I never took my SAT's. I never applied to college. I moved right out here and jumped into the thick of things. Whether that was the smart move or not, I'm sitting here talking to you now, so it paid off.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Maybe you think, 'I'm not college material.' Maybe you worry that you don't have the money. Then you take the SAT. You see that colleges are getting in touch with you. You begin to think maybe you are ready for college.
At some of our most competitive universities, 17 times the amount of students that can go to the school, apply. And these applicants are from all over the country, and admissions officers need ways to sort through them. The SAT is just one of those things.
I'd never taken an SAT prep course. They were for weaker students.
The SAT plays an important role in helping admissions officers around the country sort out students, well-deserving students from 20,000 high schools that have different curriculums, different grading standards, and different ability to help students get ready for college.
I scored a 910 on my SAT. I didn't care about education. I don't know what I cared about.
Colleges accept the highest sub-scores from different administrations. So if a student takes the SAT many times instead of once, she has a larger pool of scores from which to pick out the highest math, critical reading, and writing.
It feels like it's the end of the world if you don't do well on your SATs.
The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. But neither is it useless. SAT scores do measure both specific knowledge and valuable thinking skills.
I worked as a telemarketer for an SAT-prep company. That was the worst of it, because I had to call people in post-Katrina New Orleans and offer them this very, very expensive SAT class. And I'm not even a good salesman.
The SAT is a scam.