S19 will take AP Calc AB this May and will take the SAT Math 2 in June. June date is the week before finals. Not ideal, but I want him to knock off some of the tests this year. I’m not sure what to do for the 2nd SAT subject test. S is taking Chem now, but as we discovered with D, the subject test covers material that is not covered in their HS sophomore chemistry course. She got a 550 on the SAT Chem test (ug) despite getting an A or A+ in Chemistry. She tends to do quite well on standardized tests, but there was just a bunch of stuff she’d never seen…and her self-studying was a bit lackadaisical. So I’m not sure what S should do. He at least is diligent and will study, but I need to make sure he has time to study and so taking the test during the school year is not ideal.
My kids school is a small private and has no AP classes whatsoever—just like all the other private schools in our city. Makes taking the AP tests a real time-sink because so much self-study is involved. Bleah.
@liska21 Then why take AP tests? Is it to get credit once in college? Our kids are practically forced to take AP in most courses starting junior year because the honors track gets eliminated and turns into AP classes. Sometimes, kids don’t take the actual AP test! We probably won’t even have S19 use any of his AP tests to get college credit. The only exception might be French if he gets a 5 and goes to a school that will use that as fulfilling the requirement.
I cannot imagine having S19 self study for an AP test without a class. He’s so overloaded with homework and almost has a test or quiz every day in some class…many times in more than one. He couldn’t add any more studying!
also, I always hear that colleges don’t hold it against kids if their school does not offer AP.
@homerdog , What did you think about the PWN book? I keep saving the PWN problems he post on fb (from his blog) and put them in a file. Planning to use them for a test when the time comes.
I don’t know if those problems are the same problems in his book.
I’m slow. @homerdog and @eh1234 - why are your kids taking the SAT in August? The PSAT is in fall and I was figuring my kid would take the SAT or ACT starting next summer. Am I totally off-schedule? How many times are you figuring your kids will take the test?
I can’t get D to do anything on test prep on her own; she’s too busy and when she’s not busy she is basically in a coma trying to recover. (Playing lacrosse in 40 degrees and rain the last two weeks has not helped her health, either; she’s sick constantly.)
I was figuring I’d get serious and force her do some self-study starting late August for the PSAT, but now I’m worried that’s not enough.
On a different topic, I’ve written here before about her nemesis, Chinese - she cannot get better than a C in this class, despite trying really really hard, and we are convinced the teacher has a culturally-based antipathy toward her, because my D is not a quiet, submissive, girly girl… anyway, we got a bit of confirmation of this yesterday. There was a quiz, and a boy in the class was caught cheating - he had the list of words they were being quizzed on, on a small slip of paper concealed in his hand. The teacher caught him and he’ll go before the disciplinary committee (I was thinking he’d be expelled but I guess it’s not automatic).
D was relaying the story to us and mentioned that the kid has a B in the class despite getting the same grades on tests and quizzes that D gets (and apparently only by cheating). The teacher grades subjectively - she will deduct points for D’s writing, saying that she is not starting the character correctly; the order of the strokes is incorrect (and this is on homework where she does not see D create the characters, so how could she know?) … etc etc.
UGH.
D had a lovely teacher in middle school and was doing so well, and this class, despite being Chinese III, has still not progressed out of the Chinese II textbook, and D says she is simply not learning and she is so frustrated.
@Gatormama I’m having my son take the SAT in August because there is a slim chance he will do a little prep in the summer (he won’t be very busy) and NO chance he will do any prep during the school year (when it’s a struggle to get him to get through his homework at times). His 10th grade PSAT score was pretty good so I’m hoping he’ll take it two times max (not aiming for a 1500+ or anything). If his score was a fluke, then who knows?
My older kid took the SAT and the ACT two times each between March and June of junior year and that was kind of nuts - she really should have just taken the ACT based on her PSAT scores. If S19 does well on the SAT, he’ll probably just skip the ACT.
