My Daughter Got Her Rejection Letter from FSU today

[Nole Lou]

GT is close to 70% male... and trust me that 30% of females does not resemble a sorority at FSU.

A couple of sayings have come out of tech:
From females: "The odds are good but the goods are odd"
On orientation day at tech: "look to your left and then look to your right... chances are only 1 of you will graduate from tech"
From every student who graduates: "The best two days at tech is the orientation and the day you graduate"....like I said not your typical college experience there.

I'm not specifically defending Georgia Tech, it has never been what I was interested in for a college. But they're creeping up their female percentage...up to 37% now LOL. And the whole look left, look right thing...they're off of that now. Years ago, washing out half the kids was like a point of pride, but somewhere along the way they changed their strategy. Their graduation rate is 84% now, and freshman retention rate is 95%...higher than FSU.

That's not to say it's easy by any means...but I think they've done well in focusing on the right kids AND they now provide massive amount of resources to help you get through. If you're not up to a LOT of work, going to every class, etc...you're toast. It's still more work than most places...but if you do the work, they're pretty committed to getting you graduated.

 

[GwinnettNole]

I'm not specifically defending Georgia Tech, it has never been what I was interested in for a college. But they're creeping up their female percentage...up to 37% now LOL. And the whole look left, look right thing...they're off of that now. Years ago, washing out half the kids was like a point of pride, but somewhere along the way they changed their strategy. Their graduation rate is 84% now, and freshman retention rate is 95%...higher than FSU.

That's not to say it's easy by any means...but I think they've done well in focusing on the right kids AND they now provide massive amount of resources to help you get through. If you're not up to a LOT of work, going to every class, etc...you're toast. It's still more work than most places...but if you do the work, they're pretty committed to getting you graduated.

If any of my kids got into GT I would be absolutely thrilled. Place is tough but the connections you make + the reputation is top notch.

 

[funksouljon]

..........
On orientation day at tech: "look to your left and then look to your right... chances are only 1 of you will graduate from tech"
.........

They say the same thing in NAVAL Nuclear Engineering school. Its true, only about 1/3 graduate.

The rest about GT, agree, that just sounds like a miserable college experience.

 

[SoddyNole]

They say the same thing in NAVAL Nuclear Engineering school. Its true, only about 1/3 graduate.

The rest about GT, agree, that just sounds like a miserable college experience.

Many years ago a friend of mine in HS joined the Naval Nuke program which I believe is a 6 year commitment. He burned out the first year and had to wait 5 more years while regretting his decision before he could leave the Navy. In his case he had no business being in that program to begin with. It is almost impossible for an average to good student to handle the material. The Navy should only allow exceptional students to attempt that program. Maybe this has changed over the years.

 

[Nole Lou]

We were planning on taking a spring tour to GT but my daughter's school took some interested potential candidates down to GT & Emory last Fall. Unfortunately, she had the same experience as you all did with uga. GT could not have been more uninviting. From what I was told they put too much focus and emphases on the exclusiveness as a means to impress. It created tension among these exceptional students all of which were coming from a STEM school who have interest in engineering. The consensus was these kids had lost their interest in perusing GT post visit. It was a blow to me for I had been worked out the finances in my head of her going there when she first mentioned interest in this college knowing how expensive it is to attend out of state and how few scholarships GT offers. I addressed the possibility of just being unlucky with a poor tour guide thinking we could go back and have a better experience on a repeat visit. But the damage was done and she said the students looked stressed walking around campus and if it was simply a projection of her own feelings or not, the reality was she wanted no part of that environment.

Conversely, one of the schools she had a minimal interest in TN Tech blew her away with the visit. One of my vendors does work with one of the engineering professors up there. He gave us a name of one of the chemical engineering professors who volunteered to mentor my daughter surprising enough without us asking. My daughter got in touch with her and have had some conversations back and forth about this field. We set a visit in November and the general information speaker did an exceptional job selling the university and the benefits to going there. They then broke us up into a walking tour of the campus with an engineering student who walked around campus, talked about the history of the school and buildings and answered all our questions. This guy then walked us to the Chem. Eng bldg for us to speak to a professor. My daughter and another girl were led to a room and I was surprised the the head of the dept met with us. He asked several questions of both girls and the parents. We spent well over an hour talking about engineering field, the department and how they approach their studies as well as going over some personal stories. They brought in one of the top grad students to tell her story and her successes in this field and in academia. The mentor professor came in to introduce herself to my daughter and exchanged pleasantries during this time too. This lasted so long we missed the tour of dorms.

