<p>Yeah, I’m a helicopter. S does not care where he goes to college. Direct quote: “I don’t care where I go to college.” He’s not a top performer (for his school, anyway) and is well aware that he won’t be going to HYPS. Cornell is the reachiest school on his list. He’s fine with taking the tests again, not taking the tests again, whatever. I guess I’m just trying to eliminate the “what if?” factor…what if he breaks 700 on each section? Since we really have no way of knowing what will tip admissions, might as well do this too. But as I’ve said, I don’t like it. Sigh.</p>
<p>And, NJRes, your S’s scores are better for admissions…my S’s are in the 600s for both verbal and math…his big score was on the writing portion, which they don’t count. He’ll have had half a year of calculus when he repeats the test, and the darn kid IS gifted mathematically…let’s hope it shows.</p>
<p>Helimom, if your son doesn’t care, then I think the best thing he can do is target colleges that are comfortable matches and/or safeties – in the end he will find those schools to be a better fit, both academically and socially. The problem is that the most selective schools are filled (naturally) with extremely ambitious, high-performing students who do care – and there may be a social misfit as well as the possibility that your son may find himself in an academic environment that is far too stressful for his personality. </p>
<p>I speak as the parent of high-testing, former college dropout – now finishing college at a public school that he would not have even considered the first time around. In hindsight, my son would have been better off at his safeties. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that a kid like yours can’t do the work at an elite college – my daughter (1930 SAT) is able to keep up with classes at Columbia & Barnard – but she also says that it is extremely challenging. She is ambitious and has lofty goals – as a parent, what I have seen is that as soon as she realized what she was facing, she knuckled down and became very disciplined in her work habits. She gripes sometimes about having to study while her roommate and other kids are out having fun… but despite her frustration, she stayes in and studies. My son did not have that drive or discipline - so he ended up falling behind. </p>
<p>There are many excellent colleges where your son is sure to be admitted. My advice: focus 100% on fit. You are lucky that your son isn’t worried about prestige – truthfully, it opens up many more options in terms of the types of schools and different environments that your son might have available.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think the scores do matter for a lot of the merit scholarships that schools offer, so I can see HeliMom’s point of view. S. was awarded one that had a certain SAT score as the cutoff to continue in the competition.</p>
<p>I’m sure you’ve all heard that playing competitive sports (like baseball and basketball…not hiking, camping, or tossing a frisbee around) builds character. I started playing organized sports at age 8, and quickly got used to the idea that every situation is going to have winners and losers–and that I wasn’t always going to be a winner. I wasn’t even always going to be one of the better guys on my team. But as someone once said, “Tony Bennett knew all along he was never going to be better than Frank Sinatra, but that didn’t keep him from singing.”</p>
<p>TourGuide, your post #45 is a real gem!! That’s a very important message to get across to our kids.</p>
<p>Hey TourGuide, I like Tony Bennett better than Sinatra. Plenty of colleges will prefer the Tony Bennett type kid, too.</p>
<p>lefthandofdog, there are many college scholarships that are based on SAT scores. There are also many that aren’t - my daughter had relatively weak test scores but received offers of merit-based awards at all of the colleges that offered them where her GPA put her in good standing within the applicant pool. Northeastern offered a $10K merit award; Fordham offered a Loyola scholarship. </p>
<p>So yes, the scores help – my son had many more <em>advance</em> offers based on his National Merit standing – that is, offers that came in the mail and were promised even from schools he had not considered and was not applying to. Of course, the only data those schools had were the scores. It is also possible that my daughter would have gotten bigger awards from some schools that offered aid if she had had higher test scores; but the bottom line is that when all was said and done in the spring, my daughter had significantly more merit dollars offered to her than my son had experienced 5 years earlier. That may be because of increased competition for students in 2006 as compared to 2001, as well as tuition increases that mean that merit money needed to go higher as well to maintain the same discounts – but my point is that there is plenty of merit money available that is not based on score level.</p>