That makes sense, but is summer/early fall after junior year too late? I agree with you that there will be no test prep time during the actual school year…
Hi! Dropping by this thread after lurking on here for the past few weeks. I’ve got twin DDs in the class of 2019, and would love to join in the conversation, since college apps and testing is coming close for us. My two DDs are as different as they can be from one another, honestly, we’ll see how this process goes! :))
A bit about my two DDs: one is an arts student DEFINITELY and wants to major in fashion design, will proabbly only apply to art schools (much to my chagrin!), and I’d love to get her testing up a bit to be competitive for her ‘reach’ schools. Right now she’s targeting Parsons and FIT, and has mentioned RISD (although she thinks she isn’t competitive enough for it). Her GPA is pretty wonky at a 3.3 UW right now, since our school doesn’t weigh. Aiming for about a 1200+ for the SAT, which she’ll be taking in Nov!
The other DD is similar to CC posters on Chance me threads, honestly. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did have a CC account! She loves math and languages too, and is a geek about A LOT of things. Not entirely certain about her major, but I’m placing my bets on math or linguistics, maybe even computer science. :-?? This D has quite the ambition and has her fair share of selective schools in her current ‘college’ list, so we’re looking to balance it out. Her GPA is one B (Chinese freshman year) away from a 4.0, which I’m really proud of! She’ll also be taking the SAT in Nov, and is aiming for at least a 1500. Really don’t want to pressure her, but D seems to like high-stakes environments, so I’ll take it.
@Gatormama I understand how you feel about Chinese teachers, D’s freshman year teacher was HORRIBLE and would not give anyone an A in the class. She was pretty bummed about the B, but you can’t cry over spilled milk anyway. The teacher did not teach well and had a similar sentiment towards D, who’s quite outspoken, compared to other Asian girls in the class.
@BingeWatcher Yes. I really like the PWN Math book. It’s straight forward and not too wordy. It has the answers to the actual SAT tests in the back (the first four of the new ones at least), and the practice problems don’t have the answers right below them on the same page. You do the practice problems and then get answers in the back. I’ve seen other books where the practice problem answers are right below the problem and that seems counterproductive. I want S19 to be able to do the problem without seeing the answer. I’m not sure if the ones you find online are the same, but I’m going to look them up in case they are different. More problems is good!
@Gatormama S19 is taking the SAT in August for a bunch of reasons:
He can study over the summer when he doesn’t have other homework. His class load is so heavy and XC/Track (like Lacrosse) is exhausting. Yesterday, they ran eight miles and the poor kid had to nap when he got home. He was cashed. After a shower and dinner, he didn’t start homework until 7:00 and didn’t finish until 11:00. He keeps his phone away from him while he studies and is pretty focused…he just has a lot of work! I just can’t imagine him studying for the SAT in a big way during the school year.
He will finish Honors Pre-Calc this year so he’s had enough math.
He will have four APs and finals to study for at the end of junior year. So, it would be great for him to be done with SAT testing in the fall.
He’s a good standardized test taker and his GC agrees that he doesn’t need to gain any maturity in order to get a good score. He’s taken practice SAT and ACTs since seventh grade through Northwestern’s gifted program so he’s had plenty of exposure.
This one isn’t quite as important but…it will be nice to get his scores so we can get a jump on making a more realistic list. That way, we can travel during spring break (and maybe even earlier) to see schools that are real possibilities.
I know taking the test is early but our GC said he sees many of the top students taking it even before the PSAT. He said probably 10-20% of each class finishes standardized testing before spring junior year. We have 800 kids in a class so that’s a lot of kids who still take their first ACT or SAT in the spring. Hope that helps!
@Gatormama summer before senior year and fall of senior year is not too late to take tests. My older son scored his best ACT in the fall of senior year, and he didn’t prep much at all for that test. He had gotten a decent sore on a previous ACT test so he was just trying to do a bit better. He practiced one section that was dragging his composite score down, and ended up acing that section and that pulled his entire score up.
Plan with son19 is to do some online test prep this summer, and take an SAT class that the high school offers for a week. Then take the PSAT in the fall, and an Act too. See which test he liked better, and then focus future efforts on the that format. He’ll probably take the ACT/SAT 3 times, fall, spring, fall, unless he gets a superb score in an early test ( which I doubt).