We are planning on visiting several other schools this spring but I suspect they have their work cut out to compare to the level of attention and detail she received from this instate school. Not to mention my daughter has an uncanny appreciation for value and cost at her age. All the points the initial speaker raised about numerous scholarships and very high percentage of graduates with little to no debt was impressing her as much as it did with parents in the audience. The smaller town and campus feel may have a lot to do with it too. I know she has the acumen to go anywhere and be successful but with the stress of competing in the classroom she should feel comfortable with her environment and suspect she has already made up her mind....we will see.

Your GT experience was different than ours. But that said, we started from a different place. My daughter was going in expecting to be intimidated out of it. She had kind of built it up in her mind that it would be terrifying and way too much...and then it wasn't. They weren't shy about saying it was rigorous and intense and that it's not for everybody, but my daughter knew that going in. But they didn't make it sound like it would take a miracle to get through. I don't know the military, but to me it sounded like getting through standard training (something a lot of people like me would never be cut out for), but not like getting through Seal training (something 1% of 1% are cut out for). So it was actually pretty encouraging.

As for the students being stressed, maybe we just caught a different vibe from a different day. I did feel like they were different than students at other campuses, but I didn't get that stressed vibe I was on the lookout for. I did get focused, and confident. I did notice that there was a big difference in that GT students treat it like their education like business. They are extremely focused on being there for a career, and what it's going to mean for them for the rest of their life. They are up for some fun, but they are there to accomplish a very specific thing...get a great job, and any kind of fun or diversions are welcome, but just that, momentary diversions. That definitely wasn't me, but I respect that. For a lot of people, their main expectations toward college are around personal growth, finding your calling, making lifelong friends, being out on your own for the first time, etc, and oh yeah getting a good education along the way. That is important, and that was my thinking. But I think that if you're thinking of college as a holistic growth and educational experience like that...Georgia Tech is probably not a good fit. Those kids are there to kick ass, take names and make a ton of money when they graduate, and they wear that on their sleeves.

I tried to get my daughter interested in Tennessee Tech. It's a solid school, my nephew is likely headed there, and our family is in Tennessee. It's also what I consider just about an ideal size. And also, not to be to braggy, but I'm pretty sure my daughter would have scored big time there, possibly as much as a free ride. But I couldn't really interest her...she's got kind of a snobby thing about college that I couldn't break, and my oldest didn't have. She just won't consider under a certain level. She hasn't come outright about it, but I suspect she resents that I told her I couldn't pay for Duke, Chapel Hill, UVA etc if she got in there.

 

[Nole Lou]

They say the same thing in NAVAL Nuclear Engineering school. Its true, only about 1/3 graduate.

The rest about GT, agree, that just sounds like a miserable college experience.

Definitely not my cup of tea.

 

[seminoledq]

Yeah, she liked it a lot. She was already biased to it, but she was pretty surprised she liked it as much as she did. She had some fear I think that after always thinking she wanted to go there, it just wouldn't click for her. And she was also prepared to be intimidated out of it. But she came away feeling both like she COULD do it, and that she still WANTED to do it.

The UGA visits are trash. It drives me nuts, but their visits are almost designed like they DON'T want kids to go there. I've take two kids there that were considering UGA until they took the official visit, and spoken to many others with the same experience, especially compared with a place like Alabama, that has kids ready to walk on as a tackling dummy by the end of it. But she might end up "having" to go to UGA. If she does, I'm going to make her go there for another visit outside the standard tour. Either an official "accepted students" weekend, or something unofficial set up with a student there we know. I am almost 90% sure if she really saw it she would like it.

One of our friends had that experience. After their daughter took the visit, she was totally against it. Knowing it was the best affordable option, they made her spend the day with a student they knew...she walked away 180 degrees reversed, and it became her number one.

Then she got deferred.

I find this interesting about the visits at UGA. Between my two kids we visited Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, FSU, and Miami all of the visits/tours were fantastic and very well done. They did a good job selling the school to both parents and the prospective students. I'm surprised to hear UGA didn't really do the same.

