Valedictorian with low sat scores

PleaseRice
Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:35:52 +0000

“In fact it is biased towards students that have the time and money to take prep classes and study for them. As a minority, I do not have the leverage most people have when it comes to paying hundreds of dollars for a four week prep course.”

Sorry, this just sounds like an excuse to me.
Obviously any student with time and resources to study has an advantage; that isn’t anything new or difference. It applies to pretty much anything academic.
This isn’t about money; it’s about management. If a student does not make an effort to rearrange their schedule around to find time to study, that’s entirely up to them.
If absolutely nothing else, there’s all of summer to study. Even around a work schedule or summer courses, I don’t for a second believe high schoolers can’t find time to study for the SAT/ACT in two years between being a sophomore and senior.
As for the prep classes, I’ve heard from several people that the courses themselves are, for the most part, a waste. Sure, they can give you SAT words to study or a list of prefixes/suffixes; whatever. The biggest thing that they essentially tell you is to just practice, learn how to set your pace, and manage your time wisely. There isn’t any big secret magic fix to doing well on the SAT that is offered in any prep course that equals a nice score. And it isn’t even about having money to learn these tips; I’d say that Silverturtle’s guide here on CC is easily on par with most SAT books and prep courses. Even if for some reason there’s no internet access, I’ve never been in a bookstore (B&N, Borders, BAM…) that doesn’t allow people to sit and read inside. So long as you bring your own pen and paper to write on so that the prep book isn’t damaged, they don’t have a problem with students sitting at their tables to study. So as far as money factoring into access to prep, I don’t buy it.

"Although there is a correlation between high SAT scores and college success, I would like to point out that it takes more than good test scores to be success in life. "

By the same token, it takes more than strictly GPA. It’s all a balancing act.

“Who says people have to have high SATs and go to Ivys to be considered intelligent.”

It’s not a matter of proving intelligence. Any person could tell you that it doesn’t take an Ivy League education to be considered intelligent. There are plenty of qualified applicants that get turned down for dumb things like not having a legacy or URM edge. There are plenty of intelligent people who turn down Ivys for schools with a better ‘fit’. That said, it is pretty much socially accepted that, barring everything else, having a degree from Harvard generally carries more weight than just about any other university. This isn’t any sort of bias or anything. I’m more than happy with my school of choice and yadayadayada, but no matter how much I love Rice and personally believe that it’s a much better school for me, I’m not going to claim that that a degree from Rice or any other top-notch U will be more impressive to potential employer than a Harvard degree. That’s just social values.

Sure, a Val with low standardized scores could just be an anomaly, but you have to look at the reason we even have standardized tests: to set everyone on an internationally even field. Colleges may not be able to definitively compare the GPAs of applicants from different states, but they can trust that the SAT/ACT to provide a generally accurate depiction.