Grades vs learning

[borisvodofsky]

I'm an abc and I disagree with this.

Are your parents ABC as well? if not, THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM, your speech pattern is heavily influenced by your parents. which means during your critical language learning period, you've developed different speech patterns in terms of (Verb, Subject, Object)" and it messed up your English grammar. <-- linguistics major told me.

The language problem persists as far as 3 generations depending on how much effort each generation puts into Adhering to correct English grammar

 

[TecHNooB]

Are your parents ABC as well? if not, THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM, your speech pattern is heavily influenced by your parents. which means during your critical language learning period, you've developed different speech patterns (Verb, Subject, Object)" and it messed up your English grammar. <-- linguistics major told me.

You may be right, but there's plenty of abc with non-abc parents that crush the verbal section of standardized tests. The secret is apparently memorizing tons of vocabulary. I hate memorizing

 

[rcpratt]

This is rediculous, If you were the person reading 2000xx apps, how much time do you put into each "essay." NO MATTER HOW GOOD they are. :\

SAT is FIRST
GPA score is SECOND
SAT II is THIRD
AP Test 4th
Extracurricular: only works if she's a STAR athlete/artist/dancer.

If she's not especially good at sports/extracurricular, she's better off spending that time studying something important.

ALSO find her an ASIAN math coach,, I don't believe asians are especially good at math, however THEY know EXACTLY how to Beat the TEST

The verbal section of the SAT is ridiculously easy if you're born in America/ are white. MATH section is only easy if you are coached for it.

Probably depends on the school, but I still think GPA is more important overall. And the essays have to fit in there somewhere, probably right after SAT/ACT and GPA.

Michigan sure didn't seem to care about my ACT (35) too much. Then again, that school has easily the stupidest acceptance criteria in the country.

You may be right, but there's plenty of abc with non-abc parents that crush the verbal section of standardized tests. The secret is apparently memorizing tons of vocabulary. I hate memorizing

My HS offered an etymology class. Easily the most important thing you can do for standardized testing.

 

[l0cke]

High school GPA can be manipulated very easily if you know what classes to take. Mostly by taking empty blocks instead of classes.

Example:

Student A takes AP math, english, science, social studies. Gets an A, so it weighs to a 5.0. They take 4 empty blocks so their GPA is a 5.

Student B takes all the same classes and gets the same grades. They then take normal classes where you can only get a 4.0. Their GPA is lower than student A.

ACT/SAT (depending on where you live) is the most important thing. If she gets a 2.8 but then scores a 35 on the ACT she will have a much better chance.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Probably depends on the school, but I still think GPA is more important overall. And the essays have to fit in there somewhere, probably right after SAT/ACT and GPA.

Michigan sure didn't seem to care about my ACT (35) too much. Then again, that school has easily the stupidest acceptance criteria in the country.


My HS offered an etymology class. Easily the most important thing you can do for standardized testing.

FOR EXAMPLE: INTEL / IBM do not higher anyone with less than 4.0 except the Janitor.:\ No fucking joke in this economy, DAME UUU INTEL

 

[PhoKingGuy]

This is rediculous, If you were the person reading 2000xx apps, how much time do you put into each "essay." NO MATTER HOW GOOD they are. :\

SAT is FIRST
GPA score is SECOND
SAT II is THIRD
AP Test 4th
Extracurricular: only works if she's a STAR athlete/artist/dancer.

If she's not especially good at sports/extracurricular, she's better off spending that time studying something important.

ALSO find her an ASIAN math coach,, I don't believe asians are especially good at math, however THEY know EXACTLY how to Beat the TEST

*cracks fingers*

First off

<---- works for one of the largest national SAT prep companies as a tutor and adviser.

I don't know specifically for WI schools, but I'm assuming they're the same as UC/Cal State/etc. For most programs, SAT and GPA are weighted near equally, and to some effect can cancel each other out (high SAT can compensate for a slightly lower GPA or vice versa) but this person speaks the truth, in the end these are really the only things that matter. True your ECs will throw a small part in (she needs to have some to show that shes not a person who sits inside all day doing nothing) but a few core concentrated activities is sufficient.

