When to take SAT (early)

[luuknam]

I know several people have their kids take the SAT way early for talent search or super early college or w/e. If you did, how did you decide your kid was ready to take a stab at the SAT?

 

(I already know my kids aren't ready yet, but my oldest is ill, so I'm a little bored today and I love standardized tests, lol)

[regentrude]

It just happened. We found out about DUKE TIP talent search in 7th grade, and DD gave it a shot because she wanted to.

I don't know what it means to be "ready" - obviously, a 7th grader without highschool geometry would stand no shot at a score competitive for admission to a selective school, but you cannot fail the SAT either

[Arcadia]

When you don't mind paying for SAT testing even if results turn out disastrous. As my hubby say, he is okay even if our kids flop their first ACT and SAT because it was worth paying to know their baseline.

 

You can let your kid try the three SAT practice tests free on Khan Academy or just download the four SAT practice tests from Collegeboard's website. So no money out for you :)

 

ETA:

By flop, I mean scoring below the median.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Arcadia

[luuknam]

I don't know what it means to be "ready" - obviously, a 7th grader without highschool geometry would stand no shot at a score competitive for admission to a selective school, but you cannot fail the SAT either

 

Okay, maybe 'ready' isn't the right word, but if I were to have my kids take the SAT now they probably would end up with 200s on each section, which would be a waste of time/money/etc and possibly demotivating for them. In other words, even though there may not be a point where someone is 'ready' to take the SAT, my kids are currently clearly NOT ready.

[Dmmetler]

My DD took it at 10 because there was a program that wanted either ACT or SAT scores. We did the SAT first since the test was changing, otherwise we would have done the ACT because it's more helpful locally (the community college doesn't even look at SAT scores for DE, for example, since almost no one here takes the test).

 

I would say-not until your kids can sit for several hours and be quiet. It's a LONG test. Although not having the required writing should help. Having said that, DD actually asked to do the ACT +Writing because she liked the writing on the SAT best :).

[luuknam]

When you don't mind paying for SAT testing even if results turn out disastrous. As my hubby say, he is okay even if our kids flop their first ACT and SAT because it was worth paying to know their baseline.

 

ETA:

By flop, I mean scoring below the median.

 

I'm just wondering at what point y'all (boardies, not just you in particular) decide you don't mind paying for it. Like, you mention the practice tests - did you say "hey, it looks like my kid scores above the median on the practice test, let's take a stab at the real thing", or...? Also, what if a kid is way stronger in math or verbal than in the other one?

[amsunshine]

Okay, maybe 'ready' isn't the right word, but if I were to have my kids take the SAT now they probably would end up with 200s on each section, which would be a waste of time/money/etc and possibly demotivating for them. In other words, even though there may not be a point where someone is 'ready' to take the SAT, my kids are currently clearly NOT ready.

 

Yes, 1st or 3rd grade would likely not be a good time to start out with the SAT.  I think 12 or 13 is the typical age to think about whether your kids are ready for it.  My dds were both accelerated in their math and reading, and they had already done well on things like the AMC8 and Math Kangaroo, so the SAT didn't seem so crazy by the time they were 12/13.  I had them take practice tests,  and they scored fairly well, so we decided to sign them up.  We didn't participate in a talent search, because it was less expensive to sign up on our own.

 

All scores from 8th grade and below are purged from the system, so there's no worry about your child's score from those grades staying on their permanent record.  It's nice to have a baseline, and an idea of what areas need improvement.

Edited June 3, 2016 by amsunshinetemp

[quark]

Yes, like others have said:

1. Being able to sit still for hours with only short breaks (there were four 5-minute breaks when I took the old SAT recently to test *my* baseline).

2. Having a good grasp of geometry and functions,  a little trig, reading/ manipulating data/ charts. A lot of it is reasoning so sometimes very bright kids do well even without formal lessons in these areas.

3. Being able to write non stop (hand gets very painful!!) if taking the essay.

4. Critical reading, good vocab, being able to find meaning between the lines.

5. For me, gut instinct. Something told me he was ready and he was.

Edited June 3, 2016 by quark

[regentrude]

If you want a tangible deadline: I'd wait until the student has taken algebra.

[luuknam]

Yes, 1st or 3rd grade would likely not be a good time to start out with the SAT.

 

Right, and I'm definitely not planning on having them sit for the SAT anytime soon. Sometimes I just like to learn a bit about something to file away "for later".

[amsunshine]

I'm just wondering at what point y'all (boardies, not just you in particular) decide you don't mind paying for it. Like, you mention the practice tests - did you say "hey, it looks like my kid scores above the median on the practice test, let's take a stab at the real thing", or...? Also, what if a kid is way stronger in math or verbal than in the other one?

 

 

I think you will just know, because you know your kids best.

[quark]

I'm just wondering at what point y'all (boardies, not just you in particular) decide you don't mind paying for it. Like, you mention the practice tests - did you say "hey, it looks like my kid scores above the median on the practice test, let's take a stab at the real thing", or...? Also, what if a kid is way stronger in math or verbal than in the other one?

 

Personally, I didn't mind paying for the first because we really wanted some back-up info in case the community college rejected his application (they don't use SAT scores here but we thought it would be good to have them as a point of ref). The second time was for college admissions so we definitely had no issues paying.

