IHS, did you delete a post or is it elsewhere. I see it quoted in Tyler's note, but don't see it above. Good job on raising your child to do well.
I'm curious what your take is on the balance between what I see as the three factors in high scoring:
[list type=decimal]
[*]Personal aptitude
[*]School educating level/peer group aspiration level
[*]Preparation/Tutoring/Summer School
[/list]
There's a blood, sweat and tears factor of the hard work, but let's table that for a minute. Part of that is in the Prep/Tutor item and how steep the curve becomes for incremental gains.
The score range is going to be some combination of the personal aptitude and school educating level plus the preparation and peer group factor.. Is the preparation 10 points or 100 points or in the Irvine case (4 years of prep/summers,) 200 or 300 points?
i.e. Does it matter if your kid his very advanced/gifted if they're in a school that is teaching to average where the majority of students don't aspire to score high and get in top ranked schools.
Let's think hypothetical and see if you guys follow what I'm thinking about. Let's say you have an above average student from an intelligence standpoint, all things being equal, you'd potentially expect the average intelligence kid to score a 1600, the above average kid say, 2000, the gifted kid, 2400. (I know it's not an IQ test, but you hopefully get what I'm driving at, the innate aptitude of kid, positions them for a a higher or lower score, to a certain point. Maybe it's only 1600, 1700 and 1800. That's really the question I'm gearing towards, the balance between innate intelligence, school and prep contribution to the score. I personally, think prep is far greater than anyone thinks.
Then there's school level / peer group level. Maybe that should be a * and not a /
okay enough bad math jokes. i.e hypothetically, say, Irvine Uni high is teaching to a 1902. Troy is teaching to a 1917. Maybe in AP classes they're teaching say 2300 level in Uni and Troy. Santa Ana High is teaching to a 1285 overall, AP I don't know. School is also huge, if you're in a school teaching to say the 2000 level in AP, it's hard to bridge those other 500 points on your own.
Then there's peer group. Is your kid part of the peer group that is focused on getting a 2500, or they just general competitive AP and 'score high' focus, say 2300, or they hanging with the average students, 1900.
Finally the prep factor. Can a 1600 aptitude kid, in the power school, i.e. Irvine Uni, drive to the 2500? Can the school lift them that much? Can school and massive prep lift them that much? If you took the kids in Santa Ana High and ran them with the same level of outside prep that the Irvine Uni HS parents run, what would be their average scores? If you just dropped the Santa Ana High AP students into Uni High without the outside support what would happen? i.e IS Irvine Uni high basically running a program that is assuming the kids are getting 4-8 hours of outside tutoring.
In the end does it matter? Is your kid better over going to ScrewUp High and getting a higher GPA and 'good' SAT versus a tougher GPA and better SAT? Here's UCLA admission metrics