Assume the essay is thrown away and not read, even if it is, the reader will spend about 30 seconds reading it, if that.

I've had so many kids with parents that were so goddamn clueless about what their kids education that I truly hate my job now. You are starting to sound like one of them, true she may be doing ok in her accelerated math and science classes, but if shes ridiculously stressed about it and failing its a huge huge blow to their self confidence. HS isn't about excelling in that regard, you will relearn everything you need in college. You just need to give her a good base and a good foundation to build on when she leaves and throw in a few APs to get college credit down in the things she wants to do. You need to sit down and talk to her frankly and throw down that a 2.8-3.4 GPA will not get you into a State university or state college, unless she wants to do a 2 year CC transfer. I suggest you lighten her load with classes they are supposed to be taking (CA has a roadmap to college for HS students with suggested classes taken per year according to difficulty level) see if you have something like that and go from there because it is EXTREMELY important that you boost her GPA up, it may in fact be too late as senior year grades are commonly not factored into the admissions process here, only that you are maintaining a C+ average or better once you are granted admission.

She needs to nail the living shit out of the SAT or ACT test, my company puts out a diagnostic that determines which test is a better suit for you, PM me and I can point you in the right direction for that. Find her a class or program she likes and will actually benefit from. Then tell her it is up to her to do the homework and practice for the class or it wont work. True the Asian programs are hard-ass for some students, but they dont work for everyone, especially if she isnt used to the Asian form of learning styles. Have her look at the SAT prep books and see which one she likes more and try that one, most programs will offer some sort of guarantee or test period where you can see if you like it or not. If you do enroll in a program, MAKE SURE you have a good instructor, some of us are lazy ass morons who could care less, or you could get someone like me that will go out of my way to help people on my own time, its total luck of the draw.

I could go on for a few days about this, but if you want PM me with specific questions and we can go from there.

 

[rcpratt]

High school GPA can be manipulated very easily if you know what classes to take. Mostly by taking empty blocks instead of classes.

Example:

Student A takes AP math, english, science, social studies. Gets an A, so it weighs to a 5.0. They take 4 empty blocks so their GPA is a 5.

Student B takes all the same classes and gets the same grades. They then take normal classes where you can only get a 4.0. Their GPA is lower than student A.

ACT/SAT (depending on where you live) is the most important thing. If she gets a 2.8 but then scores a 35 on the ACT no one will turn her down.

What the hell is an empty block.

I also hate the AP/Honors weighting thing. Well, I wouldn't mind it if everyone did it, but it puts districts (like mine was) that don't weight at a significant disadvantage.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

You may be right, but there's plenty of abc with non-abc parents that crush the verbal section of standardized tests. The secret is apparently memorizing tons of vocabulary. I hate memorizing

Im an MCAT verbal tutor as well as an SAT tutor. Its bunk that FOBs arent capable of crushing verbal sections.

I got one of my friends (came from Vietnam 3 years ago, you can barely understand a word he says) to a 11/15 on the MCAT verbal, most native english speakers born here can't get that.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

High school GPA can be manipulated very easily if you know what classes to take. Mostly by taking empty blocks instead of classes.

Example:

Student A takes AP math, english, science, social studies. Gets an A, so it weighs to a 5.0. They take 4 empty blocks so their GPA is a 5.

Student B takes all the same classes and gets the same grades. They then take normal classes where you can only get a 4.0. Their GPA is lower than student A.

ACT/SAT (depending on where you live) is the most important thing. If she gets a 2.8 but then scores a 35 on the ACT no one will turn her down.

FALSE!!! An awesome GPA or ACT/SAT cannot make up for a total shit showing on the other. Its slightly rare to see someone with a high GPA with a shit ACT/SAT so thats a bit more acceptable to adcoms but the reverse is usually frowned upon in most cases.