 

[RunRonnieRun]

I did notice that there was a big difference in that GT students treat it like their education like business. They are extremely focused on being there for a career, and what it's going to mean for them for the rest of their life. They are up for some fun, but they are there to accomplish a very specific thing...get a great job, and any kind of fun or diversions are welcome, but just that, momentary diversions.

I guest lecture a few times a year at both UGA and GT, and this hits the nail on the head. At UGA the kids are half (or fully) asleep, staring at phones, disengaged, and never interact or ask questions.

At Tech they're ravenous for information. An hour long class leads to another 45-60 minutes of questions and networking afterward, and during the lecture they ask incredibly bright and insightful questions. The students at Tech are more intentional about everything.

I definitely fell on the UGA student side of the spectrum during my time at FSU. After the first time I lectured at Tech I took home more notes and questions than I'd brought with me.

 

[Nole Lou]

I find this interesting about the visits at UGA. Between my two kids we visited Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, FSU, and Miami all of the visits/tours were fantastic and very well done. They did a good job selling the school to both parents and the prospective students. I'm surprised to hear UGA didn't really do the same.

I'm sure if you want to go to UGA in the first place, there's nothing about the visit that is going to make you feel differently. But if you're not, if you're just checking it out, and maybe have some concerns going in...the tour does nothing to address those concerns.

- First, the biggest complaint I have, and the stupidest thing they do, is load all the visitors on buses to drive them to all ends of campus. If you had some concerns about the size of the campus or being intimidating over getting around, this experience make it feel bigger and more difficult to navigate than you imagined. And almost certainly more that it is in actuality, having been on plenty of big campuses. They really, really hype the bus system. I think they believe that's alleviating size concerns, but all that does is make kids say "Crap, I'm going to have to take a bus?"
- They don't tour dining halls or residence halls. They do talk endlessly about the food though for some reason. They downplay the residence halls completely, which encourages the reputation that UGA has lousy dorms. The rep from high schoolers about UGAs dorms is bad enough that simply showing some average dorms is probably going to look better than what kids have in mind, and show that it's totally livable
- They don't sell their academics at all, even though they have really shot up the ratings. You wouldn't feel any different about their academics from a visit than you would visiting Alabama or FSU. Probably worse, because the latter two really sell themselves in that way. It's like UGA feels they don't have to? They don't talk much or show anything about the honors program
- They have little personal contact. Crowding on a bus doesn't help. They don't make any effort to engage students with back and forth. The best thing I've seen on a visit, the student guide, each time we would walk from one stop to another, would grab two kids and have a conversation with them while they went to the next building.

It's nothing awful, it's just a big meh. If you go in with some concern that going to UGA will be a monolithic, average, impersonal, cattle drive, it's like they've designed it to reinforce that notion. Which is dumb, because it's a great school, in a great town, no bigger than most major state universities, and everyone I've known who went there or whose kids went there LOVES it. Me saying on the ride home, "no it's not really like that" over and over again doesn't make much of an impression.

If we visit with my son, we won't be taking that tour again...I'll find a student to take us around or something.

 

[Silas33]

My daughter, a high school senior who was initially wait-listed, received word that she will not be accepted to FSU. She has a 3.8 GPA and SATs of 1130 and apparently that is not enough. Feels like a stab in the back from the school I have loved for most of my life.

We were probably going to have her complete her AA anyway since she's a dual enrollment student who only needs 18 hours for her associates, but this stings. She has been crying for hours. Thanks FSU.

sorry bro, that suck

 

[Nole Lou]

Congrats on your daughter getting in. We're about 48 hours away from the monumental moment on our house, when my daughter hears about Georgia Tech. GT has been on and off her dream school since she was in kindergarten. We're keeping some other options on the line, but nothing that's quite ideal yet, but it would take a massive amount of pressure off if she gets the acceptance this Saturday. Feels like we've been building to this for years.

She and we were all feeling pretty good as she skated into her earlier acceptances as expected, but she got deferred from Tulane, which was quite a reality check. She wasn't going to Tulane, but that was rather unexpected and has her (and us) nervous.

Obviously, a deferment from GT is not the worst thing in the world, but I can't imagine dealing with the uncertainty a few more months. Part of me wants an accept/deny decision Saturday so we can at least move on with life. I'm more worried about the devastating impact on her emotionally to not make it after working so hard for it for many years, than I am about the actual impact on her life of going somewhere other than GT.

