Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Wasted potential, documented

I'm doing a "deep clean," which is something I do that appeases my need for micro-level organization without tackling the utter mess that is my floor.  While re-sorting my stupidly large amount of paperwork from one filing cabinet to two, I came across a "College Student Inventory" that was done on me when I was 18.  The "Motivational Assessment" part of the inventory is made up of 17 percentile scores across five categories.  I scored as follows:

Academic Motivations
Study Habits: 3
Intellectual Interests: 91
Academic Confidence: 85
Desire to Finish College: 64
Attitude Towards Educators: 78

Social Motivation
Self-Reliance: 43
Sociability: 29
Leadership: 67

General Coping
Ease of Transition: 23
Family Emotional Support: 47
Openness: 94
Career Planning: 7
Sence of Financial Security: 80

Receptivity to Support Services
Academic Assistance: 5
Personal Counseling: 48
Social Enrichment: 23
Career Counseling: 19

It also notes that my internal validity is "excellent."

A couple of things stand out (you should see it with bar graphs)... like the ninety-first percentile "Intellectual Interests" versus the third percentile in "Study Habits."  That means ninety-one percent of people are less academically interested than I am, but ninety-seven percent of people have better study habits than me.  With my 64th percentile desire to finish college and fifth percentile receptivity to academic assistance, this reads like the classic inventory of a college dropout-to-be.  I'm starting to understand why the therapist that diagnosed me with ADHD two years ago was so surprised I graduated.

I suppose it's a good thing I didn't drop out, given my seventh percentile rating in career planning: I'd never have found a job.

It also reminds me that my high school senior year GPA was a C+ average, which is sad, and puts me in the "1201-1400" range on my SAT score, which is incorrect: I scored a 1510 (old scale), which makes the C+ even sadder.

I'm glad I'm now at a school that doesn't give grades!

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