Its usually attributed to the fact that the student is very lazy in coursework but may be a good test taker or was just coached to do well on it (ACT/SAT ARE NOT a measure of how smart you are, just how good you can take a test)

 

[borisvodofsky]

High school GPA can be manipulated very easily if you know what classes to take. Mostly by taking empty blocks instead of classes.

Example:

Student A takes AP math, english, science, social studies. Gets an A, so it weighs to a 5.0. They take 4 empty blocks so their GPA is a 5.

Student B takes all the same classes and gets the same grades. They then take normal classes where you can only get a 4.0. Their GPA is lower than student A.

ACT/SAT (depending on where you live) is the most important thing. If she gets a 2.8 but then scores a 35 on the ACT no one will turn her down.

You can't just say, oh yea if you get a perfect score on your entrance exam, your grades don't matter...

They kids who get perfect scores on entrance exams also have VERY good grades...

YES there are outliers, but they're outliers.

Also perfect scores are by luck,,,, I took SAT 3 times, math section went 790, 720, 790... The elusive 800.. LOL :\

I must admit, being asian, I fudged the verbal, 690

I took the first round of essay test, and Everyone got a 10 on the essay, so pretty much everyone got 600+..

 

[TecHNooB]

What the hell is an empty block.

I also hate the AP/Honors weighting thing. Well, I wouldn't mind it if everyone did it, but it puts districts (like mine was) that don't weight at a significant disadvantage.

I'm guessing it's a class that only counts for credit.

 

[rcpratt]

I'm guessing it's a class that only counts for credit.

I didn't know they had those in HS, but if they do, that's ridiculous.

 

[l0cke]

What the hell is an empty block.

I also hate the AP/Honors weighting thing. Well, I wouldn't mind it if everyone did it, but it puts districts (like mine was) that don't weight at a significant disadvantage.

No class or a class that does not have a grade. And yeah it's total BS as evidenced by my post.

FALSE!!! An awesome GPA or ACT/SAT cannot make up for a total shit showing on the other. Its slightly rare to see someone with a high GPA with a shit ACT/SAT so thats a bit more acceptable to adcoms but the reverse is usually frowned upon in most cases.

Its usually attributed to the fact that the student is very lazy in coursework but may be a good test taker or was just coached to do well on it (ACT/SAT ARE NOT a measure of how smart you are, just how good you can take a test)

Okay, what I meant to say was that they will not trash the application after seeing the GPA if it has a good test score. They will probably move on to other things, like the essay.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Im an MCAT verbal tutor as well as an SAT tutor. Its bunk that FOBs arent capable of crushing verbal sections.

I got one of my friends (came from Vietnam 3 years ago, you can barely understand a word he says) to a 11/15 on the MCAT verbal, most native english speakers born here can't get that.

Lets hear this genius speak proper English without missing articles, and throwing out verb/objects in random order..

You can coach hardcore for Vocab in a short amount of time. Reading comprehension/ grammar is a longg term thing..

This means you can coach for mid-range scores, but HIGH scores are elusive because EXACTLY 'he's a fob"

 

[ShawnD1]

:thumbsup:

I'm not sure I took a single class in high school that required something beyond memorization and repeating back whenever the teacher said.

???
In grade 12 we had to create the quadratic equation from scratch. The hint was "complete the square" then solve it from there. Even when you know what you start with and you know the answer, getting from start to finish is surprisingly difficult if you've never done it before.
We also did things like determine the most material efficient shape for a can of coke (ignoring material properties).

AFAIC, learning is better than grades. No one should get an A for more than 1 quarter in a row. If you're getting an A, you're unchallenged. Straight Cs should be the goal, and you should be busting your ass to get them.

The instructors at my university said something to this effect. The said the tests were designed in such a way that the class average should be 60%. This was in electrical engineering where 50% is the fail point and the marks are not put on a curve to determine failure. Because of the extreme difficulty of the tests, roughly 1/3 of the people were gone by the end of the first year. While 50% was the pass mark, letter grades were still put on a curve and assigned accordingly. If the class did astoundingly bad, it was possible to fail the class with a B (most people failed, you are one of them). It was also possible to pass the class with a D (you suck compared to your peers, but you still got over 50%).


