Braylon Heard did not make it

[Hercules]

Call me a bad guy, but I really don't feel bad for Braylon. The ACT is really not that hard. I got a 28 on my first try and I literally (yes, I mean literally) did not study at all for it. If you can't meet the university's academic standards, that's not their fault and he shouldn't be treated any different just because he plays football.

 

I can't imagine that getting an 18 would be that difficult. Qualifying for the J.D. Edwards program at UNL, on the other hand...

 

With regard to Braylon's eligibility: yeah, a source would be nice. All the articles I've seen that mention that he may be academically ineligible are from June/July of 2010. The newest article I've found that mentions it is from just after Christmas, and according to that article, he is academically eligible.

He got the score of 18 so he thought he was good. But he needed a cumulative score of 72 and he got a 71. A final score can have multiple cumulative scores so its kind of confusing.

 

He can now retake the test and try to qualify but he's also now open to being recruited by other schools. And I believe he can go the Juco route but he'd have to graduate in 2 years to be able to attend UNL or any other university and play ball.

 

I'm assuming that they take your 4 highest scores to reach your cumulative? If he got another 18, that would wipe out a previous 17, and he'd be good to go?

[bbeerma2]

This may be a case where someone would struggle in the classroom and turn out academically ineligible anyways. All props to Braylon for potentially working his ass off to pursue his dreams, and I hope he continues to better himself in whatever ways he can. However, we are talking about a University system here, and that may not be in his immediate future.

[redblooded]

So exactly how is the 28 score irrelevant? Your supporting statements seem to counter your assertion.

 

It was posted to brag, it really has no bearing on Heard trying to qualify.

 

As others have pointed out scores really have no bearing on how successful or not you are going to be in college.

 

Next test is in Feb.

[HeyBurke]

Let's clear the air here. I wasn't bragging about my ACT score. A 28 is nothing to brag about, in my book. What I was trying to say is that if you can't even pull more than an 18 on the ACT you're probably not gonna go far in college. Forget the fact that Braylon is a football player and focus on him as a scholar instead. The guy did have what, four months(?), to prepare for one test. No, he wasn't spending every waking moment studying for the thing and he probably had a job to go along with it, but he still only pulled an 18. How do you think he's gonna do in college where the longest you have to prepare for a test is maybe a couple weeks as an undergrad? Not well, as far as I can tell. I really just don't believe the guy could cut it. Like someone said before me, he may get here eventually, but how long before he goes on academic probation or becomes ineligible?

[redblooded]

I'm assuming that they take your 4 highest scores to reach your cumulative? If he got another 18, that would wipe out a previous 17, and he'd be good to go?

 

No it is cumulative based on the 4 sections of the test, you get a score for each. The NCAA just adds them rather then averages them.

[Hercules]

I'm assuming that they take your 4 highest scores to reach your cumulative? If he got another 18, that would wipe out a previous 17, and he'd be good to go?

 

No it is cumulative based on the 4 sections of the test, you get a score for each. The NCAA just adds them rather then averages them.

 

ah, ok. thanks.

[HeyBurke]

I don't buy the argument that test scores have no bearing on how well you do in school. Yeah, there's people who don't do well on tests but still do well in school. Hell, I'm friends with one of them. Problem is that those people are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.

[junior4949]

Don't you get at least an 18 on the ACT just by spelling your name correct?

[Hercules]

I don't buy the argument that test scores have no bearing on how well you do in school. Yeah, there's people who don't do well on tests but still do well in school. Hell, I'm friends with one of them. Problem is that those people are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.

 

Tests (and school, a fair amount of the time) generally have no bearing on how intelligent someone might be. At least 50% of the time, schools and universities just ask you to jump through hoops that have no bearing on real life, and so the people that do well in school aren't necessarily the smartest people - they're just the people most willing to jump through hoops.

 

What do ACT vocabulary requirements have to do with anything in the real world unless you're trying to be the next Mark Twain, or trying to be a crossword puzzle superstar? The words that students don't know aren't really a part of the vernacular, or they're not a part of that students' vernacular, and if that's the case, the real question is, "Can the student communicate effectively in his/her own community/life without this word?" Probably 99% of the time, the answer is yes, and the ACT is irrelevant.

