quote:Depends on the school you're applying to for admission. For the more selective schools, this is frowned upon. Honestly, there are better and more productive ways for your child to spend their time; spending an exorbitant amount of time studying for the SAT is not one of them.
Take it as much as he can. Getting familiarized with the testing environment and the types of questions they ask is a huge benefit. I took the SAT 4 times, improved Math/Verbal from 1300 to about 1430.
quote:This scoring method is no longer true with the New SAT. Both SAT and ACT are scaled to a normal distribution curve and neither one penalizes the student for an incorrect choice. Depending where you fall along that curve, one more correct answer may result in a 0 point increase while sometimes it may result in as much as 20 points.
Also make sure he knows how the test is scored. I'm sure it's different now, but it was part of the strategy back when I took it. Each correct answer was 2 points and each incorrect was 1/2 point off (skipping did nothing). That meant that if you got 2 of 10 correct and 8 of 10 incorrect, you broke even. If you made an educated guess on each, you would likely get more than 2 correct which would result in positive points.
quote:Yeah I didn't think that method was used anymore, but it's still good to know how it's done. The same was true for me with the GRE. Since it was done electronically, they would increase the difficulty of the questions each time you answered correctly and decrease the difficulty each time you answered incorrectly and based the final score on both difficulty and number answered correctly. It didn't really influence how I took the test (had to answer each question presented), but the test prep material mentioned that you might be doing well if you thought the test was getting more difficult (instead of freaking out that it is so difficult).quote:This scoring method is no longer true with the New SAT. Both SAT and ACT are scaled to a normal distribution curve and neither one penalizes the student for an incorrect choice. Depending where you fall along that curve, one more correct answer may result in a 0 point increase while sometimes it may result in as much as 20 points.
Also make sure he knows how the test is scored. I'm sure it's different now, but it was part of the strategy back when I took it. Each correct answer was 2 points and each incorrect was 1/2 point off (skipping did nothing). That meant that if you got 2 of 10 correct and 8 of 10 incorrect, you broke even. If you made an educated guess on each, you would likely get more than 2 correct which would result in positive points.
quote:Admissions into TAMU and any other college is a game. Those who know how to play it well can significantly increase their odds over others in the applicant pool. Over the past two years, I've helped students with the following metrics gain admission into TAMU.
He will be rolling the dice, especially if he does not take his essays and EC resume very seriously. This year I estimate based on reported applications and past admissions that a review candidate had about a one in 4 chance of admission ( including Blinn, & Gateway). If you read the long thread that covers the last few years with the TAMU admissions heading, you will note that there are many students who are almost top 10% and or almost academic on test scores that are very disappointed when someone they know that had lower scores / lower rank got in and they did not. If you are in review, there is a lot of competition and you must stand out from a very talented crowd to be admitted. There is a very telling quote in there that says something like realize you (the applicant) are all alike- competitive high school, strong test scores, solid rank, strong ECs. Auto admit and academic take most of the spots.
quote:quote:Admissions into TAMU and any other college is a game. Those who know how to play it well can significantly increase their odds over others in the applicant pool. Over the past two years, I've helped students with the following metrics gain admission into TAMU.
He will be rolling the dice, especially if he does not take his essays and EC resume very seriously. This year I estimate based on reported applications and past admissions that a review candidate had about a one in 4 chance of admission ( including Blinn, & Gateway). If you read the long thread that covers the last few years with the TAMU admissions heading, you will note that there are many students who are almost top 10% and or almost academic on test scores that are very disappointed when someone they know that had lower scores / lower rank got in and they did not. If you are in review, there is a lot of competition and you must stand out from a very talented crowd to be admitted. There is a very telling quote in there that says something like realize you (the applicant) are all alike- competitive high school, strong test scores, solid rank, strong ECs. Auto admit and academic take most of the spots.
- Public: 30 percentile class rank, 3.136 GPA, 990 SAT
- Private: 65 class rank percentile, 3.164, 960 SAT
- Homeschool: 1230 SAT
- Public: 37 class rank percentile, 3.4722 GPA, 1130 SAT
- Public: 18 class rank percentile, 3.917 GPA, 1150 SAT
Similar results have been achieved with other institutions around the U.S.