And it's even kind of a two-for-one. GT has a legacy program that extends to siblings...if your sibling is a GT student/graduate, you're guaranteed a path to Georgia Tech. If you don't get in on your own merits, there is a program where you can do one year of specified courses at another college, and as long as you pass them accordingly, you have guaranteed admission to GT. My 14 year old son is at least warm toward GT now...my daughter getting in Saturday puts an awesome card in his pocket that would be great to carry with him when he starts in on the process in a couple years.

Well, she made it! Big day in our house for sure. Talk about a long time commit.

 

[OrlandNole]

Congrats, Lou!

 

[DFSNOLE]

Congrats Lou!!

 

[cfbfan23]

That’s big-time!!!!!! Way to go, Lou.

 

[Mark Rudd]

She's going to finish at PHSC. We live north of Tampa in a town called Wesley Chapel. She did put the bit about me and my father going to FSU. I think it was the SAT score. Ah well, I'm calming down. Thanks for the support amigos. Appreciate it.

I had my daughter retake the SAT. She didn't want to, but she did much better the second time.

 

[SoddyNole]

Congrats Lou! I know you all are very proud.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

I guest lecture a few times a year at both UGA and GT, and this hits the nail on the head. At UGA the kids are half (or fully) asleep, staring at phones, disengaged, and never interact or ask questions.

At Tech they're ravenous for information. An hour long class leads to another 45-60 minutes of questions and networking afterward, and during the lecture they ask incredibly bright and insightful questions. The students at Tech are more intentional about everything.

I definitely fell on the UGA student side of the spectrum during my time at FSU. After the first time I lectured at Tech I took home more notes and questions than I'd brought with me.

It would be really interesting to fast forward 20 years and compare the two groups. I bet you'd find the Tech folks mostly have stable jobs that pay pretty well (assuming these engineering jobs haven't been automated or outsourced). My guess is the UGA group would have a lot of flameouts who never amounted to much career-wise but also a signigicant number sitting in C-suites or in other jobs earning big bucks.

 

[More Kirk Less Spock]

Congrats Lou!

 

[GwinnettNole]

Well, she made it! Big day in our house for sure. Talk about a long time commit.

Lou you should be proud- congrats.
Question- I haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if it’s been answered— some of those pictures are of your daughter at a young age cheering for tech- do you have family members that went there or did she just start pulling for them on her own?

 

[ElimiNole]

3.9-4.3 average SAT?!? That's crazy. I would have never been accepted 19 years ago.

 

[Nole Lou]

Lou you should be proud- congrats.
Question- I haven’t read the whole thread so sorry if it’s been answered— some of those pictures are of your daughter at a young age cheering for tech- do you have family members that went there or did she just start pulling for them on her own?

We have no actual connection for Tech. But when we moved to Atlanta, we mildly followed GT. The very youngest picture is when, just on a lark, we went down to fan day. I just saw it in the paper or something, and thought the kids might get a kick about being able to get down on the field, and because it's the oldest D1 field I thought it would be kind of a neat historic thing. But she was four, and she really fell in love with it. From that point forward, she rooted for Tech overall, and talked about wanting to go there, etc. That sort of made us engage a little more with Tech because she was such a fan, made sure we went a little more often, etc. We would usually go to a Tech football game every year, and a couple Tech basketball games over the years, because it's close and easy. They became sort of a secondary rooting interest. If it had no negative repercussions on FSU, we generally pull for Tech...except she rooted for Tech even against FSU.

The 2015 pic is from the infamous block six game...she was there in her GT stuff, sitting with us in a full on FSU section.

So...mostly on her own, but I exposed her to Tech I guess. But my oldest didn't develop any special fandom, and my son was always FSU first, although he is a pretty solid Tech fan as his second team, has some gear, and roots for them pretty hard any time they aren't playing FSU.

 

[Nole Lou]

And thanks for the congratulations everyone.

 

[BlizzardNole]

Just as an update, my daughter has been accepted to FSU and started classes this week. Go Noles!

Congratulations to your daughter! I just saw this thread and read about her crying for hours after getting that first letter. Then I noticed it was from March and went to to end of the thread hoping to see this.

We are on pins and needles waiting on my son's applications (UMD, NC State, FSU and a few others). We are hoping for UMD for in-state but it is tough to get in there. He also has very good GPA (takes AP classes), but not a great standardized test taker and has an SAT just below 1200.

