posted by Joe Polk at 6:53 PM /
Paul Wagoner has always been good with numbers. "From an early age, I was kind of pushed at math," he said, laughing. "It's kind of the chicken-or-the-egg thing: I'm adept at math because they pushed me or they pushed me because I'm adept at math."
Mr. Wagoner, 21, a 2005 Mt. Lebanon High graduate, will be a senior at the University of Virginia. In high school, he scored 1560 on the SAT college board test when 1600 was the highest score possible.
But he didn't take for granted a natural aptitude for test-taking, he said. He took a Princeton Review course in preparation for the SAT, and recently, a Kaplan course helped him achieve something even more unusual: a perfect 180 on the LSAT, the Law School Admission Test.
Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/08213/900635-55.stm
Mr. Wagoner, 21, a 2005 Mt. Lebanon High graduate, will be a senior at the University of Virginia. In high school, he scored 1560 on the SAT college board test when 1600 was the highest score possible.
But he didn't take for granted a natural aptitude for test-taking, he said. He took a Princeton Review course in preparation for the SAT, and recently, a Kaplan course helped him achieve something even more unusual: a perfect 180 on the LSAT, the Law School Admission Test.
Link: www.post-gazette.com/pg/08213/900635-55.stm
Labels: high school, LSAT, paul wagoner
1 Comments:
I hate to shower just a little on the parade, but this kind of thing is not what any community or newspaper should celebrate with big stories and huzzahs.
I don't know Paul. He's obviously very smart and accomplished, and a high LSAT score will undoubtedly help get admitted to Harvard or Stanford or whatever other law school he might prefer.
But publicly celebrating an LSAT score is standardized-test-score-fetishism at its worst and most corrosive. A "perfect" LSAT score it will not make anyone a better or more compassionate lawyer, or friend; it predicts nothing except that he will likely do well on his first set of law school exams -- which themselves predict nothing except that he will likely do well on his last set of law school exams, which in turn predicts nothing at all.
May Paul and others with similar APs, SATs, LSATs, MCATs, GREs, and GMATs remember that the tests are merely means to an end, and at that they are means whose use today only dimly corresponds to the use for which they were designed.
Folks with talent and drive aspire to do good in the world -- to change people's lives for the better. I'm optimistic that Paul will do that, whatever law school and ultimate careers he chooses, and that an LSAT score will disappear quickly from his roster of accomplishments.
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