<p>Well, in my community, it is a common rite to go to SAT Prep school. As a student enters high school, a lot of parents send their kids to SAT prep classes during summer or even during the weekends. But I do live in a mid-upper mid class neighborhood. You won’t see that happening in the neighborhood 20 minutes away.</p>
<p>and BTW IP,
Xiggi has more knowledge about the SAT in his left pinky than you will ever hope to have. I suggest you start to respect the CC elders[ if you dont know who they are, look at how long they have been on CC and how many posts they have under their belts], as you would [ hopefully] respect the more learned, experienced elders in your native country.
You have much to learn about the college application process in THIS country…</p>
<p>“No college I know gives credit for AP history or literature classes”</p>
<p>JHS, Princeton gives credit for 4 or above on AP History tests.</p>
<p>I do not think rebuking someone by comparing him or her to another person is the best course of action. That act tends to make the average person defensive and that would cause that said person to rebuttal the statement or rebuke you back. Just a word of warning.</p>
<p>I appreciate that david.
the OP needs to understand that opinions stated on CC about subjects he has little first hand knowledge about will be challenged. The best course of action is for posters actually
seekng to learn here is to accept that there IS much to learn, especially for parents new to the college application process in THIS country , and posting opinions such as this-
“Incidentally I do believe that SAT is an exam with such a low bar that high SAT scores absolutely mean nothing.”
accomplish nothing but show how little he really does know…</p>
<p>What kind of credit does Princeton give? Useful credit – like satisfying a major or a general education requirement? Or useless credit – you get to substitute it for an elective, up to a limited number, and graduate a semester early as if you really wanted to do that? Lots of colleges give the latter (and I so indicated); none that I know gives the former.</p>
<p>This idea that the SAT and Subject tests and AP tests are “too easy” is kind of silly. They do perfectly fine in dividing the test takers into manageable bands. It’s not like all that many people are bunching together at the top of the SATs (except for Math 2, which is maybe a special case, and a couple of language tests that seem to be easy for native speakers). I’ve never heard that MIT has any trouble figuring out which of its applicants are good at math.</p>
<p>As to how well what those tests actually test correlates to college success, or any other kind of success, that’s a different question. I do think the SAT tests some kind of general “smartness,” and that people with really high scores are generally “smarter” than those with significantly lower scores–and maybe that’s good enough for the top schools to make at least a rough cut. I’m not convinced that they would really get better students by relying on tests on which top scores would require years of cramming.</p>
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xiggi is the Mr. Green Jeans of the SAT.</p>
<p>If you did make the SAT harder, and Harvard still chose to take an oboe player with a 2310 over a math/science kid with an 8340, imagine the even greater anguish we’d have to read about.</p>
<p>IP, what is your basis for claiming that colleges are “afraid” to do what you’d like them to do?</p>
<p>jHS - I don’t want to speak for Princeton’s policy. I know that NU does give credit for (I believe) 5s in US History that can be used to satisfy the history distribution requirement (there are 6 different distribution requirement areas you have to take … 2 courses per each area). That’s not useful for my son, who will be undoubtedly taking tons of history classes anyway, but would be useful for other majors. But I don’t want to derail.</p>
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<p>No college gives credit for AP CLASSES…but my kid got college credit for his 5 AP scores on the AP lit TEST (earned 2 classes worth of English lit credit that were required) from his college…oh and the AP history too…got ONE class worth of credit. In both cases, he received the credit for these courses which were part of the core requirement at his school.</p>
<p>P.S. He got the scores he got without purchasing a test prep book. Trying to keep the thread ON TOPIC…just saying:)</p>
<p>It’s been said ad nauseum here but the books exist b/c there’s money to be had. My wife is a fitness professional. It’s just mind boggling the array of procedures, equipment, diet products available. It’s out there b/c people are buying them. The stupidest thing is it still gets down to personal exercise and proper food intake — but people lose sight of this when all the ads assault you from every side.</p>
<p>And I do know my son had both AP US and AP Euro History prep books – but he lives and breathes history so I have no idea if he used them or if I wasted my money! Oh well.</p>
<p>My S and his friends had a bonfire in our backyard and burned a lot of their test prep materials, papers, etc after getting in. Yeah, yeah, they could have been donated to the school. It was cathartic so that was fine with me.</p>
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<p>NO IP…YOU are by far the most frequent poster on ALL of the threads you either create…or respond to. In many cases, you have 5, 6, 7 posts per page…or more. AND YOU are the one who takes these things off topic. </p>
<p>You got an answer…in fact many of them…to why there is a market for college prep books. SO…YOU changed the topic. Sure, sometimes topics do “change” for a bit, but they are supposed to come back quickly to the topic of the OP. </p>
<p>My opinion…this thread has gotten a lot of answers to the question of why there is a market for college prep books…it’s not about totally different things (with an “occasional” mention of those test prep books). </p>
<p>I would think we either stick to the topic…or…</p>
<p>And agreed with others…arguing or posing questions for the sake of doing so is called ■■■■■■■■. </p>
<p>I vote for NOT feeding the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>Yup, the prep books are big sellers. So are copies of old tests as people try to game the system. As an aside, an observation - went to the local Borders the day after they announced it was closing. The College prep book aisle was jammed with students looking at/buying the books. Every single person (no exaggeration) was asian. What should one make of that? Don’t mean to offend any reader here- it was merely an observation.</p>
<p>As another aside, sometimes threads attract attention as a source of entertainment. Its like a bad trainwreck- can’t help but look, even though it is sure to be a disaster. This one, like many, are dominated by one poster who has more posts than the next 5 highest posters combined, and whose post count is usually about triple that of the next highest poster. These are supposed to be discussions, not constant arguments or opportunities for one person to get on a soapbox and give a soliloquy.
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<p>There is a market for test prep materials, books, classes in India and China, so why wouldn’t it be the same in the US?</p>
<p>One senses that your goal in asking the question was to enable a platform for you to declare how bad our schools are and how dumbed down our testing is. Got it. We get that you think that way.</p>
<p>IP…re: “attracting too many posters”…There have been 156 posts on this thread…54 of them are YOURS…That’s over 1/3 of the posts.</p>
<p>I don’t think that the skills necessary to succeed in college are tested in any way by the SAT. I think if a college doesn’t want to put money into a lot of remedial classes, the SAT is a good screening tool where it can be assummed that achieving a certain score means you are capable of college level work and have the basic foundation to build on.
I also think that the fact that some colleges have made SAT/ACT scores optional for admissions, while still requiring some demonstration of academic ability other than GPA that still is not a standardized test, shows that maybe the problem isn’t specifically the SAT/ACT but the notion of standardized testing as the determinant of college ability. So what would substituting one test for another do?</p>
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<p>And the SAT measures that?</p>
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<p>Thank you. This post made my day! ROFL!</p>