^^ Our kids have to take a statewide test called MCAS to test how all students are faring, thru junior year I think. I know son19 took it last year. It ranks them on how they compare to other students in their district and to the state. It’s pretty good, and our school on the whole does decently on it. I think it helps the school figure out if their teachers are also doing a good job teaching the material. The downside is the teachers sometimes focus too much on the material needed to get a good score on this test.
@RightCoaster exactly. Parents always complained that the teachers would take time out of class to study for the ISAT. So, the PSAT/SAT was the state’s answer to that. Kill two birds with one stone. Counts for state testing and preps for SAT. That being said, I’m sure it was a nice $$$ deal for College Board too.
One interesting tidbit on superscoring that I found in an admissions blog (I think UVA but I wouldn’t swear to it. They all start to blend together at this point). Apparently for this school the ap readers ONLY see the superscore. In other words, the common ap and all supporting materials are all pulled together by the computer program which gives it to the admissions person in one standardized file. It automatically sends the superscore without even stating how many sittings of the test or if it is a superscore.
I don’t know how common that is but I thought it was interesting.
Our kids get the PSAT in 9th, 10th and 11th grade. 11th graders also get the SAT on a school day in April, a week after spring break. Not sure how much studying for the SAT will be done - kiddo is pretty focused on the ACT.
Re Superscoring: A lot of schools say there admissions only see the top Superscore when they go to review the kids file.
I think it depends on the size of the school. Can you imagine how much effort it would take to calculate all of the superscores for all the applicants? Forever. So they just run a program that gives them the highest #, because in the end that’s what most of them care about ( because they can report the highest score possible).
I think some of the elites do want to see all of the scores, maybe so they can eliminate some kid who took 6 SAT and 6ACT tests to try to game the system.
The Pomona website used to say that they required applicants to report all scores because they wanted to discourage excessive testing, the implication being it was as much for the applicant’s own good as it was to stop wealthier kids from having an unfair advantage by being able to keep testing over and over. That was back in 2015 and I no longer see that explanation on their website, but it made sense.
Hm. I read somewhere that schools receive the whole score and the dates taken but they only consider the highest section. Maybe they get sent the whole score but then they have some sort of way to only show the readers of the apps the highest sections? I guess we just have to trust that schools consider the highest sections no matter what their process is.
I’ve heard the same thing from some schools – “send us all your scores – we superscore ourselves.”
I’m pretty sure that most schools use some type of data management software to review applications. Like this: https://technolutions.com/. So a clerical person is in charge of inputting the score reports into the program, and if the school superscores then the highest scores are the ones inputted. It’s not like the admissions officer sits there with paper copies of your score reports.
Son19 just got accepted into NHS at our school, not a super easy feat. So that’s good for him. He was thinking he might not get in, because while he does have some service hours he is not racking them up on a weekly basis. But he did some volunteering, and then he is involved in a bunch of stuff at school, so that helped I guess.
He’s trying to decide whether or not to attend an Innovation camp this summer at RPI. He’ll have to write up an essay and get some letters of recommendation soon to apply. I think he’ll do It. he went last summer and liked it.
He’s getting ramped up to take mid term tests next week and then the 2nd quarter ends. So far, so good.
Congrats on the NHS acceptance!
Our 2nd quarter ends next week too. have no idea whether my son has midterms. Knowing him, he probably doesn’t know either. He heads off to Europe on an orchestra trip next week and will miss 4.5 days of school, which is a little scary. They won’t have time to do any work.
I’m also looking at summer programs. I want him to do an architecture and design program at VA Tech or an engineering program at NC State. He has no comment about either one of those and wants to do a music program which is at least nearby in Baltimore. The main point would be to explore a potential major and since he claims he doesn’t want to major in music, he may have to convince me.
If we reach an impasse, I’ll keep my money, and he will hopefully just get a summer job.
We have mandatory ACT or SAT testing for our juniors . The school pts for the test. This is the first year it has given the students a choice regarding testing. Previously , it was only the ACT.
I wish our school paid for some of the testing. Especially as we are getting ready to write another check for AP exams.
Ours doesn’t pay for any of it at all.
Our school used to require AP tests for all students enrolled in the classes and the school covered all costs. Starting this year, they will pay for a student’s first 6 AP tests only, and all AP tests are optional. They just sent home an opt-out form.
S19 has already said that he might not take the AP Music Theory test senior year because he might have to sight sing, lol.
S19 didn’t take the AP Comp Sci A test last year. He hated the class and he was so stressed about finals that we gave him a pass on the AP test. Our GC was cool with that. He will take all three of his AP tests this year for sure. School doesn’t really care if you take them or not. I have a feeling he won’t take some of his senior year AP tests. Depending on where he’s going to college, he may not use those credits (or wouldn’t be allowed to) so I don’t see the point of sitting for the exam.
^^. I’m on board with that. If the school doesn’t require them and you can’t or won’t use the test to get a credit in college I see no point in wasting time and money on the AP tests.
I think son17 took some of his, but not others. Didn’t matter to him at all. He wanted to try to waive out of stats and calc if possible in college, but he had to take some business calc class when he went overseas, and now he has an easy stats class.
Son19 will probably take them as they.could be used in college. We have to pay for all the tests!
@eh1234 that Europe trip sounds fun, that will be a great experience. Maybe even " college essay" worthy, ha.
AZ requires no PE to graduate, nor does D19’s school. While I partially wish there was a PE requirement, I also remember being so bored by my own year of PE that I took my last semester of required PE in high school in a different state via extension.
D19’s school paid for the PSATs… I think? She took one sophomore year, then junior year. AZ has a pilot program to give grants to some districts/charter schools to give the ACT free of charge. It doesn’t substitute for a statewide exit exam, though.
D19’s school has a somewhat limited set of APs (no sciences, for example), but does require everyone who takes an AP class to take the associated test. As someone writing the check and who doesn’t expect that the classes will either help D19 place out of classes or reduce the amount of time spent in college, I’m not that keen on that policy, but then again I’m only writing the check for 3 exams this year and probably only 1 next year, much less than some folks I’m seeing whose kids are taking maybe 4 or 5 classes a year, and maybe a dozen or more cumulatively.
In retrospect, my parents wrote way too many checks on my behalf for exams I took in subjects I didn’t even take an AP class in – not necessary.
@BorgityBorg maybe the pilot program you’re referring to is how our high school ended up paying for the ACT for all juniors. We only got notice of it in January at the end of Winter Break. The GC’s seemed surprised and as I said there was initial confusion about whether it was the regular ACT or ACT Aspire. Our district pays for sophomores to take the PSAT but juniors have to pay. By the way, is your user name a Star Trek reference?
We are paying for 4 AP exams, and 3 Community college courses this year.
Additionally, we’ve already paid for 2 SATs and the PSAT this year.
We will be paying for at least 2 subject SATs in spring and possibly 1 more either SAT or ACT over the summer.
Like I said, it would have been nice if at least one of the exams was covered.
We wouldn’t pay for the APs or community college courses if we knew for sure they weren’t going to be helpful. We can’t know that for sure yet though.