 

[Nole Lou]

I had my daughter retake the SAT. She didn't want to, but she did much better the second time.

Good for you! You are a smart guy...smarter than me.

I didn't think it was possible to raise your SAT very much, toward the higher ends. When I was that age, I took the SAT a second time, and raised my score 30pts. My oldest took it a second time, and raised her score 10 points. My second daughter took it a second time, and raised it 100 points, and then took it a third time and raised it another 90. We had all started with virtually the exact same score.

It changed my perspective on what it's worth to take it more than once.

Everyone probably already knows this already, but they should definitely take the SAT and ACT both. Both of my daughters got extremely different scores. My oldest did way better on her ACT...if you look at conversion tables, my oldest's ACT "converts" to 150 points higher SAT than she actually got on two SAT tries.

My second daughter, the opposite...her ACT score converts to 150 points LOWER than her actual third SAT.

Both concentrated mainly on the SAT, and took the ACT once as sort of a flyer.

 

[Nole Lou]

Congratulations to your daughter! I just saw this thread and read about her crying for hours after getting that first letter. Then I noticed it was from March and went to to end of the thread hoping to see this.

We are on pins and needles waiting on my son's applications (UMD, NC State, FSU and a few others). We are hoping for UMD for in-state but it is tough to get in there. He also has very good GPA (takes AP classes), but not a great standardized test taker and has an SAT just below 1200.

Best of luck, fingers crossed.

My daughter applied to NC State too...still a couple weeks away from early action decisions. Having been through this a couple times...it's amazing how spread out schools are in terms of decisions, and it really effects kids thinking when they have up to months picturing themselves in one place while they wait for another. Alabama basically gets students locked and loaded with acceptance and scholarships in early November. UGA a month or two after that. Just got GT this weekend. NC State doesn't release until I think Jan 30, and Vanderbilt is like March or something.

I guess the more competitive/selective the school is, the more they feel like they can make the kids wait.

 

[seminoledq]

Awesome news Lou, congrats to you and your daughter.

 

[BlizzardNole]

We have an excellent community college in our county (Montgomery College), and students can go for just a year and get into UMD with good grades, but he is dead set against that.

 

[DFSNOLE]

We have an excellent community college in our county (Montgomery College), and students can go for just a year and get into UMD with good grades, but he is dead set against that.

I assume you're paying for the tuition not him.

 

[FSUTD1]

Admitted to FSU in summer of 1994 with a 3.2 weighted and 1050 on my SAT. I probably wouldn't get into to Palm Beach State college now.

 

[funksouljon]

The interesting thing I am seeing over and over here is the stress both parents and the kids are feeling over college entrance. I had okay grades and solid SATs. Not sure what they would translate to in modern scores, but it just never occurred to me to be stressed out about getting in. I only applied to 3 schools and was accepted to all of them.

Is it really that different these days for "major" colleges? Not elite, but major schools? Are there less college availabilities these days (I thought the opposite)? Or has FSU jumped up that much in raising standards? Wonder how it will be in 13 years, sheesh, should I start stressing now!?

 

[More Kirk Less Spock]

Congratulations to your daughter! I just saw this thread and read about her crying for hours after getting that first letter. Then I noticed it was from March and went to to end of the thread hoping to see this.

We are on pins and needles waiting on my son's applications (UMD, NC State, FSU and a few others). We are hoping for UMD for in-state but it is tough to get in there. He also has very good GPA (takes AP classes), but not a great standardized test taker and has an SAT just below 1200.

Good luck! - NC State has a nice campus in Raleigh if I recall.

 

[Nole Lou]

The interesting thing I am seeing over and over here is the stress both parents and the kids are feeling over college entrance. I had okay grades and solid SATs. Not sure what they would translate to in modern scores, but it just never occurred to me to be stressed out about getting in. I only applied to 3 schools and was accepted to all of them.

Is it really that different these days for "major" colleges? Not elite, but major schools? Are there less college availabilities these days (I thought the opposite)? Or has FSU jumped up that much in raising standards? Wonder how it will be in 13 years, sheesh, should I start stressing now!?

Yeah, I think it's changed a lot, pretty much across the board. For a lot of reasons, but not the least of which, by design...the schools WANT to have higher standards and therefore rankings.

