’m really good at math and science, I’m not the most coordinated person in the world and can get sort of careless if I only have a certain amount of time. Is a physics lab that I botched up (even if it’s standardized) a real good measure of how much physics I know, even if I have gotten a 750+ on the physics SAT II and 5’s on both Mechanics and E&M on the Physics C test? Of course not. Now you may argue that I’m appealing to tests to defend my competency in the subject-but my point is-you can display your competency to succeed in many different ways. For most people that is through grades and test scores. But through extenuating circumstances, that I’m sure this young lady had, you can do it in other ways. Like Trin’s daughter you can show your intelligence through running a business. If you don’t buy my arguments…ask yourself this, why would Stanford choose to admit her? I’m sure they could have gotten a 2400 kid who would be dying to come here in her place. Heck they could have gotten so many kids who would do almost anything to come here in her place. There was something special, that test scores obviously did not reflect.</p>
<p>Obviously Native Americans are the least common ethnicity of people in college, however I would argue in some situations hispanics are less common than blacks, however, I do know this is not always the case from some personal research I have done.</p>
<p>Test scores often give people a false sense of security simply because they look at the accepted statistics and assume if they are above the 75th percentile there is no way they are rejected.</p>
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ok "do well’ depends on what colleges you’re applying to. but in general i think a 3.5+ unweighted is acceptable and 3.75+ is good when only looking at core classes. and everything you’ve said in this post does not indicate high chances for success on getting into a top school. the low sat score is a demerit, the “she’s just not that into essays” is a demerit, and i doubt there is not grade inflation going on here. honestly the collegeboard makes the sat, the subject tests, and the ap exams. you’ve stated her lack of aptitude for the sat, and i would also like to know here ap test scores. since the same sat and ap tests are administered all over the country it is a good standard to judge by because of the large sample size, but the tests for her ap classes at her school may not be on par with the real exams. you also can’t make a case out of “not being that into essays” because they are an essential part of the standardized testing and college applications processes. there are essays on the lang. ap, history ap’s, i believe the spanish ap, and possibly others i don’t know of, as well as the sat reasoning test, act, and any given college application. no one likes them, but they are a necessary evil, and it is important to excel at them. as for the us news and world report rankings, if her school isn’t a gold or silver medal school then it’s not awesome. out of the 32000 high schools in this country there are only 604 total gold and silver medal schools, only 100 of which are gold. and as monstor has repeated several times, you cannot neglect the sat, it is a required admissions criteria, and it tests reasoning ability. also the she doesn’t test well excuse doesn’t work because there are tests in high school, there are tests in college, and there are tests in life. they are what we measure by, and critical in gauging intelligence, success, etc…</p>
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well in that case i don’t know why they would be applying to colleges</p>
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ok well on the physics subject test you can get lie third of the test wrong a get a 750, and i’m sure the reasons they chose to admit her were a combination of everything they look at that was not based on intelligence or academic ability, i.e. rec’s, inteview, urm, volunteer work, work experience, geographical residence, etc…</p>
<p>Mahomushi68: No, the SAT is not a required admission criteria at the majority of schools my daughter is applying to. No, she’s not into essays. She writes them when required, but doesn’t envision a college experience that involves a lot of writing; that’s why she’s focused on RISD, SAIC, Parsons, Pratt, MICA, etc. It’s why she’s not interested in a BA in Art, but instead wants a BFA program with a strong foundation year component. </p>
<p>Look, I understand that you’re really invested in the idea that standardized tests are important. Your thinking is sort of the exemplar of the topic of this thread. What I (and at least one other person) are saying is that they are not the sole indicator of success in college, and even some Ivies recognize that. </p>
<p>Are you familar with the work of Carol Dweck? Check out this: [STANFORD</a> Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research](<a href=“Page Not Found”>http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html) . Basically, her research has shown that the students who may be more successful are not those with the high scores, not the “natural test takers”, but instead, students (like my daughter) who think that they can master skills by putting hard work into them. As Dweck says, “The fallacy comes when people generalize it to the belief that effort on any task, even very hard ones, implies low ability.”</p>
<p>don’t get me wrong, i understand that sats are not everything, i know kids who have had stellar gpa’s and the perfect sat, and got rejected from schools. but i think where we diverge is that all of the schools i want to apply to have high middle 50% ranges, and it is a required admissions criteria. i am actually surprised to hear that there are schools that do not require them. there are a rare few who enjoy essay writing, and most of us only do it when we have to, and i am one of them. but that won’t stop me from applying to some very good schools, and for the ones who do require you to submit the sat, i have to imagine it is for an important reason. you are right, i am quite invested in the idea that sats matter, and for good reason. just look at the differences in the middle 50% at top tier schools, and lesser schools, and you will see that the elite schools have very high middle 50% ranges.</p>
