DD is signed up for the SAT today - 8am test start, 7:45am arrival time. She had finals this past week, and didn’t sleep well. Nor was she able to sleep well last night. This morning, when I wake her up at 7:05 am, she asks “can I take the SAT a different day?” Ummm, no, not until the fall if you miss it today. She gets dressed, and trudges out for breakfast. At this point, wife and I start arguing. “What are you making her take the test for?? She’s so tired, and she’s barely eaten anything.” “But we’re signed up for it, and she studied, and if she does terribly, we just won’t send the scores anywhere.” “But why would you make her suffer through 3 hours of testing?!?!” This goes on for a bit. Parents of the year, I tell ya! DD eventually retreats to her room to go back to sleep. Wife, who was going to drive her, leaves to take the dogs for a walk.
At 7:55am, she comes out of her room, “you know what, I think I want to take the test, and I’ll regret if I don’t.” So I race her over to the (giant) school, she runs to find her room assignment, then runs to her room, and at 8:10 she’s knocking on the door of the testing room. I don’t know exactly what happened, but the proctor let her in, and after 10 minutes they hadn’t kicked her out, so I went home…
Who needs coffee, when real life is an adrenaline rush?
When I brought D1 in on a Saturday for some test, the road we planned on taking to the school was closed for some bike race. Some small bike race that hadn’t made the news or the traffic reports or anything. We faced a 10 mile detour but made it in time. Not the way you want to start out!
We know people who have gone to the wrong testing site, forgotten their ID or ticket, gotten in a fender bender, forgotten a calculator, you name it. This has resulted in every test day at our house being marked by extreme paranoia student and parent alike.
I hate that there is no test date between June and September. They are adding one next year.
Not a late arrival, but the morning of his AP Physics exams, my son asked me for new batteries for his calculator, which has proprietary batteries and is meant to be charged occasionally. You can’t just pick up batteries at CVS. When I told him that and asked why he didn’t charge his calculator, he didn’t know. Told me he’d “just wing it”. (Fortunately, his little sister has the same calculator and I guilted her into lending it to him for the day.)
I hope the adrenaline rush carries over to a great test performance! S took the ACT at a nearby CSU campus last spring on the same morning as a big baseball game AND admitted students day. It was insane. He only got there on time because he knows the area fairly well and was able to hop out of the car and make his way across campus on foot.
Well, here is a GMAT story. It is kid of ironic that this happened to my S who is typically extremely organized and diligent but here we go…
My S went to college nearby and dormed. He wanted to be on campus the night before his GMAT. I offered to pick him up and drive him to the Sat AM test. It was all very close, very do-able for me. But I get to campus, call his cell and no answer. I can’t get into the dorm because the front doors are locked and I have no electronic key to get in. Finally some kid drags into the dorm (after apparently a very long night out) and I walk in the door after him. I go to my S’s room and start banging on the door to his suite. One of his suitemates eventually opens the door half asleep wearing just his boxers (clearly not expecting to see me there). I wake up my S. Turns out his phone died and alarm didn’t go off. He gets ready in 5 minutes and we rush off to the testing center (I did bring coffee and some food with me which he ate on the way). While he was taking the test I went and got his suitemate a $25 Visa gift card as a thank you. After all that he did just fine, improved on his prior score and got into the grad school of his choice! But what a morning it was!
7:05 am wake up for a 7:45 am test?? We live 5 min away from the school and to me a 7:45 am test start means you arrive at 7:30 because it may take time to get things settled, and because you never know if there will be a train crossing the tracks or a stoplight not working whatever, you leave at 7:15 at the latest! Seriously. I’d be pacing at 7:10 with keys in hand.
@Pizzagirl I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but kids here are told to arrive at 7:45 for an 8:30 start. My daughter arrived this morning at 7:35 and there were already about 50 people ahead of her in line.
I don’t know and it’s been years since my kids took these tests. But the same concept applies. If told to arrive at 7:45 am for an 8:30 test, that means you’re pulling in the parking lot at 7:30. I hate being late!
Years ago - remember the date because near the end of the exam the time was 12:34, 5/6/78 - I lived in the Bronx, walked 3 blocks to elementary school and 5 blocks to high school, but the SAT was given at another high school about 12 blocks away. Did not wake up until 8:15 - doubt if my mom knew it was SAT day - ran out the door unwashed and somehow ran the 12 blocks and slid in under the wire. Did pretty well, lol, 1430 back in the day.
