Testing for Higher Credentials

[LaMarcus Bryant]

My little brother is all wired and jacked up from not sleeping for days because he's been studyin for this big college entry test.....

Man I rememba when I studied for that bitch. I think I got a 600 on it. All day I was like "Ma I gots to study for mah T.H.C.'s!"

What did you all score?

[mookie2001]

I missed them because kendall gill was signing autographs at the comic shop

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

On that point, anyone know what % of the SAT-taking population you need to be in to get into an Ivy League school?

I was in the top 2.5% of Australian school leavers, but I think Ivy League would probably only take the top .5%, so I would have ended up somewhere else like UT in Austin, which would have been nice!

[baseline bum]

UT Austin doesn't require anything approaching top-2.5% for undergrads, even for non-Texas residents. I think the SAT is a lot less important than it used to be, as it's not nearly as accurate a predictor of success as grade history is. Top 2.5% would be pretty competitive with SAT scores of accepted freshman at most Ivy League schools (maybe a little low for Princeton, Harvard, or Yale, but otherwise right about median level or so for the others). Top 2.5% is probably somewhere around 1480 or so on the old 1600 scale, which certainly wouldn't hurt you anywhere if the rest of your app is very strong.

[Ronaldo McDonald]

[QUOTE=RuffnReadyOzStyle]On that point, anyone know what % of the SAT-taking population you need to be in to get into an Ivy League school?

i don't really know the answer to ur question. I'm not sre if there is one...

I know people at princeton and stanford who had good SAT scores, but nothing spectacular. not top.5 percent, and I can tell you that for sure. not even top 2.5 percent.

From experience, I can tell you that the GPA is of higher significance than SAT scores.

[CuckingFunt]

Top 2.5% is probably somewhere around 1480 or so on the old 1600 scale, which certainly wouldn't hurt you anywhere if the rest of your app is very strong.
That's probably pretty damned accurate.

I scored 1495 on mine (based on the 1600 scale, don't know off hand what percentile that was) and was very eagerly accepted to both Harvard and Yale, despite a couple of years in high school with less than stellar grades.

[1Parker1]

That's probably pretty damned accurate.

I scored 1495 on mine (based on the 1600 scale, don't know off hand what percentile that was) and was very eagerly accepted to both Harvard and Yale, despite a couple of years in high school with less than stellar grades.


1495? That's an odd score...I don't think I've ever met someone with that score....:)

So which college did you end up going to?

[Ronaldo McDonald]

That's probably pretty damned accurate.

I scored 1495 on mine (based on the 1600 scale, don't know off hand what percentile that was) and was very eagerly accepted to both Harvard and Yale, despite a couple of years in high school with less than stellar grades.


i've never heard of anyone being accepted to a ivy league school with average grades and great SAT scores...so this is strange.

from what i understand you MUST have gpa of at least 3.8, regardless of what ur SAT score is, if ur going to be accepted...

[ShoogarBear]

i've never heard of anyone being accepted to a ivy league school with average grades and great SAT scores...so this is strange.

from what i understand you MUST have gpa of at least 3.8, regardless of what ur SAT score is, if ur going to be accepted...Not true. Yes, they accept a lot of people with high GPAs + SATs, because they gt a lot of applicants with those. But precisely because most everyone they see has those, they aren't really a discriminating factor.

What most of them like to see is a demonstration of excellence in some particular area. Being a great musician or writer, or making a significant humanitarian accomplishment, or starting your own business, or being an Olympic qualifier will often compensate for grades or test scores below the usual range.

[baseline bum]

That's probably pretty damned accurate.

I scored 1495 on mine (based on the 1600 scale, don't know off hand what percentile that was) and was very eagerly accepted to both Harvard and Yale, despite a couple of years in high school with less than stellar grades.

When did you take it? I've never heard of an SAT score not divisible by 10.

[Bigzax]

i got 1496! :smokin

told princeton and mit to piss off!

[Sapphire]

When did you take it? I've never heard of an SAT score not divisible by 10.
I've never heard of that, either.

[Ronaldo McDonald]

i did so bad on the sat the first time it's not even funny.

I was underprepared...no calculator (forgot it) and too much partying the night before. second time i did well

[CuckingFunt]

When did you take it? I've never heard of an SAT score not divisible by 10.
I took it in August of 1995.

I remember it being 1495, but haven't looked at the actual scores in ten years. Maybe it was 1490? I know that it was just below 1500 and was split almost exactly evenly between the math and verbal sections.