I think part of it may be that with the crazy hike in tuition, out of state is a lot less reasonable, creating a lot more competition. Paying $60k+ per year to send a kid out of state to an Auburn or Tennessee or some other thing is just not real attractive, so I suspect there is more in-state applications causing competition. There's other things...many states are also giving their in-state kids forms of scholarships that make it such a good deal that "elite" private school kids are now looking state schools.

I don't know what the state of private schools really is, but I almost see NO looking down the nose at "state schools" any more the way there used to be. Sure, you've got your Ivy League schools in their own category...but it just doesn't seem like a thing anymore for students or parents to classify a Davidson or Emory as a such another level. I remember 20 years ago when articles were coming out saying things like "It's ok to go to a state school" and "Public universities can offer a surprisingly good education." Does anyone think otherwise now? There's just no "smart kids go private school" mentality anymore (beyond the super elite 0.5% shooting for Ivy League).

It does bother me...it seems like something isn't quite right. In Georgia you've got the seventh largest state in the country, and they've got two "major schools", one of which has a fairly narrow mission and serves primarily engineering. The other until a year or two ago didn't even offer engineering. You about need a 1400 SAT now to get into EITHER of those "major" schools. Tennessee has one public power 5 school, Ohio has one, etc.

I know the philosophy is that it trickles down so schools like Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State and Tennessee Tech and UAB etc get better, so that eventually those schools are the equivalent of Georgia, FSU, Tennessee etc twenty years ago. And from a purely educational standpoint, that's probably true. But those schools will never be "Georgia" and all that entails with that. It does kind of suck that a well above average student, that's not elite, can be just totally cut off from the big school in the state.

I guess it just is what it is. That doesn't even take into consideration that if you MAKE IT into your state public flagship, you'd better be able to pay $30k+ plus a year in many instances. Like the admissions standards, that seems like too high a barrier to entry to a state public flagship. If you live in the state, do well enough to get in, it just seems like it shouldn't cost 10x what most kids can make in a summer.

Its worked out for us, but in a more general sense, I think it's a bit disappointing for formerly state-wide flagships to be out of reach to a huge majority of students, especially as they continue to dominate state resources.

 

[407nole]

I don't understand the GPA scale. When I was in high school, I remember a weighted and unweighted GPA, with 4.0 being the highest on an unweighted scale. But schools could manipulate the weighted part. My high school only allowed you to go up to a 4.5, whereas, some high schools went to 5.0. It didn't make sense then and still doesn't when colleges release their numbers.

To the OP, it was her SAT score that let her down.

If a student gets an A in an honors class he/she gets a 5th point
if a student gets an A in an AP course they can get a 6th point but it is still a 4 pt scale.

 

[RTM58]

I had my daughter retake the SAT. She didn't want to, but she did much better the second time.

Good for you! You are a smart guy...smarter than me.

I didn't think it was possible to raise your SAT very much, toward the higher ends. When I was that age, I took the SAT a second time, and raised my score 30pts. My oldest took it a second time, and raised her score 10 points. My second daughter took it a second time, and raised it 100 points, and then took it a third time and raised it another 90. We had all started with virtually the exact same score.

It changed my perspective on what it's worth to take it more than once

https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

https://www.khanacademy.org/about/b...ying-for-the-sat-for-20-hours-on-khan-academy

We’re excited to announce today that studying for the SAT for 20 hours on Khan Academy’s free Official SAT Practice is associated with an average score gain of 115 points. That’s nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don’t use our free test prep.

 

[Nole Lou]

View embedded media

https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

https://www.khanacademy.org/about/b...ying-for-the-sat-for-20-hours-on-khan-academy

We’re excited to announce today that studying for the SAT for 20 hours on Khan Academy’s free Official SAT Practice is associated with an average score gain of 115 points. That’s nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don’t use our free test prep.

Yep, I'll vouch for that. I think she indeed used Khan academy a ton. I offered to look into some of the classes you can buy, even though they are expensive, and I always kind of believed they were more advantages if your starting point was more middling. She said she felt good enough with a couple books and the Khan academy, and my pocketbook assented.

We really didn't keep up with how she was prepping, we pretty much left if up to our kids to take it on themselves, and work as hard as they were willing to as far as their goals, so I don't know much more than that she used it. I believe she was able to identify her weaker points...either from taking practice tests, or maybe the College Board website actually broke them down for her, but however she got them I think she was able to dial in on them specifically with the Khan lessons.

