Not necessarily, but such a student had better get VERY good grades in the courses, since they’ve had an obvious “head start.” A native speaker of English can major in English in college, and our hypothetical home-foreign-language speaker would be able to major in his home language at the same school (assuming it were offered there, etc.).
I don’t think a college admissions committee would see such a student as a slacker, since he/she might want to learn the “proper” version of that language, which his/her family might not speak at home. At least, the student’s choice of foreign language wouldn’t be any more of a “slacker” move than a monolingual English-speaking student who decides to take Spanish (relatively easy) rather than Mandarin (relatively hard). In any case, that’s just one course, so if you take challenging courses in high school (physics, calculus, just about any AP course), they’re not likely to give a student a hard time about taking courses in his or her family’s native, non-English language. I have no ego about this response- if someone who is/was actually a college admissions officer wants to contradict me, so be it- I’d love to hear from such a person to hear what s/he has to say. Probably - the worst thing they can say is “No.” I was accepted by a number of Ivy League colleges and universities, and my high school offered exactly two AP courses when I attended. If you have good extracurriculars, and have taken the most rigorous courses you can (i.e., the honors courses), you should apply. A 33 ACT is in the 99th percentile, according to the chart I just found by Googling “ACT percentile,” so you’re up to snuff.
Being from a small town in Oklahoma does give you some geographic diversity points - universities and colleges do look for students from small towns in the country, sometimes calling them “rural reps,” etc. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being a “rural rep”- some of the most accomplished students I knew at Williams College (not an Ivy, but as well-respected as most Ivies) were from small towns in the Midwest or the South. The best colleges and universities do want a representative sample of the whole U.S., as well as several international students, since diversity makes for a better learning environment. So yes, you should definitely apply, hopefully after figuring out what you want to do in college, and what colleges have the best faculty, staff, and possibly physical plant (hey, for high-level science, you may need equipment that’s only at certain colleges) for you. Showing the college you’ve “done your homework” by researching the faculty, etc. is always a plus when you apply. Good luck! Barron’s SAT would work - even an old edition such as the 28th or 29th edition (the current edition is the 30th edition) would teach you all you need to know. It has a great list of the classics of English/American literature, any of which you could read to learn more about English. Try reading a book from that list every two to three weeks - you’ll learn a lot about literary devices, human nature/life lessons, and have great examples of both for the essay and reading sections. You can also go to CliffsNotes Study Guides | Book Summaries, Test Preparation & Homework Help | Written by Teachers for a similar list of classic books that the SAT people would like you to have read and understood. The Cliffs Notes can help you understand those works if you get stuck, and also help if you are writing a report and need a quick guide as to in what part of the books events happen. (DO NOT just read the Cliffs Notes or similar guides instead of reading the books, especially if you have to report on them - your high school teachers and college professors will KNOW. They are intimately familiar with these works, and can easily think of questions about details not covered in the commercial guides/summaries).
References to books essay graders have read are more likely to get you a top score than references to obscure novels or pulp fiction. Some of the books are probably ones you will have to read for English class. It also has a very good section on English grammar (including tips about things most native English speakers get wrong) and how to write the essay. It even has a very nice vocabulary list, which will teach you many words even native-born American English speakers may not know. The difficulty of any particular test going to vary from test to test, and student to student. Elite Prep is a good SAT program, if it’s the one I’m thinking of. I worked for Elite Prep for a while, and I was impressed with them. Now I run my own prep company. They’re not likely to make easier tests, since generally, test prep companies use questions harder than real SAT questions, so you’ll be better prepared to take the real SAT. Think of it as similar to baseball players using those “donut” weights on their bats - when they’re at bat, they’re swinging a lighter bat without the donut, so they can swing faster. The same logic applies to SAT problems - hopefully, you’ll think “Wow, these questions are EASY!” when you take the real SAT.
If you’re having problems with certain SAT problems, use the answer explanations to see where you went wrong, use the Khan Academy SAT problems/videos to study, and perhaps try other people’s videos, such as mine: John Linneball Tutoring . There are many SAT tutoring channels and videos available on YouTube for free - why not try some? Hope this helps. Find out what kinds of test questions you get wrong consistently. Work on those kinds of test questions. It’s really hard to get into the 1500s, since getting a very small number (maybe two to four questions) wrong can knock you out of the 1500s into the 1400s. Make sure you know the tricky grammar rules (“who” vs. “whom,” etc.), how to figure out reading passage questions, and how to handle the “tricks” in math problems. Those are all in any good SAT prep book.
Try the “advanced” versions of common SAT guides (e.g., Barron’s SAT 1600) that are designed to help good students get as close to perfect scores as possible. Take the official College Board practice tests under timed conditions, if you haven’t already. If you have, use practice tests from books, etc. I can’t guarantee you a score over 1500, but this is the only way you’re likely to get it. Aim for the top score - 1600. Work as hard as you can in the prep course, and take the College Board free prep exams, use Khan Academy, etc. If you score anywhere from 1300 to 1600, you should be fine, and that score range is certainly attainable for someone who scored a 1200 on the PSAT with no prep. Good luck!