 

For younger kids, the bolded usually isn't an issue unless you are looking at qualifying for programs that require high scores across the board. Over time, scores can really improve. Kiddo's went up quite a lot from 6th (mostly careless errors) vs 8th (only a couple of errors at most).

 

[Arcadia]

I'm just wondering at what point y'all (boardies, not just you in particular) decide you don't mind paying for it.

..,

Also, what if a kid is way stronger in math or verbal than in the other one?

When my kids finish algebra 1 and geometry was when I think it is worth a shot to get their baselines.

 

Both my kids are stronger in math. Their scores reflect that. It is a non-issue to us unless they did badly in english. For example if my kid usually gets >= 95th percentile for math and >=80th percentile for english, I would expect a similar trend from my kid for SAT.

[brownie]

One other possible criteria to consider is when your middle school children are too old for the Explore but standardized tests don't tell you anything useful because they score really high. Otherwise, I find it to be a useful experience unless your kid will get frustrated. I took it 2x in middle school and it only helped and encouraged me. My oldest 2 have both taken it in 7th so far.

[Kathy in Richmond]

I brought my kids home when ds was starting grade 6. Every week we visited the local library, and one time we saw a used SAT review guide at their used book sale table for 25 cents. We purchased it, brought it home, and ds started working through a section per day for fun. It seemed an appropriate challenge level since he was a great reader & was studying algebra at the time. After a while, we started timing him and noticed he was doing well (600s to 700s per section). So, in grade 7 (age 12) we signed him up for the CTY talent search.

 

I wouldn't have done it, but we were curious about his level (it's so much cheaper than IQ testing!), and he enjoyed testing. When he scored 2nd place in the state, it gave me a lot of confidence to increase the challenge level of his classes, put him in AMC math competitions, and finally, it got him noticed for MathPath camp. Going there one summer was the beginning of lots of cool adventures for us, and it definitely shaped his future path.

 

Dd followed a similar testing path, though we started her earlier in grade 5 (not the SAT, but the Plus test CTY used for younger kids). She thoroughly enjoyed the whole testing process and the results, especially CTY's visual spatial STB testing, gave us useful info to work with.

Edited June 3, 2016 by Kathy in Richmond

[mathnerd]

My son is very mature, focused, can do a lot of seat work without getting fidgety and enjoys academic testing. This is the reason that I am estimating that he will start taking the SAT at age 12 or 13. If he were a different type of kid, I will let him wait a few more years to take SAT.

Edited June 4, 2016 by mathnerd

[daijobu]

My dh and I both took the SAT in 7th grade, so we didn't think much of it and signed up our kids for it at that age, too.  I don't even really remember how it happened for me.  It was just something 7th graders do I guess.  

 

 

[KarenNC]

Our state requires yearly standardized testing, so I already had a good feeling for where my daughter might perform, and knew quite well that she would do far better in verbal rather than math skills (as has been her pattern since we started testing). If we had waited until she finished algebra and geometry, we'd still be waiting. ;) 

 

She has no test anxiety (actually rather enjoys testing, as I did), so that wasn't a factor, and had taken bubble tests so the format wasn't brand-new. In prep I did have her try a practice test to get used to the format, and made sure she knew that she wasn't expected to know all of the material, particularly in the math section. We treated the scores as we have all of her testing---just to see where she is and where we need to go next. The biggest issue we had was that she was a bit nervous about testing in a group situation, especially with older kids, in a strange building, as she hadn't done group testing before.

 

She ended up taking both the ACT and SAT in 7th (age 12), but it wasn't originally planned that way. She took the ACT in December through the Duke TIP without writing, primarily because it satisfied our yearly testing requirement where the SAT didn't. After that, I learned about the SET program through Johns Hopkins CTY, which requires the student to get a 700 in one of the areas before age 13. She was close enough in the verbal section of the ACT to make it not unlikely that she might make it (using concordance tables to get an estimate of how her ACT score compared to SAT scoring), so she took the last seating of the SAT before her 13th birthday just in case. She didn't quite make it, but I felt it was a good experience. If it hadn't been for the SET option, we would have stuck with just one test.

 

Since then, we've stuck with the ACT for our yearly testing. I did have her try the PSAT this past year (sophomore) so that she had a preview before it counts for National Merit in 11th, and will take the SAT next year as a junior as well as the ACT.

Edited June 4, 2016 by KarenNC

[raptor_dad]

DW is medical subspecialist where testing can be expensive or dangerous or both. Her rule of thumb is to test only if testing will effect your subsequent actions.

 

With this in mind, we declined gifted testing for our first grader in PS. Despite hitting the ceiling on both sections of the MAP primary grades test, it wasn't worthwhile to give him the CogAT in 1st grade since testing leaves him very pissed off. The school doesn't really differentiate until 3rd grade and everyone has CogAT screening in spring of second grade...

 

Likewise we  haven't tested our much more gifted home schooled third grader because it isn't relevant to us.We can differentiate fine without it.

 

We will do talent search testing in 7th grade, as traditional  for both DW and myself. At that point it is necessary  to qualify for tip/cty type summer programs and is worth doing. Registering for DYS or SET is a useful side effect if it works out.