<p>So perhaps the parent of a kid who doesn’t care where he goes to college might do better to research aid opportunities at various colleges than to focus on a test retake. For one thing, a kid who doesn’t care is not all that likely to put a serious effort into test prep, so odds of a significant score increase aren’t great. </p>
<p>Actually, if either of my kids had told me that they didn’t care where they went to college, then I would have had them apply to the UC’s and been done with the process. My kids did get offered merit awards from some UC campuses, and even my daughter’s very weak SATs (by CC standards) were well above the norm for the in-state publics.</p>
<p>Whenever possible, live below one’s means - older cars, smaller houses, less prestigious communities, public schools - and you sometimes get a big bonus -kids that appreciate the smaller things in life</p>
<p>Less really is more</p>
<p>Calmom, I appreciate your posts. I asked my son a while back if he’d have been happier in a “regular” high school, one with no admission testing requirements, far fewer hyper-performing classmates, and yes, less pressure. His answer was an emphatic “no”. He loves his school and has done very well there…he’s simply an upper troposphere rather than a stratosphere kid. He’ll be fine in an honors program of a school like Fordham, which we hope will be very happy to have him. HE will be the one to select the school, but IF he can have a chance (however slim) of also selecting from Cornell, UVa and Michigan, among others, I think he should have a shot. If he picks Fordham or Penn State, that’s terrific. The fact that he doesn’t care where he goes to college doesn’t mean he won’t do well or be happy (we sincerely hope) when he gets there. He didn’t care where he went to high school, either. Turns out we all made the right choice. If there’s one thing reading this forum has taught me, it’s that there’s a college for everyone.</p>
<p>I have also asked my kids – many times – should we have gone the public route, a different private route, lived in a different neighborhood? They routinely respond an empatic ‘no!’ As of course they should – they are invested in the years they have put into this school. I would in no way want to rob them of that. I simply point out the fact that many, many kids don’t live this life, don’t have these opportunities, but also don’t face these challenges every day. I think/hope/pray they have a realistic view of the gift they’ve been given, but also the negatives that go along with it. It’s hard to ask of a teenager what we sometimes struggle to see as adults.</p>
<p>Interesting. Our sons went from a small, entry-test-required private school to the public schools three years ago. Son #1 missed the small school until 10th grade when he discovered the MUCH wider range of ECs at the public (disclaimer: our public high school is largely populated with children of Boeing and Microsoft employees – I don’t think it is a “typical” student body). In his opinion, it has been a wash. He preferred his classmates and class sizes at the private school, but found compensations at the public.</p>
<p>My younger son, on the other hand, LOVES public school. It’s no more ethnically diverse, but it is a lot more economically and culturally varied. As he puts it, “I was getting tired of stuck-up rich kids.” He’s been in the gifted-kids program in the publics, loves the music program there (ironically, since the private is small, he actually gets more different music choices in the public), and generally likes the looser atmosphere of the public. For him, going to the public schools has been a hands-down winner. I wish we’d known before we wrote all those tuition checks…</p>
<p>We had a real horror story in the public elementary school, and lived in bliss for a couple of years in the private. The Teacher from the Black Lagoon is why we bailed out of the public schools in the first place, but we found out when son #1 was in 7th grade that private schools aren’t all sweetness and light when we ran into Teacher from the Black Lagoon 2 in the language department. There are problems everywhere, I suppose, and I was disappointed that the private school was not really any more responsive than the public school was earlier.</p>
<p>Rick: my kids loved the book “The Teacher from the Black Lagoon” when they were little. <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Black-Lagoon-Mike-Thaler/dp/0590419625/sr=8-1/qid=1162915875/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4399803-8156830?ie=UTF8&s=books[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Black-Lagoon-Mike-Thaler/dp/0590419625/sr=8-1/qid=1162915875/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4399803-8156830?ie=UTF8&s=books</a></p>
