October 07, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

The perfect score

by Alexandria Rocha

Gunn High School graduate Julia Earlandson scored a 1540 out of 1600 on the SAT. She took the test once and only studied for about 15 minutes the night before.

"I was pleasantly surprised," said Earlandson, 18, who spoke from her cell phone on the way to class in her second week at UCLA. "I didn't find it especially challenging. My thinking was that since I took it relatively early on, in the winter of my junior year, I would have plenty of opportunity to take it again."

Turns out, she didn't have to.

Palo Alto's high school students have traditionally led the ranks on SAT scores across California, but scores from Earlandson's graduating class of 2005 pulled the district even further ahead. The students scored an average of 1278, about 35 points above 2004's graduates. It is the largest jump in scores the district has ever seen and has left school officials wondering if it's going to be a trend or just an aberration. (The SAT has since been changed and now has a total possible score of 2400.)

Theories behind the spike in scores range from increased participation in SAT preparation courses to the implementation of small-class sizes to the onslaught of standardized tests simply making students better test takers.

"We have discussed this at (the) district level and we do not have an adequate explanation for why this happened," said Gunn Principal Noreen Likins. "We will have to wait until we see consistent improvement over a number of years before we start celebrating."

Paly Principal Scott Laurence said, "It is an amazing jump. We are looking at all the possibilities."

The school district closest behind Palo Alto in SAT scores is the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Unified School District, which had an average score of 1237 in 2003-'04, the last year data is available from the state Department of Education. Behind that district is the San Marino Unified School District in Los Angeles with an average score of 1231 in 2003-'04. San Marino is a kindergarten through 12th-grade school district similar to Palo Alto's with a high level of parent participation and enriched curricula.

The state average last year was 1056.

In today's high-stakes college admissions environment, the SAT score is a big part of the college application. Although college advisors at Gunn and Paly encourage students to only take the SAT twice, educators say some students take it repeatedly, enroll in test prep courses, buy workbooks and do practice tests online. Many are not as confident as Earlandson, who admits she should have been more stressed than she was, and say there is pressure to do well on the test.

Palo Alto senior Madelyn Taylor, who took an SAT prep course at Paly during summer 2004, said the test "is pretty much the biggest deal." If you're not a good test taker, "you have to become one," said Gunn senior Chloe Downer.

Earlandson said there is a buzz around the high school campuses when students start receiving their scores, and many teens know who scored the highest.

"If you hear that someone got a 1600, that travels around pretty fast," she said.

Paly college advisor Leslie Braun said students typically put too much weight on the SAT and it's important to remember that there are other items on an application that colleges look for besides a top-notch SAT score.

But, she said, "it's hard to get students to really believe that."

With so many more high school graduates eligible for college today, Jon Zeitlin -- general manager of SAT programs for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, which has a center on California Avenue -- said it's likely that students everywhere, including those from high-performing Palo Alto, are feeling the pinch.

"Everyone is trying to get a leg up, whether you're in New York or in Palo Alto," he said.

In the Bay Area, Zeitlin said Kaplan's enrollment has grown by 20 percent over the last two years. Anjali Kalyani, executive director of the Princeton Review on High Street, also said its figures have grown after the past few years.

Neither Kalyani nor Zeitlin could share specific data about Palo Alto, but Zeitlin did say that more students are enrolling in the company's one-on-one tutoring to gain an edge.

He also said the other lines of test prep, such as the online practice tests and workbooks, are becoming more popular.

The Palo Alto school district began offering SAT prep courses during summer school two years ago. The first year, there was a waiting list to get into the three sections, said Barbara Lancon, the district's summer school coordinator.

Besides tutoring students on the test material, many of the prep courses teach students strategies for taking the test, such as pacing and when it's better to guess or skip a question.

Many of these tactics students already know. They have taken standardized tests since they were in elementary school.

"Once you've taken so many, I think you become adept ... the guessing penalties, you get used to that and learn how to navigate," Earlandson said. "The tests are similar even though they're different."

Students take a handful of state standardized tests each year, including a physical fitness test and exams that measure their scores against students across the state and nation. There is also a new requirement -- the California High School Exit Exam. Individual schools and districts also administer their own measurement tests.

Some educators have speculated that the district's class size reduction program has played a role. The small classes were implemented at the middle school level when the class of 2005 was in middle school.

Earlandson, who said Gunn prepared her well for the University of California, Los Angeles, said the small classes could have contributed to her high score. But, she said the advanced curricula she received throughout her education at Palo Alto Unified likely played a larger part.

The material on the SAT, she said, "is mostly stuff that we did late in middle school or freshman or sophomore year and have been doing ever since.

"The content of the courses and the tests are so different. I don't think we were taught to the test, fortunately," she added.

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