Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment middle school SAT scores

Our middle school recommends that certain kids take the SAT so both my girls (DD12, DD11 - both 7th grade) dutifully spent a Saturday morning taking the test. We got the results a few weeks ago, and it was interesting that they received scores just 10 points apart (younger one did better in math). They received Duke Tip something or other for their scores, but I wonder if the scores do anything for the girls other than show how they do on tests. Is there a chart that shows early scores predicting high school scores? Would a certain SAT score make a teacher sit up and take notice?
We sure can't afford the Duke Tip camps BTW!! Those things are horribly expensive!!

I applied for financial aid for the summer Center studies through Duke. We will see how much they can bring the price down. If they can't give much aid ds can't go.

With my son the EBRW section his score you didn't need to wonder it was so good he is in the 99th%tile for high school seniors...so as a 7th grader he has blown the chart up!

For math it was a bit harder to interpret the score. But I did the same thing...looked at the seniors' percentile, then figured well if he finishes Algebra this year and geometry next year and spends a little time on khan academy SAT math, I think his score will just steadily improve. There was nothing wrong with his math score....it was pretty good too for a seventh grader...just not 99th %tile.

Above level testing is so eye opening.

I would guess there's a very high correlation between percentile achievement in 7th grade and percentile achievement as a Jr/Sr. Raw scores will certainly be higher, but scores at a 90th percentile in 7th would likely indicate a performance at the 90th percentile later. But I haven't seen formal documentation of this.

Part of the challenge is that those taking the SAT in 7th aren't a representative sample as 11th/12th would be - it tends to be kids from gifted programs, so skews higher. I think TIP will publish a percentile analysis, as does JH CTY, but that's only among the test takers.

There's an attempt to statistically project the numbers to the broader audience here - 7th Grade ACT/SAT scores . But I'm not convinced this is that accurate - my DD12 would be 99.999+ percentile given the mean/SD proposed here, and I don't think that's right.

I also find this one interesting - SAT gifted long term study

Regarding the specific question - I don't think the scores actually do anything, other than define eligibility for TIP/CTY etc. courses. They may serve as an indicator for someone not in a gifted program that further evaluation is warranted.

I don't know that a specific score would make any particular teacher take notice. There is also the issue with the new SAT being so new and different from the old one and the over-inflated percentiles (in effort to reverse ACT's increasing popularity, there are now two different sets of percentiles) not even making sense as well as the significantly lower ceiling on the reading section.

However, if your 7th graders scored at least 1370 combined (690 Math, 680 EBRW), they can apply to DYS or perhaps argue that they are comparable to 99.9 percentile based on DYS criteria. ( I think I am remembering the College Board Concordance correctly as the DYS chart just lists the previous1300/660/640 and a reminder to adjust the scores using the concordance tables)

Those statistical projections are way over-inflated. Among NUMATS kids alone, there were already way too many perfect scores in math and quite a few in Reading among 7th and 8th graders. With the lower ceiling on the current SAT Reading, there are bound to be even more perfect scores. You add in other high scores that fall below perfect, the field will become quite crowded. Old SET literature suggests that 700 before age 13 used to approximate 99.99 percentile but I believe that is also inflated given the different curriculum and exposures and opportunities kids get today versus 30 years ago.

Well, DD13 (forgot she turned 13!) and DD12 did not get perfect scores, but according to some websites they did very well, and Duke Tip invited them back to that group. That will be what we take from the testing. We will put their tests aside and compare them to the future tests when they take them in high school.After taking both the Explore and the SAT I think that their test anxiety is way down so that is a plus as well.

College Board's concordance translates 1300 total to 1360. Math 660 translates to 690. 640CR only translates to 34 on the Reading subtest, but it's fair to infer a translation to 680. They do always note that component and total concordance do not necessarily match.

I also agree that the attempted application of TIP/CTY scores to the population isn't accurate. A score of 800, at 5 sigma, would yield 2-3 students per grade in the entire US. CTY alone had over 50 last year.