<p>She was pretty good, actually. I liked the part where she gives the entire math book for homework.</p>
<p>My kids went to public schools and private schools. There were good and bad teachers at both. The biggest difference was the effort made to accomodate my difficult-to-accomodate son in the private schools.</p>
<p>Rick: That is soo true, there are people in the wrong jobs everywhere, but when you are paying the fees for a private, you really expect the admin to be responsive rather than fall into that same old school politics mode.</p>
<p>It’s so important to keep everything in perspective. What is the point of education? It shouldn’t be a means to an end, or simply the route to “the best schools” — it should be what we need to become the best person we can be. If we view it that way, there is never any disappointment in choosing to challenge our kids in school. If we view it that way, SAT scores simply are something our kids need to submit to colleges. There are hundreds of colleges, not just a couple — there is a school for every student. The challenge is to find it! If SAT scores aren’t high enough, find a place where they ARE. It shouldn’t be a “disappointment” if scores aren’t as high as “expected” or desired. There is a place where the scores ARE good enough, and where the education your child has received will be acknowledged. Concentrate on finding that place (actually, those places). There is no harm in trying to get into the places your child wants to attend, even with lower-than-expected scores — but put some effort into investigating realistic schools that will “fit.” They are out there!! For every door that closes, there is a new one to open. Wipe those tears and get to work. Good luck!</p>
<p>“but when you are paying the fees for a private, you really expect the admin to be responsive rather than fall into that same old school politics mode.”</p>
<p>It was interesting when my nephew was in a very well respected private school trying to get some kind of math enrichment/acceleration the attitude was “If you don’t like us attend another private school.” Our public school rarely did as much as I wished they would, but they always tried to offer something to our equally advanced son.</p>
<p>We found that when we looked at privates (which an educational psychologist had recommended specifically because they were gifted-friendly), they had an attitude of “all our children here are gifted, therefore we don’t have to do anything for yours.” They wanted smart kids, but not kids who were out on the far edges of the curve. </p>
<p>One school wanted to have one of my kids repeat second grade because they used a June 1 birthday cutoff, unlike the public system, which used 12/31 at the time. We went to public and did the special system-wide gifted programs, which have worked out quite well. Got both my kids intellectual and age-level peer groups, as well as diverse and lively schools. Now if we had taken all the $$$ we saved in private school tuition and put it into the college fund, we’d be prepared! :*)</p>
<p>This is not to slam privates – I know many kids who have absolutely flourished. It was just not the place for my kid at that time.</p>
<p>I cried the first time I got my ACT scores back. No lie.</p>
<p>Then I realized that 1) not only was I higher than the national average, but 2) it doesnt matter. </p>
<p>I think the main thing about it is the culmination of stress releasing. It sucks to watch, but I am sure a lot of people stress then cry when getting scores on a big test like that the first time, even if most on CC dont. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>I do agree the system needs work… <em>Shudder</em> how low is our graduation rate now?</p>
<p>Teaghue</p>
<p>Hugs to you. You are right; it doesn’t matter. There will be great (and affordable) schools that will want you and you can get a really good education anywhere if you’re motivated. I’ve attended a small LAC, an Ivy, two state unis and one state flagship U. When I was really motivated to learn (which was most of the time), I found the resources, whether the classes were large or small. I had some huge classes at U of MN that were great and some small discussion-based classes there too. Some profs are better than others, but you can get what you need if you’re determined to learn. It’s all in your attitude. For me, it was easier to start at a smaller place; after that, it didn’t matter so much. Other people are fine with starting at Big State U. Every community breaks down into smaller parts.</p>
<p>To the OP, your daughter is spoiled and too idealistic. You are too. </p>
<p>Crying over a simple test? The SAT is essentially a rite of passage. Most applicants take it. A Chinese person would not cry if he got a low score. Either suck it up or retake it. That is why almost all the USAMO, USABO, 2400 kids are Chinese. My advice, be a man and suck it up. Work hard and do not expect anything.</p>