>it sounds like most of the Cal Tech freshmen have already wasted a few years getting ready for the SATs, making straight A grades, and taking AP courses. Sorry, guys, but that's a LOT of work,
No, it isn't a lot of work. I never studied before going to Caltech. I never studied for the SAT. This was typical for incoming freshmen. The ones who had to study hard for SATs, etc., could not make it at Caltech, and frankly the admissions committee tried to not admit them.
But making an 800 on an SAT has to be tricky stuff: The first-cut explanation is that it is more than 3 standard deviations above the mean in a Gaussian distribution. I can't believe that the test is very accurate much above 700 (in the sense of classic 'reliability'). So, getting above 700 is not so tough; actually getting an 800 has to be partly a craps shoot.
On both shots, I was over 750 on the Math SAT and never studied for it either. I finished early, checked my answers, and still had time. I didn't see any of the questions as very difficult and can't imagine I missed much. With such a short test, it about has to be that one question can mean dozens of points above 700 or so. So, the test 'reliability' can't be very accurate above 700.
In the end, what was valuable for me in college and grad school was interest, talent, 'environment', and some relatively independent work. That nose to the grindstone stuff played no role.
If you didn't burn yourself out in high school cutting through AP nonsense, SAT prep, etc. and still got into Cal Tech, then good for both you and Cal Tech.
But, ugrad school is not supposed to be so challenging that determined students "could not make it". Again, it's just ugrad school and not some one step before a Nobel prize. So, "could not make it" indicates something is wrong as I concluded.
If want to make a big splash in academics and get a Ph.D., etc., fine, but nearly all the big splash part is grad school, not ugrad. So, get a four year ugrad degree with a good background in your interest areas and then pick a good grad school. The ugrad school doesn't have to be Cal Tech. If in grad school the Cal Tech students are way ahead, then that just means that at Cal Tech they really deserved a Master's or Ph.D. but only got a Bachelor's.
> So, getting above 700 is not so tough; actually getting an 800 has to be partly a craps shoot.
Having just had a look at the Official SAT Practice Test
2010-11, I agree. There's no calculus or anything else at all difficult in the maths SAT so getting a perfect score is merely a matter of avoiding slipping up.
Actually I'm surprised Caltech or any other supposedly elite US university uses it as an entrance exam; it's simply far too easy a test to sort the wheat from the chaff.
>But, ugrad school is not supposed to be so challenging that determined students "could not make it".
Some students will never make it there no matter how hard they work. If one had to take a "test prep" course to do well on the SATs, then realistically Caltech is not the right school for him. And I'd never be an olympic athlete, no matter how hard I tried.
Well, maybe out of ambition or whatever they took some SAT prep work.
I didn't for three simple reasons: (1) I was so uninformed I didn't have a clue about just what the SAT was! (2) Teachers in grade school had been so critical of me, essentially because I wasn't a student like the girls in the classes!, that I'd largely given up on academics and wasn't trying very hard. (3) I'd never heard about any SAT test prep!
I did try hard in high school math, because I very much liked the subject, but I still thought that pleasing the teachers was hopeless and, thus, didn't try. Maybe that math I studied was responsible for my SAT scores, but I doubt it. Besides the CEEB or whatever wanted to claim that the test measured just 'aptitude'.
Uh, just because someone took some SAT prep material doesn't mean that the prep material was really responsible for their good scores! I'd side with the students who got good scores, however they did it: If they did so well on the SATs, however they did it, then they should be able to "make it" in ugrad school.
Uh, unless they were competing with my wife! She wanted to take a course in history but didn't need the credit so just audited. The lecture hall had 300 students. The prof insisted that even auditing students also take the tests. At the end, the prof told her that she should have taken the course for credit since she had the highest grade in the class! Before I met her socially, I taught her frosh trig. On my tests, some of the questions were difficult for a lot of points. At the end, she had twice as many points as the next best student; she could have walked out after the midterm and still made an A! I tried to compete with her in Scrabble. She was ahead, but as we played I got better. Alas she got better even faster so that her margin grew so much she refused to play with me again!
No, it isn't a lot of work. I never studied before going to Caltech. I never studied for the SAT. This was typical for incoming freshmen. The ones who had to study hard for SATs, etc., could not make it at Caltech, and frankly the admissions committee tried to not admit them.