DescentBB

So how did everyone do on their finals this year?

I ended up with 3 A's, another class thats gonna be either an A or a B, and another thats gonna be either a B or a C.

Finals went easier than expected. No test took me longer than half an hour. Yayyyyy month long vacation!

My last one is tonight at 8. After I get done I'm goin to a buddy's house for a Halo 2 LAN party

Good riddance to another semester. Bleh.

My last one was 30 years ago and I don't want to remember how I did.

Half a cheer for finals being over!

i still have a calculus final tomorrow

I'm in senior year of high school. My GPA went from 3.71 junior year to a 3.53 in senior year.

I'll be lucky if I *get* to take any finals.

lol dcrazy; thats why, as a senior, i took like 3-4 classes intended for sophmores or juniors.

Yeah I made the mistake of taking Calc, Spanish IV, Advanced Physics, Jazz Band, an English, and a Theology course. And I completely burned out.

Does the PSAT count as my finals, since I don't really get winter break, and my school season continues through one giant year with no snow days?

I'm assuming that's a yes. Therefore...

Compared to sophomores my own age:
97th percentile in writing skills
98th percentile in reading skills
99th percentile in math

Compared to college-bound juniors:
average of 97th percentile (they didn't give a detailed analysis of this)

Got a selection index of ~ 214/240.

The scores in this were high enough to please even my parents! Now THAT ROCKS!

My finals went great. Now, I am officially a college junior, one semester early.

...until I decide to randomly change my major, then I will fall several years behind.

Stryker wrote:blah blah blah

Oh. That's great, and good job with that, but you do know that the PSAT's don't matter at all, right?


As a matter of fact, the SAT's don't matter at all either.

Finished my last one "yesterday," partied tonight. My final grades haven't been posted yet, but I probably have 1 B (calculus = ugh) and the rest A's.

Well, the PSAT's matter for me, 'cause I'm a National Merit Seminerdiest. They don't matter nearly as much as your SAT scores (both the regular SAT which, for you Stryker, will contain the Math, Verbal, and Writing sections, as well as any SAT II Subject Tests like Physics or American History) as far as getting into college is concerned, but even then your grades are far more important. What's worse is if (like me) there's a large discrepancy between your SAT scores and your grades; as I mentioned before, my GPA coming out of Junior year was a 3.71. I took the SAT in May of Junior year and scored a 1530. That's a bit of a discrepancy that wasn't helped by my poor performance this year.

Yeah... my grades tend to be pretty much straight-A; partially because I'm banned from the computer if I get below a B in anything for a day and if I get less than a 90 in math. So yeah, I have incentive to keep my grades up. This year's PSAT didn't really matter; it's next year's that will really count. The PSAT isn't required to get into colleges around here; it's just a feather in your cap if you get a good grade. I like feathers. Colleges around here require the ACT for entrance, which I'll be taking twice; next year and the year after.

The only "final" left for me is completing my Master's Thesis, which I've been putting off for over a year now. I'll probably go back and finish it someday, but I don't have any motivation to at this point, since it wouldn't help my career.

Stryker wrote:Colleges around here require the ACT for entrance, which I'll be taking twice; next year and the year after.

Very, very good idea to take it more than once. I also excelled academically during high school, but I made the mistake of not being serious about it, skipping the PSAT, and only taking the ACT and SAT once each. I scored in the 30+(ACT)/1400+(SAT) range without too much practice, but if I had been more serious and taken them again, I know I could have bumped my scores up a couple of notches. At the time, I thought it was just a matter of pride, but it made a bigdifference when it came to the level of scholarship money I received (and I'll still be paying off my school loans a couple of years from now).

Note: Please don't take this as a "Look how smart I am!" post. The topic came up, and I wanted to give a little perspective from my own experience.

2nd note: The students in here have just come through finals and/or SATs/ACTs, and they deserve to be pround of their accomplishments for at least a little while! So hold off blasting them with any "elite-ist" accusations, okay?

i don't think so foil.

i took the SAT's once in 7th grade, once in 8th grade*, the PSATs once in 9th grade, once in 10th grade, and the SATs in 11th and 12th

While in 7th and 8th, i got ~1100 on the test. Then, in 9th and 10th, i got a 1280, roughly. I remember that in 11th grade I got the same exact score. than, in 12th, my grade shot up to 1440 for no good reason whatsoever, except dumb luck.

Now, im at college, and im not getting ANY money from my school, while as a bunch of people around me who scored 1100-1200 are almost getting complete scholarships! the SATs don't really mean anything. they're really a measurement of how good a test taker you are than anything.



*i was part of an program to see how younger students fare on the SAT.

Vertigo 99 wrote:the SATs don't really mean anything. they're really a measurement of how good a test taker you are than anything.

Not true. It doesn't always make a difference (sometimes things like family income factor in), but I got basically a half-scholarship based on my ACT score; if it had been only two points higher, it would have been a full scholarship.

Clayman wrote:...I probably have 1 B (calculus = ugh)...

Clayman,

Don't get discouraged about Calc (I'm assuming it's Calc I here). It can be tough. But as long as you've grasped the main concepts (limits, relationships of functions to their derivatives, integration), you'll be fine.

I had a chance to teach a freshman Calc I class a couple of years ago, and one of the things I told my students was that the concepts were the main thing. As long as you mentally grasp the ideas presented in the course, you'll find that the formulae and algorithms usually come naturally and make sense. I can't tell you how many times during college and grad school I couldn't remember some particular formula, but because I understood where it came from I was able to reconstruct it.

And good luck in your next Calc course (if any)!

Calculus made me hate math.

I used to love math and get consistant A's, until I took calc in HS and started getting B's. Ever since, ive been a strong anti-calc advocate.

Foil: i think it is true. My family is far from rich. Compared with people of similar familial income to mine, most of them have lower SAT's and more scholarships.


Colleges are looking for extracurricular stuff that youve done that proves youre a "well-rounded" person, and are quite willing to almost not look at your SAT at all in favor of being on a sports team, etc.

I think I finished with 2 A's, a B, and a C.

Plenty good enough for me! I always seem to get around a 3.25

As for tests and scholarships, I don't know for sure because maybe it's different in every state, but I know here in Florida my SAT score + my high school GPA (which wasn't that good, i think 3.5) got me fully paid tuition and 300 dollars a semester for books, as long as I kept my GPA over 3.0 (Bright Futures Scholarship)

I've been kicking myself in the ass however for skipping the PSAT because I thought it wasn't worth anything, and only the SAT mattered. Meanwhile my sister got the National Merit Scholarship through her PSAT score, then with the Bright Futures she had enough money to cover all her living expenses (rent + bills) plus go to school for free.

So I guess the point is, look into what those tests can do for you before you blow them off.

Vertigo,

I was in something similar where I took it in 8th grade. I remember scoring somewhere around a 1040 and being excited because I was told that was very good for my age.

So I come home and proudly show my parents who are both extremely unimpressed. My mom said something close to, "A 1040 is barely above average, Jeremy. You need to do a lot better than that"

HEH Gotta love that parental love.

Also, I did take the ACT one time (along with my one time SAT), and I did very well on the ACT, even better than I did on the SAT. In fact, the way the scholarship was set up, you just needed to achieve a certain ACT or SAT score, so I guess you could say either or ended up getting me the scholarship.

hmm.. i guess it depends on where you're from.

all i know is that for me to be paying (pretty much) full tuition with my GPA (which was something like a 3.78) and my SAT's it seems like it hardly matters.

The fact that I went from an A to a B in math by taking calc has strangely made me like it more...