Oh man, this brings back memories. The night before D’s first SAT outing, we went through the checklist together. Yes yes yes, she assured me, she had everything. Next morning, I dropped her off and seven minutes later, my cell rang. Oh cr*p, I thought, this can’t be good, but answered brightly, “Hi!” “Mom [voice trembling] … I don’t have my ID.” Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get home and get back to the test site in time, I raced over and had a frantic conversation with the proctors supervisor in which, among other things, I offered to leave my credit card as hostage until I could get the ID there. No dice.
Despite that, her life wasn’t permanently ruined. She took the test the following month, got into the college she wanted and graduated, and now is a productive member of society. But that morning you couldn’t have convinced her that any of that would happen.
That was also the morning that a new term entered our family vocabulary. When something is super important, you don’t assume it’s where it’s supposed to be. You have to “lay eyeballs” on it.
The second time I took the ACT it was during finals week in June. (We’re required to take the ACT in Michigan but the state req one is without writing so this was my first ACT with essay). During finals week, I was really, really sick, missed all of my final exams, and was in the ER until the wee hours of the morning right before my ACT.
Somehow I convinced my parents that I still needed to take the ACT so they dropped me off on little sleep and while I was still hopped up on painkillers.
To this day, I do not remembering taking that test but I guess we got there just in time and somehow I managed to grab everything I needed.
I know I’ve arrived late to other standardized tests before but since things were always running behind, it’s never been an issue.
D2 was signed up to take the GRE about 5 miles from her college at 8 am on a Monday. I talked to her to make sure she had everything packed and transportation arranged.
Me: How are you getting there?
D2: Uber
Me: What is your backup if you can’t get an Uber?
D2: My friend Muffy will drive me.
Me: Did you talk to Muffy to make sure she can do it if needed?
D2: I will
Me: Tonight?
D2: Yes (verbal eyeroll)
Well… she didn’t talk to her friend. And couldn’t get an Uber. And her friend wasn’t answering texts. So she texts ME 1,000 miles away for help at about 7:30 am. She hasn’t tried knocking on her friend’s door (Doh!). I send her to do that – but an Uber comes through and she sqeaks in the door at 7:59. Kills the test, too. Argh.
This isn’t a late arrival story, but when I was a junior and took my SAT, it was over spring break. My family was skiing in CO and I flew home early. A friend of my parents picked me up and I was to stay at her house and she’d drive me to the test the next morning.
Well, that evening I was outside the house, my boyfriend drove by and I hopped in his car and took off for a few hours. I didn’t even have the courtesy of telling them I was going out and of course this is pre-cell phone. They were frantic when they couldn’t find me. I got back and immediately recognized how inconsiderate I had been and I knew my parents were going to (rightfully) bring down the hammer. So I took the SAT with that in mind - I was sick to my stomach, upset; I was a “good girl” and I had never done anything like this before.
The coda is that my parents grounded me for 6 weeks, which I fully deserved.
DS forgot the student ID once for SAT Subject test. I took my cell phone inside and logged into our school on-line record site where there is DS’s photo and grades for homework and exams, etc. The proctor said “thank goodness for the phone!” and let him in.
I don’t know if that is allowed by CollegeBoard or not, but DS was allowed in to take the test and did well.
I now get a large ziplock bag (gallon-size,) put the ticket, ID, sharpened pencils/eraser, calculator, granola bars, etc and set the bag and a water bottle on the dining table the night before. I know I know I’m spoiling him now. Hopefully he will catch up on it himself and I won’t have to do that for his job, etc.
The time of day wasn’t an issue, but I recall the first SAT that #1 took as a 6th grader in the Northwestern U Midwest Talent Search. It appeared that virtually all of the other kids were 11th and 12 graders. Waiting for admission to the test with those kids, our son wasn’t intimidated or nervous. But I was.
DD eventually retreats to her room to go back to sleep. Wife, who was going to drive her, leaves to take the dogs for a walk.
So I race her over to the (giant) school, she runs to find her room assignment, then runs to her room, and at 8:10 she’s knocking on the door of the testing room. I don’t know exactly what happened, but the proctor let her in, and after 10 minutes they hadn’t kicked her out, so I went home…
During the school year, we have to leave the house at 8am - so they’d roll out of bed at 7:45 or 7:50.