IMO, and this is purely opinion, it's better she take all hard classes all the time. Then she'll know how to manage time and deal with multiple projects at one time. When she gets to university and is given a difficult task, she'll know how to do it. Lots of people never get that skill, so they get overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks.

 

[borisvodofsky]

*cracks fingers*

First off

<---- works for one of the largest national SAT prep companies as a tutor and adviser.

I don't know specifically for WI schools, but I'm assuming they're the same as UC/Cal State/etc. For most programs, SAT and GPA are weighted near equally, and to some effect can cancel each other out (high SAT can compensate for a slightly lower GPA or vice versa) but this person speaks the truth, in the end these are really the only things that matter. True your ECs will throw a small part in (she needs to have some to show that shes not a person who sits inside all day doing nothing) but a few core concentrated activities is sufficient.

Assume the essay is thrown away and not read, even if it is, the reader will spend about 30 seconds reading it, if that.

I've had so many kids with parents that were so goddamn clueless about what their kids education that I truly hate my job now. You are starting to sound like one of them, true she may be doing ok in her accelerated math and science classes, but if shes ridiculously stressed about it and failing its a huge huge blow to their self confidence. HS isn't about excelling in that regard, you will relearn everything you need in college. You just need to give her a good base and a good foundation to build on when she leaves and throw in a few APs to get college credit down in the things she wants to do. You need to sit down and talk to her frankly and throw down that a 2.8-3.4 GPA will not get you into a State university or state college, unless she wants to do a 2 year CC transfer. I suggest you lighten her load with classes they are supposed to be taking (CA has a roadmap to college for HS students with suggested classes taken per year according to difficulty level) see if you have something like that and go from there because it is EXTREMELY important that you boost her GPA up, it may in fact be too late as senior year grades are commonly not factored into the admissions process here, only that you are maintaining a C+ average or better once you are granted admission.

She needs to nail the living shit out of the SAT or ACT test, my company puts out a diagnostic that determines which test is a better suit for you, PM me and I can point you in the right direction for that. Find her a class or program she likes and will actually benefit from. Then tell her it is up to her to do the homework and practice for the class or it wont work. True the Asian programs are hard-ass for some students, but they dont work for everyone, especially if she isnt used to the Asian form of learning styles. Have her look at the SAT prep books and see which one she likes more and try that one, most programs will offer some sort of guarantee or test period where you can see if you like it or not. If you do enroll in a program, MAKE SURE you have a good instructor, some of us are lazy ass morons who could care less, or you could get someone like me that will go out of my way to help people on my own time, its total luck of the draw.

I could go on for a few days about this, but if you want PM me with specific questions and we can go from there.

I wouldn't PM you if it were my kid... You have Special interests.

If you were a half way decent salesmen, you wouldn't have said you worked at the SAT prep, only to casually bring it up later, when you've sunken into our comfort zone.

While i totally agree that kids need SAT prep... You really just need to do the RED book 10 times.. and get the asian math coach.

All the Kaplan esque programs does not work all the time and can be loose as hell depending on your instructor.

<-- I also worked as an Asian SAT math coach,, I also hated my job,, I also hate kids,, They gave me depression, I think.. Also FOR THE LOVE OF GOD,,,,,, Teach her how to do a Distance/Rate/Time problem... AHhhhhhh

 

[borisvodofsky]

???
In grade 12 we had to create the quadratic equation from scratch. The hint was "complete the square" then solve it from there. Even when you know what you start with and you know the answer, getting from start to finish is surprisingly difficult if you've never done it before.
We also did things like determine the most material efficient shape for a can of coke (ignoring material properties).



The instructors at my university said something to this effect. The said the tests were designed in such a way that the class average should be 60&#37;. This was in electrical engineering where 50% is the fail point and the marks are not put on a curve to determine failure. Because of the extreme difficulty of the tests, roughly 1/3 of the people were gone by the end of the first year. While 50% was the pass mark, letter grades were still put on a curve and assigned accordingly. If the class did astoundingly bad, it was possible to fail the class with a B (most people failed, you are one of them). It was also possible to pass the class with a D (you suck compared to your peers, but you still got over 50%).