[CuckingFunt]

So which college did you end up going to?
Neither of the Ivy's. Went to a small private college in the Bay Area where my dad worked because I got full tuition remission.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Interesting. It's very different over here. You get what's called a TER (Tertiary Entrance Rank) based on two years of assessment and final exams (each state has a slightly different system). Each university course in the country is assigned a minimum TER based on difficulty and demand (eg. medicine is generally 99+, law/engineering in the low 90s - more in prestigious unis, less in regional ones, etc. 97.5 got me into everything in the country except medicine at the prestigious unis, although in the end I chose a science degree because that's what interested me). Note that there is no consideration in our system for extra-curricular activities, with the exception of art/drama schools which rely on a body of work.


Neither of the Ivy's.

It's unlike you to make a grammatical error, CF, no apostrophe there.

[CuckingFunt]

It's unlike you to make a grammatical error, CF, no apostrophe there.
I'm going to blame that typo on today's tryptophan overload.

And, of course, the trauma of learning that I may have been remembering my SAT scores incorrectly for the last decade.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

I'm going to blame that typo on today's tryptophan overload.

And, of course, the trauma of learning that I may have been remembering my SAT scores incorrectly for the last decade.

I figured it was a typo, just couldn't miss the opportunity to point it out! :lol ;)

Why all the tryptophan?

[tlongII]

I figured it was a typo, just couldn't miss the opportunity to point it out! :lol ;)

Why all the tryptophan?

Tryptophan is found in turkey. I only scored 1260 on my SAT and even I knew that!

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Oh, turkey, thanksgiving, gotcha. I'm Aussie remember, no thanksgiving, so it is not an immediate cultural reference for me.

Tryptophan is an amino acid, so it's in everything, but particularly turkey.

[ashbeeigh]

Tryptophan is an amino acid, so it's in everything, but particularly turkey.


dum dum dum. Thank you for the science lesson!


j/k. Sorry for the sarcasm.

I was going to add something about warm milk by googling it, but I was fooled with this article (http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20031006-000001.html)
from Psychology Today that says something about serotonin being involved in the breakdown of the tryptophan. Because the serotonin makes people feels so calm and relaxed (part of why it's in anti-depressants) we feel fat, happy, and tired after eating the turkey. Troptophan is in such small amounts in the brain, it's one of the least abundant amino acids, that it usually gets lost on it's way through the brain, too.

I didn't set out to find that, but it was interesting, nonetheless.

And I got a 1000 on my SATs and a 23 on my ACTs and was fine. If you're brother doesn't do as well on one of them have him consider taking the other. Most schools take both into consideration. Taking the tests over and over again usually doesn't help raising the score. The tests have such good test-retest reliability that there's usually a range that a students sticks within., kind of like a margin of error.

[tlongII]

Oh, turkey, thanksgiving, gotcha. I'm Aussie remember, no thanksgiving, so it is not an immediate cultural reference for me.

Tryptophan is an amino acid, so it's in everything, but particularly turkey.

Interesting. I just looked it up and discovered that the concentration of tryptophan in turkey is not appreciably different than most other meats. Apparently the idea that Thanksgiving turkey makes you more drowsy than other meals is a myth.

[Sapphire]

Interesting. I just looked it up and discovered that the concentration of tryptophan in turkey is not appreciably different than most other meats. Apparently the idea that Thanksgiving turkey makes you more drowsy than other meals is a myth.

I think it's all the carbs, and the huge portions we all tend to eat.

:hungry:

[marini martini]

I think it's all the wine you drink, while preparing a large meal for over two, the mental overload, and just frickin' want to escape the stresses of the day :toast

[ShoogarBear]

Interesting. I just looked it up and discovered that the concentration of tryptophan in turkey is not appreciably different than most other meats. Apparently the idea that Thanksgiving turkey makes you more drowsy than other meals is a myth.Yeah, apparently you would have to eat a bunch of turkeys to actually feel the biological effects of the tryptophan.

Having said that, however, I think the biochemists are full of shit. The combination of turkey, football, and couch >>>> Ambien.

[tlongII]

I blame it on watching the Lions.

[ShoogarBear]

I blame it on watching the Lions.Even better answer. :lol

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

There is another reason you feel lethargic after eating a big meal - blood supply. When you eat blood rushes from the rest of your body to your stomach, and that's a big part of why you slow down.

[ashbeeigh]

There is another reason you feel lethargic after eating a big meal - blood supply. When you eat blood rushes from the rest of your body to your stomach, and that's a big part of why you slow down.

kidneys, blood levels, salt level, blah blah blah. All the crap I don't remember from A&P. Most people recover very quickly.

[CuckingFunt]

Interesting. I just looked it up and discovered that the concentration of tryptophan in turkey is not appreciably different than most other meats. Apparently the idea that Thanksgiving turkey makes you more drowsy than other meals is a myth.
Yeah, it's apparently the total amount of food/alcohol/laziness that tends to make people sleepy on Thanksgiving, but I've been blaming the turkey for years and I'm just not ready to give that up yet.