Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School When to Take SAT/ACT

My daughter is a Freshman in High School. She has Honors Biology and English. She is in Calculus A this semester. She will have Calculus BC next year. Our state has recently changed to a SAT test state. She will PSAT 8/9 in a couple weeks. She will have to take SAT junior yr second semester. My question is would it beneficial to take the SAT or ACT now since she is in Calculus and the math won't get any harder?

If she is up for it I would say yes give it a try.
Take the practice test to see how she does on that too.

I found this link a while back. It has some good tips I plan to try to get my ds to try before his next time taking the SAT or ACT. YMMV


https://greentestprep.com/resources/sat-prep/test-day-preparation/day-of-your-test/

I see no reason not to take the SAT regularly from age 13 or so, if you can afford it. Getting comfortable and familiar with it before it "counts" can only help. I think the common counterargument is that it means that all your "younger" scores get sent to colleges, but (1) I think you can choose which scores to send and (2) I think that the colleges are smart enough to notice that you took it as a middle schooler or high school freshman that realize that your score would be expected to go up as you get older.

FYI, SAT will be offered in August for 2017-18 school year.

Thanks all for your input. I think at this point my concern is that if anything her math SAT would possibly go down since now through Junior year she will be in Calculus and that's not on the SAT. I read someone else taking the SAT subject test who's a freshman like my daughter. Though the Subject Test is not needed at most universities and my daughter has no clue where she wants to go to school.(we live in IL). she took the ACT explore last yr for high school and the PSAT 8/9 appears to be It's replacement. I m probably going to wait and see how the PSAT goes.

Taking the Subject Test and taking the general SAT is different. A Subject Test should be taken at the end of the year in which you complete the test content, She should take a quick review of her Algebra II, Trig and Pre-Calc and take the Math Level II Subject Test this June.

While the SAT has changed, I would not recommend taking it "early and often". Some colleges do require that you send all scores, and I do not know that they examine them so closely that they realize which ones are "early sittings" and which ones are later. Does Yale really look carefully at the test scores of 32,000 applications to know when you took the test?

I've heard the tale before - my kid is really advanced at math and he "forgot" the math on the SAT/ACT. I'm not buying it. The kids I knew who were really advanced - as in taking college courses in 9th grade because they had taken Multi-Variable Calc and Linear Algebra already, and the HS doesn't offer courses beyond that - received perfect scores on the SAT/ACT math. This includes a kid who qualified for USAMO every year from 8th grade on.

If she is concerned with forgetting the math, have her help at a HS peer tutoring center or similar. Will help her remember and she'll have an EC/volunteer item for college apps (and she'll help a struggling classmate).

One of mine did take the SAT in spring of 10th grade, but that was in part driven by wanting to have a score for college coaches to consider at showcase tournaments.

Just read an article about a year ago that said Subject Tests will be eliminated. Don't know if true or not.

I've heard taking any test taken more than three times is frowned upon. Again i'm not sure that's true or not.

Agree that my daughter probably would remember what she learned earlier in regards to Math. probably could use more time in class for English/reading anyways.

I like the idea of her tutoring. She does help in class right now though awkward at times since she is the only freshman in class.

My ds is a junior this year - we haven't heard any talk of subject tests being eliminated; his counselor recommends taking 2-3, preferably in areas of interest for college study, and some colleges are asking for them. I'd recommend taking the subject test early, not because it would require review later on, but because the end of junior year is insanely busy with testing and 9 million other things going on.

Re the actual SAT, I would wait. If you want to see how she would do now, or want to give her opportunities to take it repeatedly, look for an opportunity to take a practice SAT (tutoring and home school organizations offer them for free in our area). The reason I'd wait is what you've stated above - our counselor recommends not taking the SAT more than 2 times, and only taking it the second time if you honestly think you had a bad test day or can truly improve your score. Her feeling is that universities don't look favorably on repeating it. She's also mentioned that the amount of time college admissions folks spend looking at any one application is very very extremely limited... so if you've got an application with repeated SATs where the repeats were in early grades... there's a good chance the person quickly scanning the application might not notice it.

And I have one last somewhat cynical opinion... fwiw... this might not be on the radar when you're a freshman and considering taking one or two tests.. but when you're a junior taking multiple AP tests, SAT, SAT subject tests... as a parent you're suddenly paying quite a bit of $ to one organization for testing. It starts to feel a bit more like business for profit than a meaningful tool for college admissions.

Best wishes,

polarbear

If your student doesn't know exactly which colleges to send scores to when signing up for the test, you are also shelling out later to send the scores when it's time to apply.

That was one of my first thoughts too. I believe it's free if you have a college in mind while taking the test?