Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment SAT/ACT scores

I did not take SAT/ACT in high school, because I lived overseas at that time. I feel completely uneducated regarding these tests, so please educate me. I bumped into DDs teacher today and we were talking about Talent Searches. She likes the Explore, but also made a case for the SAT. There is a summer program held by a local university for gifted students that only accepts SAT or ACT scores from 6-9th grades. Obviously taking the SAT this year and next year would give us 2 years to get a qualifying score. The program is rigorous but fun and since it's local, it is more reasonable than our Talent Search programs.

From their website it looks like the SAT cutoff is 510-540 depending on subject. The ACT score vary from 20-24. What does this translate to for a gifted 6th-9th grader? DD did well on the Explore, but I don't know if that would be the case with the SAT/ACT. Any help would be appreciated.

Jen

The Explore might give a pretty good sense since the scoring is appoximately continuous with the ACT, but the Explore has a hard ceiling at 25. If you look at your daughter's scores on the Explore and add about 2-3 points per year, you can get a ballpark estimate of where she will be. This is not set in stone of course, but it is a start.

If she likes tests, you might want to give her a practice ACT or SAT just for fun and then score it yourself.

Thanks for the info. Do you have a particular practice test you recommend? I see some sample questions online, but I am not sure how representative they are, since I never took the tests myself.

We bought a book called "The Real ACT" which has 3 ACT tests in it.

Here is the link for how the Duke Talent Search 7th graders did this last year. It might give you a sense of how high the cut-off's are. It looks like, from what you say, that they are looking for about the top 25% of gifted kids.

http://www.tip.duke.edu/talent_searches/grade_7/7TSResultsSummary.pdf

I'd say practice tests first. If there are any programs that interest your daughter, then maybe have her take it for fun just to see. I did that in middle school more for taking a challenging test than for a program, but it helped when I wanted to do different programs and to try for dual enrollment at college. It's been a while since I took them, but Princeton Review and Kaplan put out a lot of accurate tests for the GRE and MCAT. Might be worth looking into for ACT/SAT prep...