 

[Nole Lou]

View embedded media

https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

https://www.khanacademy.org/about/b...ying-for-the-sat-for-20-hours-on-khan-academy

We’re excited to announce today that studying for the SAT for 20 hours on Khan Academy’s free Official SAT Practice is associated with an average score gain of 115 points. That’s nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don’t use our free test prep.

So, out of curiousity, after reading this post I asked my daughter last night about how much she used Khan academy and how. It's a lot more sophisticated than I expected, and thought it was worth sharing, for anyone heading into this phase with their kids.

So apparently, you sign up with Khan Academy, and you sync it with your College Board account, the site that coordinates the SAT. Then the Khan program can see your SAT results, and identify how you did on certain sections and types of questions. Then it can feed you practices of those types of questions. While you're working them out, you can choose hints in progressive detail, up the the point that it shows you how to work out the question. And you can just do it over and over again until you master all the questions that give you trouble.

It will even tell you the frequency of appearance of different kinds of questions...i.e. they appear on about 30% of SATs, versus 80% of SATs. So you can concentrate and the ones you're most likely to see first, and depending on how much effort you want to put in, work down to the more rare questions, so you're using your time appropriately.

I had assumed it was just videos explaining the different questions, but that's not really it, they are practice questions you work out with help.

They're so linked in with the SAT, that my daughter said she actually got an email from Kahn Academy like this references, congratulating her on being one of the students who raised their score over 100 points. I was a bit surprised to find out, she said she worked the Kahn Academy tools extensively...so much that eventually the practice questions apparently started to repeat a little, which means she did a LOT of practice questions. She said once she mastered the common ones, she continued to drill down even to the infrequent ones, just in case they came up, it could mean a few extra points. I really had no idea how much time she was putting in, because it was in her free time, not in a structured class.

She 100% credits Kahn Academy for her success. I'm going to put her scores here, even though it extremely braggy, only because I am so impressed with what Kahn Academy did, and because she feels strongly about it and wants to tell everyone who will listen how good it is. Her first round of testing was 1350 SAT (and 31 ACT). Her second SAT was 1430. Her third SAT was 1540. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't think that kind of movement at the top end was realistic.

And it's all 100% free. Considering how personalized it is, I honestly can't see how it doesn't put these expensive classes out of business. I guess for some kids having a formal class is still preferential if they need the structure and aren't great at staying on something independently.

But otherwise, I want people to know how great a resource it is, in case their like me and assume it's just some series of videos about the SAT. If your kid is serious about the SAT, it's absolutely worth pushing them to use this.

Advertisement over I guess.

 

[RTM58]

She 100% credits Kahn Academy for her success. I'm going to put her scores here, even though it extremely braggy, only because I am so impressed with what Kahn Academy did, and because she feels strongly about it and wants to tell everyone who will listen how good it is. Her first round of testing was 1350 SAT (and 31 ACT). Her second SAT was 1430. Her third SAT was 1540. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't think that kind of movement at the top end was realistic.

That is outstanding. CONGRATS! Her hard work clearly paid off.

So, out of curiousity, after reading this post I asked my daughter last night about how much she used Khan academy and how. It's a lot more sophisticated than I expected, and thought it was worth sharing, for anyone heading into this phase with their kids.

Advertisement over I guess.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others, back him/them. It dovetails with the free college movement. Khan was a wicked smaht hedge fund guy, I believe, and he has a great story. If I remeber correctly, he started out tutoring his niece and nephew in NY and then they moved to Texas so he made YouTube videos for them. Other people started watching them and it exploded from there. He has an outstanding personality/temperament for teaching and I'm sure that helped initially, via the videos.

I think it's a phenomenal resource all the way through college, and even beyond.


Sal Khan of Khan Academy believes education should be a basic human right, and that this would unlock incredible potential.

 

[seminole97]

And also, not to be to braggy, but I'm pretty sure my daughter would have scored big time there,possibly as much as a free ride.

 

[RTM58]

They say the same thing in NAVAL Nuclear Engineering school. Its true, only about 1/3 graduate.

Almost went that route ......

 

[HulaNole]

Great info, RTM and Lou. Much appreciated.