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<p>No. Give the 1300 a test consisting of only 1+1, a passage from “the cat in the hat”, vocab questions with common words, and obvious grammatical problems, and see how she tests. If she still scores badly, I’ll admit there are bad test takers. I agree some people can do better than others on tests with a similar amount of knowledge, but there’s a fine line between a 2200-2400 and a 1300. </p>
<p>How do I explain that she got accepted? Simple, I’m pretty sure this case never happened. Either the poster was lying/exaggerating, or got faulty info from someone else.</p>
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No, tests are not an indicator of success. There are many, many ways to succeed, many of which don’t require much knowledge at all. However, tests do in fact, test knowledge. I know this may be hard to believe, but it’s true. </p>
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<p>Oh please, don’t call people who work hard to understand material “natural test takers”. Just because your daughter isn’t smart enough to obtain a higher mark does not make a test any less credible. Don’t downplay other people’s achievements. If your daughter can master skills by putting in hard work, why not put in some hard work to master the test?</p>
<p>^^ thanks a lot for that link TrinSF =)</p>
<p>ok so clearly the only logical people on this thread are myself, monstor, choklitrain, and username, the rest of you need to go ask yourselves what really does test knowledge if not TESTS, and how you can defend a terrible test score with valid arguments that are not fragmentary and contradictory.</p>
<p>I’d like to make it clear my stance that standardized tests are not precise. But they do provide at worst a vague indication of aptitude. You can argue that a test is inaccurate to a degree, but a one thousand point difference is far too glaring of a difference to excuse.</p>
<p><em>laugh</em> See also, title of this thread. Good luck with that, mahomushi68. <em>plonk</em></p>
<p>What I’m trying to say, is although standardized testing does not predict SUCCESS, it does test KNOWLEDGE, within the content that the SATs test. So you can be a nobel laureate physicist, and score a 600 though that’s unlikely because you’ll likely have very good math skills.</p>
<p>I’m not saying the SATs are a GOOD test or predicts SUCCESS. </p>
<p>BUT there’s no way you can argue that a person “know’s the material but doesn’t know how to take tests”. </p>
<p>The reason I think a 1300 is bad, is not necessarily because that means the person is stupid, or he/she won’t succeed. The reason that a 1300 is bad, is because the student didn’t even take the effort to try to raise that score, because a 1300 is definitely very easy to raise. Even if the SATs doesn’t test anything useful, heck, even if the SATs tested you on sesame street trivia, the point is, if you’re not even willing to put in a little work to know the material, if you’re not even dedicated enough about going to college to even try to learn, you aren’t fit for college.</p>
<p>Then again, the SATs aren’t ALL that bad.</p>
<p>TrinSF, you have failed to address any of my points. Using your daughter as a standard unfortunately is not a very scientific approach.</p>
<p>yes trins i have seen the name of the thread, but it is not called “things that are not considered in admissions” the sats are considered in admissions to some degree or another especially at top tier schools like that. no they are not a guarantee, we have established that. but it has been my experience that the students who do very well on the sat are also in challenging classes, very intelligent, and looking to apply at some of the most prestigious schools. it has also been my experience that those with lesser scores are looking at lesser schools. i would also like to argue that the value of the sat is being underestimated in this thread. the collegeboards’ process for the sat ensures consistent results across the country on an enormous sample size. they do not count questions that have uneven distributions of right and wrong answers throughout regions of the country which provides consistent results on each and every sat. it wasn’t like someone showed up and got the hardest sat ever because they account for that and curve the grade when necessary. it is also testing you on skills colleges want you to have, i.e. reasoning, critical reading, math, writing. if they didn’t think these skills were important they wouldn’t ask for your scores. as someone said they are not a guarantee into ivies nor will they keep you out, but it definately helps to do well on your sats</p>
<p>To harp on three I’ve deff. heard this a lot. </p>
<p>“Ehh I’ll just pull off a 80 GPA, thats considered a 90 compared to other applicants”</p>
<p>TrinSF is presenting a classic argument of “My wonderful child isn’t good at X, so X is meaningless/flawed/unimportant”</p>
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i agree i’ve definately heard a lot of that around where i live because of the various (what we consider to be prestigious) private and public schools, there is a gold medal and several silver medal schools (according to the us news and world report rankings), does anyone know how colleges look at the high schools’ national rank, if at all?</p>
<p>ChoklitRain: No, if I have any argument WRT my child, it’s “My child’s first choice schools weigh the porfolio far more heavily than the SAT, so it’s not important in her case.” Additionally, there was an argument that anyone who gets a low SAT score on their first attempt without any preparation is not college matterial / not intelligent / lazy / stupid / etc. I and many other people (educators, researchers, admit reps, testing professionals) do not agree with that argument. </p>
<p>If my daughter were interested in any Ivy, she would be more focused on improving the SAT score. However, there aren’t any Ivies with programs she finds interesting – no foundation year based BFA programs – so they’re not a good match for her. </p>
<p>My impression is that several of the young posters here feel that Ivies are the <em>only</em> schools worth attending, and therefor their criteria are the only that matter. I think that’s a folly of youth and you all are welcome to it. 
Our family’s educational strategy clearly works, based on the results we’ve gotten so far: top LAC dream school + no loan no workstudy full ride = win.</p>