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Questions about CTY SET


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Hi, DS (7th grader) took the SAT and qualified for CTY SET with his math score (730). His CR and writing portion aren't that good compared to his math. I read somewhere that if you qualify for CTY SET, you should keep your SAT score on record. Is that really necessary? Isn't a mentioning of being a SET member enough say?

 

And for those who have applied for college, did you put CTY SET in the award category? Do you think it helps with admission?

 

I am happy with DS's qualification but don't know much about the program. Thank you for your time.

 

Michelle

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Congratulations!

 

I wasn't sure and decided to keep the SAT scores on record anyway. It only required mailing a letter which was easy to whip up and I called to check if it was received and acted upon.

 

I'm curious about your next question too. Perhaps someone with older kids will answer it. What I've heard is that homeschool parents don't always include SET because it's something that happened at 13yo or younger. However, SET also writes letters of recco if needed so I don't know how that works out if you don't list SET as an achievement pre-high school.

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Mom of 2 SET kids here. We opted to save their early scores, as we thought that it can't hurt & would keep their options open. All the colleges that I'm aware of which require reporting of all SAT scores on applications do make an exception for talent search testing. They won't hold them against the applicant in any way if some subsections are lower.

 

I had a balanced girl who scored equally on both sections, and she actually ended up using those CTY scores on her college apps. She was busy enough in high school, and it saved her from studying for extra SAT testing. (She did take ACT for VA state homeschool reporting, and she submitted that, too.)

 

My boy was unbalanced in the same direction as yours, higher than his sister in math, but a good bit lower in critical reading. So he ended up re-testing in high school on the SAT (no ACT for him). He did significantly higher in critical reading at that time. He sent all scores with his college apps.

 

Good CTY scores can also be helpful if your son applies for selective academic summer or enrichment programs down the line, or they could be used to advocate for dual enrollment at a local university. That might be another potential reason to save scores.

 

Both of my kids listed SET qualification at the bottom of their awards and extracurricular resumes that they sent in with some of their college apps. It was mostly for context, and also to give a bit of justification for some of the choices we made in their homeschool curricula. Having it there will not help college admissions IMHO, because it's what they accomplish in high school that counts.

 

Neither of mine asked SET to send a college rec letter. We couldn't figure out how it would help, since it could only reiterate their scores, and the SET folks could not add anything personal about the kids. Better IMO to choose two or three REALLY good letter writers instead of overwhelming the college admission offices with lots of lesser ones.

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Thank you Kathy, that's very helpful information. Just wondering, when DS applies for college, the new SAT will be in effect, so I don't know how the schools will view the old SAT scores. I also think DS could do a lot better in high school in both math and CR, so I have a hard time deciding.

 

Quark and Kathy, it seems you both saved the scores, if you don't mind can you tell me the range of scores of you kids? I don't know if DS's scores is high enough to worth saving. Thank you very much!

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Kathy, thank you so much for weighing in! That was very helpful.

 

Michelle, he did equally well on math and reading (only small diff in scores). His writing section was lower but still high enough for a 11yo that I thought it wouldn't hurt to keep them.

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When ds did the talent search in grade 7, the SAT was still the old style with no writing section. Ds had a critical reading score of 590 at that time & close to perfect on math. His CR went up quite a bit by the end of high school. But since we had saved his CTY scores, & there was no score choice back then, his colleges received everything. Dd received SET level scores across the board, so it was a no-brainer to save hers.

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I'm debating whether to have DD take the SAT next year before they change the test again. My gut feeling is that she might actually do better on the verbal when it still has the more involved vocabulary, since she LOVES etymology (and did well on the National Classical Etymology Exam). Not sure how she'll do on math (her practice math ACT scores and EXPLORE scores in math end up coming out right about the same, despite having had far less of the math on the ACT than on the EXPLORE-she seems to do a great job at recognizing correct answers even when she doesn't fully understand the math). I'm a little nervous about the writing freaking her out, though. So few people take the SAT around here that even if she doesn't officially take it through talent search, it would probably mostly be kids who are applying to CTY anyway (with maybe a small handful applying to East coast schools). Everyone takes the ACT here, and many schools require it to graduate high school at all (including the cover school we register with). 

 

I don't want to stress her out, though.

 

 

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I'm debating whether to have DD take the SAT next year before they change the test again. My gut feeling is that she might actually do better on the verbal when it still has the more involved vocabulary, since she LOVES etymology (and did well on the National Classical Etymology Exam). Not sure how she'll do on math (her practice math ACT scores and EXPLORE scores in math end up coming out right about the same, despite having had far less of the math on the ACT than on the EXPLORE-she seems to do a great job at recognizing correct answers even when she doesn't fully understand the math). I'm a little nervous about the writing freaking her out, though. So few people take the SAT around here that even if she doesn't officially take it through talent search, it would probably mostly be kids who are applying to CTY anyway (with maybe a small handful applying to East coast schools). Everyone takes the ACT here, and many schools require it to graduate high school at all (including the cover school we register with). 

 

I don't want to stress her out, though.

 

It can be as low stress as you want it to be. Doing it this year was good for DS. He could have handled it when he was younger (the math is mostly reasoning) but I'm glad we waited a little more. And it was helpful that we waited till second sem of 6th grade because of algebra 2. It made prep much easier (he only needed a few full practice tests vs. working on each SAT section frequently) and also gave him time to get over writing anxiety (we worked on getting over that anxiety in the first sem of 6th grade). The reading is something I don't think we could have prepped intensively for anyway. It's a good thing he reads widely and at a high level and voraciously. We didn't do any special prep for that vocab-wise too. So really there was no stress here. He was obviously ready and we knew he could do well enough to use the scores as back up validation so we signed up (he wrote the registration form himself too :001_smile:). He has done SCAT and now SAT but we haven't signed up for a single CTY course! For us, it was strictly for validation because he really needs something more right now. If you don't have that need yet then waiting a year or two should be fine.

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My DD could've done the verbal before this year in 6th, but I don't think she would've handled the math portion very well. As it was, she grumbled about seeing things on the practice tests that she didn't yet know how to do (she's in Singapore 8A). But at least she had seen enough of the math that she was able to get through the test without any tears. She didn't qualify for SET this time around, but she has all of next year plus the October test date of the following year before she turns 13.

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Congrats!

 

We opted to save scores and were glad because the university required official scores for dual enrollment courses. A photocopy or word from SET would not have been sufficient. Colleges are not going to hold a 7th graders verbal score against them. They know lots of kids do talent search and that the scores typically go up a lot. Really they've got far more pressing matters to focus on in the limited time reviewing applications and every one will tell you they disregard lower scores and only consider the higher scores.

 

In my experience many early college kids list SET but most kids of traditional age don't, simply because they are really tight on space and have other stuff that is more recent.

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Thank you Barbara! I think that makes sense. And thank you quark and Kathy for the score info. I guess I will save the scores then. Eager to know what the new SAT will look like. Are all your kids around the same age? I know Kathy's kids are older.

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