 

Seriously, at least half the stuff on the ACT was completely irrelevant to my coursework in college, and probably at least half of my coursework in college was completely irrelevant to what I was actually preparing to do in the real world.

[HeyBurke]

@Hercules

 

I said nothing about how the ACT score related to intelligence. Sorry to use myself as an example again, but I'm more intelligent than my girlfriend and got higher test scores in high school but she is gonna finish with a much higher GPA than I did.

 

I guess maybe instead of looking at Braylon's test scores, we should look at his GPA.

[HeyBurke]

@junior4949

 

No, but you probably could score that high by guessing on every problem. (Sarcasm!)

[redblooded]

Let's clear the air here. I wasn't bragging about my ACT score. A 28 is nothing to brag about, in my book. What I was trying to say is that if you can't even pull more than an 18 on the ACT you're probably not gonna go far in college. Forget the fact that Braylon is a football player and focus on him as a scholar instead. The guy did have what, four months(?), to prepare for one test. No, he wasn't spending every waking moment studying for the thing and he probably had a job to go along with it, but he still only pulled an 18. How do you think he's gonna do in college where the longest you have to prepare for a test is maybe a couple weeks as an undergrad? Not well, as far as I can tell. I really just don't believe the guy could cut it. Like someone said before me, he may get here eventually, but how long before he goes on academic probation or becomes ineligible?

 

I think what Knapplc was trying to point out is that's a pretty big jump. I fall into the same category as him, with a really good ACT score especially considering how little I did in school, with a high-school GPA that frankly I shouldn't have been allowed to graduate with. I dropped out of community college because I couldn't stand school anymore the year after I graduated. I've since gone back after a few years of smartening up in the workforce.

 

There were kids in high-school that I thought were dumb as rocks with 4.0s that did awful on the test that went to college and graduated well before I will. It's one hundred percent about finding a degree path that you enjoy and putting in the work. The test doesn't measure some sort of innate aptitude you will have for college well, if at all.

 

Tests in college aren't really comparable in my experience especially since they are singularly focused. He may struggle, may not, but you cant really draw that conclusion from an ACT score. With the Kid's persistence on trying to take this test to qualify I wouldn't bet against him though.

[HeyBurke]

So, I'd say the moral of this thread is that you shouldn't base academis assumptions of people off of their ACT score. Instead, ise their GPA. Does any one happen to know Braylon's?

[Hammerhead]

I don't buy the argument that test scores have no bearing on how well you do in school. Yeah, there's people who don't do well on tests but still do well in school. Hell, I'm friends with one of them. Problem is that those people are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself.

 

Tests (and school, a fair amount of the time) generally have no bearing on how intelligent someone might be. At least 50% of the time, schools and universities just ask you to jump through hoops that have no bearing on real life, and so the people that do well in school aren't necessarily the smartest people - they're just the people most willing to jump through hoops.

 

What do ACT vocabulary requirements have to do with anything in the real world unless you're trying to be the next Mark Twain, or trying to be a crossword puzzle superstar?

 

Seriously, at least half the stuff on the ACT was completely irrelevant to my coursework in college, and probably at least half of my coursework in college was completely irrelevant to what I was actually preparing to do in the real world.

 

I don't disagree... a lot of what we learn in school only ends up applying to tests and never has much bearing on "the real world". That said, the hoops are there, and you have to jump through them. You can say, "He's going to school to play football, what would he need all that for?" but unless he's damn sure that he'll be playing on Sundays in 4 years or he's damn good at whatever he wants to do if football doesn't work out for him, he might as well use that scholarship to get a degree to fall back on while he's there.

[knapplc]

There are plenty of people that are not ready for college right after High School. Whether they need to "smarten up" or gain wisdom or whatever, sometimes a person just isn't cut out for it at that point. Society steers us into these cookie-cutter steps that not everyone fits into. When I went back to school, admittedly at a community college, I excelled. I had seen the dark side of the workforce and realized that digging ditches wasn't much fun. I needed that life experience to show me where I should be, because at 18 I was NOT focused on working hard at school.

 

Maybe Mr. Heard is one of those people. Unfortunately for him, his chosen profession makes finding work in his field difficult at this stage.