IMO, and this is purely opinion, it's better she take all hard classes all the time. Then she'll know how to manage time and deal with multiple projects at one time. When she gets to university and is given a difficult task, she'll know how to do it. Lots of people never get that skill, so they get overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks.

Yes, but this does not encompass all factors of academic success.

 

[xanis]

It's really unfortunate that so much emphasis is placed on grades by various educational and business institutions, because learning means a lot more than a letter IMO. Granted, there is correlation between the two, but not as much as some people might think. I didn't do that well in high school but am doing very well now in college. Why? I'm guessing that the emphasis went from absorbing/regurgitating facts to stuff with more individual mental/creative freedom and problem solving.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

I wouldn't PM you if it were my kid... You have Special interests.

If you were a half way decent salesmen, you wouldn't have said you worked at the SAT prep, only to casually bring it up later, when you've sunken into our comfort zone.

While i totally agree that kids need SAT prep... You really just need to do the RED book 10 times.. and get the asian math coach.

All the Kaplan esque programs does not work all the time and can be loose as hell depending on your instructor.

<-- I also worked as an Asian SAT math coach,, I also hated my job,, I also hate kids,, They gave me depression, I think.. Also FOR THE LOVE OF GOD,,,,,, Teach her how to do a Distance/Rate/Time problem... AHhhhhhh

I agree with you, our programs are crap and every kid could do this on their own if they wanted to. The key word is the last part, most of my job is just to make sure they do their homework.

The collegeboard book is good, but doing 1000 problems the wrong way isnt going to help anyone, thats why I said go to a store and see which book you like better and then go from there. Chances are she wont even need to take a class.

 

[DrPizza]

I have a letter posted on the bulletin board in my classroom. It came from a teacher in a NYC area high school. His guidance department noticed a decline in the number of their students who were being accepted into the better colleges and universities in the area. They inquired with several of those schools to find out why their students weren't being accepted. The letter contains a quotation from one of the admissions counselors: they've found that students who slack off during their senior year, taking extra "easy" courses to pad their GPAs instead of more challenging courses in math and science tended not to do as well at college.
(If someone sends me a PM in about a week, I'll grab the letter when I'm at school & type it verbatim.)

I've seen students with incredibly high averages not get into their first choice schools, and I highly suspect that the case is often because they completely slacked off their senior year to try to get an almost perfect 100 average in the "easy" courses where attendance is 95&#37; of the grade. (band, chorus, etc.)

 

[Terabyte]

To be honest, to do well in HS and college, memorization is the key. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. I have taken many classes in college where all I had to do is memorize the PowerPoint slides, and I would do well. This isn't what I would consider learning, but apparently, a piece of paper called a diploma means a lot in the real world.

If grades weren't that important, I'd rather actually learn things and not get an A, then memorize shit and get an A.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

I have a letter posted on the bulletin board in my classroom. It came from a teacher in a NYC area high school. His guidance department noticed a decline in the number of their students who were being accepted into the better colleges and universities in the area. They inquired with several of those schools to find out why their students weren't being accepted. The letter contains a quotation from one of the admissions counselors: they've found that students who slack off during their senior year, taking extra "easy" courses to pad their GPAs instead of more challenging courses in math and science tended not to do as well at college.
(If someone sends me a PM in about a week, I'll grab the letter when I'm at school & type it verbatim.)

I've seen students with incredibly high averages not get into their first choice schools, and I highly suspect that the case is often because they completely slacked off their senior year to try to get an almost perfect 100 average in the "easy" courses where attendance is 95% of the grade. (band, chorus, etc.)

This is also very very very true.

 

[borisvodofsky]

I have a letter posted on the bulletin board in my classroom. It came from a teacher in a NYC area high school. His guidance department noticed a decline in the number of their students who were being accepted into the better colleges and universities in the area. They inquired with several of those schools to find out why their students weren't being accepted. The letter contains a quotation from one of the admissions counselors: they've found that students who slack off during their senior year, taking extra "easy" courses to pad their GPAs instead of more challenging courses in math and science tended not to do as well at college.
(If someone sends me a PM in about a week, I'll grab the letter when I'm at school & type it verbatim.)

