Saturday, August 1, 2020

Most depressing thing I can think of

If 'Person A', whose given name is probably Mei but whose family name is probably not Hiratou, only scored around the 90th percentile on standardized tests.

She started college when she was 13 or 14, and you have to be smart for that, right? But how smart? Let's say 90th percentile among all people who took a test, not the entire population. For the SAT used in the US, that would be a combined score of about 1340. https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-and-score-rankings

Of course, getting such a score at age 13 would be different from getting it at age 18. But I mean her performance compared to other people her age.

1 comment:

  1. Hello, Misaki. No, no, it isn't depressing, about Mei and her score on the SAT (US Scholastic Aptitude Test). Mel Hiratou, possibly age 13 or 14, did very well on the test! I know about these things. I matriculated at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania (consistently 1st or 2nd ranked college in the USA for over 50 consecutive years!) at the age of 15. In order to do so, I took the SAT and PSAT/NMSQT (latter is the National Merit Scholarship test) at age 14. This was in the 1980s. I scored 1420 (700/720).

    I won a National Merit Scholarship. I was not a semifinalist, nor a finalist, but the real thing! Me and my best friend at school both did. We were among the top 1200 students academically in the entire United States that year.

    Mei means beautiful in Chinese. America is Mei guo but you probably know that. Mei is very intelligent to have scored so well on the SAT at age 13 or perhaps 12 if she entered college at age 13 or 14. Cognitive abilities require some chronological maturity, even with excellent heredity, loving attentive family, and lots of school and learning. Yes, I know the SAT score is not as relevant as the percentile, but the Princeton Educational Testing company has messed with those throughout the years.

    Be happy for Mei! She is very bright and highly motivated.

    As for you, I found you via the website of that marginally talented economist, Tyler Cowen. Just kidding--he is talented and a respected PhD economist. I read a comment of yours, on Tyler's post, Which intellectuals have influence? The date of the post and your comment was 9 August 2011, although I read it merely a few days ago. I am an infrequent commenter at Marginal Revolution. Your post led me to pastebin where I read more, and that took me here.

    I hope you are well. I wish the USA could implement your suggestions for economic and spiritual well-being for all, i.e. HowToFixIt. To do so is difficult for us, alas.

    Please feel free to visit my blogs and comment, or on Twitter, or here, or anywhere.

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