Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sunday, February 19, 2006
What a test can’t tell you
Last weekend I spent some time with some old college friends who were in town. One of them — Pat — was the president of my fraternity. I hadn’t seen him in more than 15 years but I found the story of his life a fascinating example of what you can’t always learn about someone from a test.
Pat was a perfect fraternity president — organized, smart, a people person and he loved to argue. He had a politician’s touch for making you feel like you were the only person in the room that mattered when he was talking to you. He’d put you at ease with genuine curiosity about your story and an easy going conversational style. He wanted to be a lawyer and he had the perfect skills for the courtroom.
Then he took the LSAT — the qualifying exam for law school — and it was a disaster. The last time I saw Pat, he was struggling with what to do next. Apparently his score was so low, no law school would take him. That’s where our paths parted — with Pat an indecisive crossroads.
When I saw him last week, I asked him to pick up the story of what happened next. Discouraged about law, he went into business. He struggled but worked hard and earned an MBA. But he still wanted to try law. Eventually, he found a small law school that accepted him. He earned the degree and was hired by the only lawyer who would take him on before he passed the bar — a small one-man outfit in town.
He passed the bar exam. Then he got his first big case, matched up against the biggest law firm in town. Inspired by the opportunity to test himself against the best, he prepared for the case day and night, went into court and won. Soon after, the lawyer he bested in the case called him and offered a job with the big firm.
More success followed and he’s since been picked up by a national firm and he’s working a few days a week out of the New York office. They’re sending him to a prestigious law school for another law degree in a specialty area.
Which brings me back to that test 15 years ago — the one that said he wasn’t good enough, that convinced law schools he didn’t belong.
Tests are useful tools. They can give you good information. You can learn about yourself from them. But there is so much a standardized test can’t measure. Heart. Desire. Work ethic. Even smarts.
Most of all, a test can’t measure your dreams and the extent to which we are willing to go to chase them.
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