What are the 'Regents' and why should I care?

By Joyce Szuflita
“Regents exams measure student achievement in high school-level courses. In order to graduate from high school, students must pass five Regents exams in the following subject areas: English Language Arts, a math, a science, social studies, and any additional Regents exam or another option approved by the State. Student may also earn an Advanced Regents diploma if they pass certain additional Regents exams in math and science, as well as any NYC Language Other Than English exam.” - from the DoE website

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how does opt out affect admissions?

By Joyce Szuflita
Everyone is asking me this. I can't have an opinion because I am not an expert on the tests neither am I in the back rooms of the schools you want to attend at middle school or high school. For several years, I have contacted many principals from popular, high performing district middle schools in the Districts that I cover.

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what is up with the ERB for K admissions?

By Joyce Szuflita
If you are getting ready to apply to Private Elementary School (Independent, Parochial or Proprietary) for kindergarten this fall, you may be confused about what kind of testing your child may be doing. The answer to this is you are just going to have to read the application instructions at every school you are applying to in the fall. Each of them will be doing their own thing.

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i owe my soul to the company store (I mean College Board)

I am so glad the College Board is being forced to reconsider the SAT because they finally have some competition in the college testing market. I resent their monopoly and the fact I have paid hundreds (thousands?) of dollars to them because there was virtually no other game in town. I don't begrudge them my money for a valuable service, but when that service is warped from a helpful assessment to a huge cash cow that is leading the admissions process rather than supporting it, I object.

This is times-two for twins over a 6 year period:
I have paid them for PSATs, multiple SATs, and SAT 2 times several subjects. I am not even going to mention the books for each SAT, SAT 2, and AP class. I have paid them to send all these multiple test results to 10 schools per kid (we were conservative in the number of schools that the kids applied to - many people are now doing many more).
I have paid $86 per AP test for 5 tests times two kids (and to send all of these scores to the 10 schools each kid applied to)- which, because of top scores may have helped a tiny bit in admissions but didn't yield a single credit in their highly selective private colleges which appear never to take AP scores. I pay iDOC every year to record my tax returns to these schools so that I can apply for financial aid. I am not even adding in my time spent on traveling to the myriad of tests, scheduling and working my way through their system, or the hours and days of childhood wasted. What a racket!

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