The College Board was going to institute an “environmental factors dashboard,” better known as a “diversity index,” to account for such factors. It was specifically NOT based on race, but rather upon how academically rigorous the student’s school is, the general test scores, the value of commercial real estate in the student’s neighborhood, and the like. Students from poor neighborhoods would have a higer “environmental factors score” or “diversity index.” As I have joked, the factors basically ask “Are you from Detroit?” ;-)
Basically, students’ scores in these areas could be sent along with the SAT scores for colleges to use in whatever way they saw fit- I don’t believe it would actually affect the students’ SAT scores. In other words, a 1500 would still be a 1500 - a kid from a poor, inner-city high school in a collapsing industrial city wouldn’t gain points, and a kid from a rich and rigorous school wouldn’t lose points. However, people REALLY got upset over the whole thing, and the College Board backed off. I think it’s a shame - the whole thing was a creative way to evaluate the adversity certain students faced without directly considering race (thus avoiding cries of “Reverse discrimination! How do you know a minority kid didn’t go to an AWESOME high school?” and the like). Does it matter THAT much? No, since good colleges ask about adversity, problems you have faced, what is special or different about you, in different ways in the essay portion of the application (For example, see the Common App or the UC application for details). They also can figure out how good your school was through records they have, including how other students who attended your high school did at their schools. They’ll know if your family was poor because you’ll submit financial aid documents. In the end, disadvantaged students are still, well, disadvantaged, but the SAT’s failure to take those factors into account isn’t a serious problem, not compared to the lack of quality schools in certain neighborhoods, discrimination, defeatist attitudes (e.g., “Don’t bother to try to be a doctor - med schools won’t take people like us”), and the like. It’s also easier for admissions committees to decide what, if any, adjustments should be made for those factors, rather than the College Board’s doing so. Yes. I can think of three ways you could see those recommendations. Two ways are easy and one way is hard. The easy way is simply to ask the teacher if she or he will show you the recommendation. It would seem she or he should not mind, especially after they’ve submitted it to the college, so it’s not as though you can change it or decide not to use that recommendation.
If the teacher is trusting enough to let YOU mail the recommendation, then you obviously can read it, as long as they don’t seal the envelope with a signature across the seal, or using some other method where you couldn’t simply open the envelope and re-seal it (as unethical and illegal as that would be - it’s illegal to open other people’s mail, and the college is the recipient, not you). Finally, if you attend college in the U.S., federal law requires schools to allow you to see anything in your educational files, including but not limited to your college applications. (DISCLAIMER: I am not your attorney, so this isn’t legal advice - see a lawyer if you need advice for a real legal problem.) I know I read, in Time magazine, about a Stanford alumnus who used that law to gain access to his admissions file, and published some of his more cringeworthy essay portions. Something like “I’d be an awesome party dude and score lots of babes,” if I recall correctly. Read the instructions in the application booklet/on the college’s website. They will tell you from whom you can get a reference. Many colleges really do want you to get recommendations from people other than your teachers, as well as from your teachers, so you probably can use a recommendation from the organization. But check first- not following directions is a REALLY good reason for a college to reject your application.
I made a video about what you should do in middle school to ensure you’re on the right track to get into the best college for you: Click here!
In any event, you should take time to read many books, magazines, newspapers (or their online equivalents). It’s a good idea to start with “the classics”- the books most people have had to read for high school and college for a LONG time. You can find a list of the classics on the Cliff’s Notes website CliffsNotes Study Guides | Book Summaries, Test Preparation & Homework Help | Written by Teachers. If they bothered to make a summary book for any particular book, it’s a “classic” for our purposes. Read them with a dictionary or Google (phone or PC) to look up words you don’t know. It’s good to know the actual dictionary definitions of words instead of just always guessing them from their context. It also pays to study word roots, suffixes, and prefixes, so you can figure out words you don’t know on the SAT or ACT. Start doing extracurricular activities such as volunteer work (it shows you are community-minded), paid work (it shows you care about meeting goals, taking care of yourself, and possibly helping support your family, etc.), and things such as school sports, the school paper, yearbook, theater, etc. 8th grade, the last year of middle school, is a great time to try things like theater, a sport you haven’t played before, a new musical instrument, etc., so you have time to learn them well before college if you like them, and you haven’t wasted really crucial high school time on them if you find you don’t like them. Colleges will take your activities much more seriously if you’ve done them all through high school, and didn’t just start them right before applying to college. Start practicing SAT and ACT math problems, not just to practice for those tests, but to stay sharp for your high school math and science courses. You’ll want the skills you need for those tests when you take harder math (algebra, trigonometry, statistics) in high school so you don’t have to learn them in college. Make sure you talk with your teachers, counselors, supervisors, coaches, etc. about your goals, and ask for advice. Really listen to what these people tell you, even if you don’t like what they say. These people have more experience than you do, so they’re probably right, but don’t be afraid to ask other adults if you don’t like what you’ve been told. The more you share with (and listen to) adults, the better your relationship with them will be, the more likely you will be to receive “the benefit of the doubt” if you’re in a sketchy situation at school, and the better recommendations you will get when it’s time to apply to college. Teachers, coaches, counselors, and supervisors are human beings - they’re going to work harder for students they see as “friends” than just run-of-the-mill, average students/athletes/volunteers/workers. Hope this helps! |
Author: John Linneball Who did you think? ;-)I'm the proprietor and only tutor for this business; that's why I named it after me. Archives
December 2023
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