Yah I completely agree, I think some students have trouble prioritizing – but to be fair, it depends on what you value. Some students value some of the short term gains, like doing well on the next test. Other students, like myself, care more about long term gains.

Neither type of thinking is really wrong, but no matter which way you think, you need to realize the consequences of thinking short term over long term, and vice versa.

It’s like “You have SAT this Saturday and you have 3 tests this week. What are you going to do?” Most people would be like “study for the tests and do mediocre on SAT” but I would actually do the opposite. I think this is because people most people are sooo used to prioritizing school tests first instead of any other “optional” tests/exams. After all, most high schoolers have only faced school-related tests before and they study for what they’re comfortable with.

I also think this is people of the competitive nature in schools. Naturally, you’d want to do better than your friends. You all write the same tests, but not everyone writes SAT. So obviously, a high academic mark would mean more than a high SAT score because that’s the only common reference point.

But if you’re desparate to get into a US school, you know that you need an x score to get in. And at this point, marks don’t matter if your SAT score is lower than an x score. And I think a lot of people don’t realize this.