@RightCoaster SAT and ACT three times! Shoot me now! Won’t he decide which test works better for him after one of each? It was obvious for S19 that the SAT was the better bet for him even though, in the midwest, most kids focus on the ACT. SAT allows more time per question and doesn’t have the dreaded science section. The questions might be perceived as a bit harder but that’s the trade off. Plus, I guess the controversy about the newness of the SAT keeps people away.
Thanks for the guidance, everyone. My concern is that she hasn’t taken Geometry yet, let alone calculus. I think she’d shoot herself in the foot taking them for real (as opposed to practices earlier).
@homerdog I meant that after the 1st attempt at each test son19 should know what he’s better at. Then take that test again 2x more.
Son17 took psat, sat, act, sat, act and act. He tried the Sat twice and his score didn’t improve. He got a bit better on each ACT. For son17 the key to getting a decent score on ACT was just figuring out the science part. For some reason it confused him on his first 2 tests, he scored around 24-25 I think. He then read some tips on how to do better on that section, learned some tricks and I think he ended up with a 33 science. That really helped his composite score and superstore because he had 30+ on all of the other sections.
Son17 also felt that he lucked out a bit on the 3rd ACT test, he said the science section was way easier to understand, and he thought the whole test was easier. The first 2x he thought he did OK, but he was more confident after the 3rd test for sure.
So happy that my kids’ school is pretty minimalist on their testing recommendations. Kids take the PSAT the fall of their junior year, and the SAT or ACT in the spring of junior year. If they don’t do as well as they hoped, then they take it again in the fall of senior year. The school offers outside test prep, but other than that, it’s all (intentionally) kept as low key as possible.
@soxmom just because that’s what the school recommends doesn’t mean you have to do it that way. Our school keeps it low key too. At our school some kids took the tests only once, but others took them multiple times.
I’m in the camp of taking it multiple times can’t hurt. Sometimes just an increase of a couple of points can be really beneficial to getting an acceptance or merit $. In my son17’s case, he really needed to get the score he got on his last ACT in order to be accepted into the school he is going to in the fall.
Unless the tests cause some huge mental duress to kid I say take them again! The last time my son took it, he almost backed out on it. He was kind of tired and over it. I said 1 more time can’t hurt. He was lucky he took it again. Afterwards, when he got his final result he was thrilled and thanked me for pushing him to try it 1 more time.
But aren’t there a number of schools that demand to see all test-taking efforts? Like, you can’t choose to send just the best one? Or is that just something I dreamed in a nightmare?
@Gatormama Our kid’s HS recommends SAT in spring of junior year and that is when most took it and when D17 took it. That seemed like the norm for the kids I knew. S19 is likely to start talking with soccer coaches in summer so having a SAT/ACT score will be important for him.
D17 studied a lot for the SAT and I’m worried about S19 having time for that during the school year what with homework and 3 hrs a day in sports (door-to-door). Also it seems somewhat efficient to take the 1st SAT in fall of junior year before the PSAT. He’ll have studied for that so why not take the SAT too at the same time. He doesn’t mind taking standardized tests and doesn’t find them very stressful. I know some kids do find them very stressful, but he’s not like that.
@Gatormama waiting that late leaves very little time for retake , especially if chasing merit . Many schools have application deadlines of Nov or Dec for merit applications. My DA16 started taking his tests in Fall of junior year. My son took ACT 3 times and SAT twice. By retaking the ACT to increase his score to 32, he was accepted into two Honors program, including the highest level of Honors at the school he attends. He was invited for scholarship weekends for lucrative scholarships and had received all of his acceptances by Christmas, except Honors by Feb. He is attending college for less than 1500.00 a year.
@Gatormama schools that want to see all scores are few and far between. Schools like Stanford and Brown. I think maybe the UC system too. If you have any idea of schools you might be targeting, I would look their requirements. S19 applying to some top 30 schools, none of which ask for all scores.