I've seen students with incredibly high averages not get into their first choice schools, and I highly suspect that the case is often because they completely slacked off their senior year to try to get an almost perfect 100 average in the "easy" courses where attendance is 95&#37; of the grade. (band, chorus, etc.)

Dame, So they caught on to this ehh... LOL... "guilty" I was part of the padd group.. :ninja:

Do you mean high average, "LAST year only", or high average overall... because even if your classes are easy, as long as it doesn't say: "drama 1, drama 2, drama 3, drama independent study," I think you'll still look OK.

Still, you have to get A-s in those "challenging" courses because otherwise, they'll make you look dumb regardless.

Assuming A-s in easy classes will get you into MID-range schools, it's not such a bad deal really, safer and less work..

 

[ShawnD1]

It's really unfortunate that so much emphasis is placed on grades by various educational and business institutions, because learning means a lot more than a letter IMO. Granted, there is correlation between the two, but not as much as some people might think.

I don't think there's any correlation. Part of electrical engineering was a project course where we did research on a topic of our choice (after getting approval). In the last week, we all gave an hour long presentation to the rest of the engineers and had time for questions. One thing I noticed was that people who get somewhat good grades in the 70s and low 80s seemed to know what they were doing. I would ask questions like why is a train using a DC motor instead of a 3 phase motor, and they would know the answer. Even if they didn't know the answer, they could at least speculate and give me a number of reasons why someone might pick something.
The "top" students sucked. They were typically Chinese or Indian immigrants who memorized things and they had no clue what they were doing. One group did an entire project about LEDs but they didn't seem to know that TV remotes use "invisible" LEDs because they use infrared LEDs (humans can't see IR). In response to the teacher's question of why his garage door opener and TV remote LEDs don't seem to light up, the students suggested a loose connection. The teacher pushed on by saying it's not broken because the TV still responds to the controller, but he just can't see the LED light up. They were stumped. They had no idea.
They also didn't know why LEDs had a limit of 1A (another guy later explained it was a heat limitation).

In the question periods, I destroyed so many groups. I wasn't trying to do that. All I was doing was asking questions that I genuinely wanted to know the answer to. I thought that people doing an entire semester long project about LEDs would know something about them. People doing a project about solar panels should be able to give me a rough estimate of what it would cost to do this to a house. How did these top students do an entire project and not learn a fucking thing? It's because they just memorize everything. They don't understand anything at all.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

She wants to be a large city, and she thinks Madison is too small. UW Milwaukee might be a possibility.

9th grade was rough for her as I changed jobs and was apart from the family and last year she changed schools. The girls were pretty crappy to her, so that didn't help.

I don't think they translated her grades properly from her previous school so I need to straigten that out. Plys, gym was P/F at her old school while gym is graded here. That's a disadvantage for her too.

No university cares about gym grades, so discount that in considering her gpa. Parents moving/transitioning between schools is difficult but considering what other kids go through, it's not going to count for much, if anything. By extenuating circumstances, I'm talking about things like a parent dying, drug addiction, life-threatening illness, etc. Essays also don't count for much, so don't rely on those overmuch.

UW-Milwaukee is somewhat selective, they don't have open enrollment, and as UW-Madison becomes increasingly expensive and competitive, Milwaukee's only going to get harder to get into the next few years. A 2.8 and average standardized test scores from an unremarkable high school is unlikely to be offered admission.

Patterns in grades over time mean a lot to admissions counselors. If you pull a 2.0 when you're 14 and a 3.5 when you're 17, that looks MUCH better than earning a 3.5 in 9th grade and a 2.0 in 11th grade. Bottom line: she needs to raise her grades. I would not encourage her to take AP/honors courses yet. Let her prove in 11th grade that she can 3.5+ standard classes and if she can, have her take harder courses in 12th grade.