HS Freshman looking for advice

mathyone
Thu, 03 Oct 2013 09:27:00 +0000

You haven’t even finished geometry. You haven’t had to churn out all those 5 paragraph essays in your high school English classes yet. You aren’t prepared to take the SAT. You will just end up with a score on your record that’s way below your real ability and later you will have to deal with whether colleges will see that score and what they will think about it. Some colleges don’t accept score choice.

I disagree with your friend’s mom. I think the real reason why scores tend to rise with repeated testings is that many kids “try” the SAT without having seriously prepared. They get a score they don’t like, then they prepare, then they do better. Personally, I think that’s a waste of time and money. They can get a good idea where they are weak just using practice tests. Practicing the material definitely helps and learning to pace yourself is important. Also make sure you understand how the test is scored. I would suggest to any student, start preparing at least several months in advance. Expensive test prep classes aren’t necessary. Self-discipline is. Get one or two SAT prep books and work through them, and take timed tests to get used to the timing.

If you take the SAT in October (or December) of your junior year, that gives you time for at least two retakes if necessary. If you prepared well, you may not have to retake and you will be glad of that when you are preparing for your other spring exams. But if you’re really anxious about it and want a practice sitting, I suggest you take it in the spring of your sophomore year and use the results over the summer to prepare for a retake.

I told my own daughter, prepare well, do it once and be done with it. She worked her way through Barrons in her spare time during the summers after freshman and sophomore years and took the SAT as a junior in the fall. It worked very well for her. She started early enough to prep without stress or panic in easily manageable sessions (usually 1 hour or less). We didn’t even discuss the SAT or colleges until after freshman year, because I feel that kids are stressing way too much about these things for way too long and I wanted her to enjoy high school without worrying about colleges. Probably not the norm on this forum though.