Skip SAT?

[TwoEdgedSword]

My son is a junior in h.s. and is in a p.s. STEM academy in addition to his homeschool classes. The SAT is next week and he has done zero prep for it bc he's been trying to improve his grades in Honors Physics and other honors courses at the academy. 

I'm really considering letting him skip it this junior year and let him study and take it once or twice if needed next year.  I think he'll do really well if he can prep for it, but right now he's pretty stressed to add something that can affect college admissions.

What do you think about waiting until his senior year?

Thank you!

[cuckoomamma]

Can he take it in June this year?

[TwoEdgedSword]

I don't think the local h.s. offers it then, but we could probably find another site and do it then.

[JenneinCA]

You could check when the ACT dates are and see if any of them would work.

[Lori D.]

What about buckling down this summer and prepping then, and taking the first SAT test of the senior year? Or prepping all this month and taking the last SAT of the spring on May 3? You may need to choose a farther away location in order to get one of these other dates.

2018 spring

   - SAT dates: May 3

   - ACT dates: June 9 or July 14

2018 fall 

   - SAT dates: Aug. 25 or Oct. 6

   - ACT dates: Sept. 8 or Oct. 27 

[RootAnn]

I'd try to have him prep this summer and take the August 25th one. Part of the prep should be taking the practice SATs on Khan Academy. (We printed out hard copies & took it timed @ home, then put in the answers in on Khan. It made prep more targeted. Practice for a few weeks, then take another practice SAT. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Tests 5-8 on Khan are rumored to have been real administrations of the SAT.)

You'll also want to look at deadlines for any colleges he's looking at. Early action, honors, scholarships, etc. The October date might be too late for some of them, but just fine for others. I'd definitely shoot for the August date in the fall if he doesn't take it this spring.

[Corraleno]

I would not have him take the SAT with no prep. See if any schools in your area offer the July ACT or August SAT, and aim for one of those. The October 6 SAT might be possible if he needs to take a second shot at it, but it could be too late for some ED/EA deadlines.

[Lanny]

Deleted because I was referring to PSAT/NMSQT. 

Edited April 5, 2018 by Lanny
Deleted because my reply was Off Topic

[Sebastian (a lady)]

What sort of scores has he gotten on other standardized tests like PSAT or ITBS or Stanford Achievement.  If he normally tests well he might do well on the SAT too, even without a lot of prep.

I think you have to look at when the other SAT tests are and weigh it against schedule conflicts and early deadlines for some college apps and scholarships.  

[Lanny]

Lori D.   Thanks for putting the dates for the SAT and ACT in your reply upthread.  After I read that, I asked my DD if she is going to sign up to take the SAT on May 3rd.  She is going to do that.

 

[TwoEdgedSword]

I think he wants to take it and surprisingly he feels he will do well. He did extremely well on the PSAT and apparently

the STEM academy has been doing some prep with the kids I didn't know about.

The only downside of taking it seems to be the fact that there are schools which require ALL scores and not just your best ones, like Stanford.

 

[Bambam]

If he is already signed up and I paid money and can't get the SAT folks to reschedule for no additional money, I would have him take it cold. My oldest did and it worked very well for her. 

Here in TX, college application season opens fall of your senior year (so my youngest will graduate May 2019, but she will apply for colleges August 2018). It is best to have your SAT or ACT scores in by then so they have everything they need to make a decision. First apply with all the required documentation, first admitted. I've been told if a class is full, no more students are admitted regardless of their qualifications. I don't think academic merit scholarships are unlimited, so I'd want to apply early to try to nail one of those down.

[Arcadia]

21 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Or prepping all this month and taking the last SAT of the spring on May 3? 

2018 spring

   - SAT dates: May 3

 

There is one more SAT date on June 2nd, 2018. My kids are signed up for subject test on that date and the general SAT is offered too.

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/dates-deadlines

[Sebastian (a lady)]

2 hours ago, TwoEdgedSword said:

I think he wants to take it and surprisingly he feels he will do well. He did extremely well on the PSAT and apparently

the STEM academy has been doing some prep with the kids I didn't know about.

The only downside of taking it seems to be the fact that there are schools which require ALL scores and not just your best ones, like Stanford.

 

Don't fret about that. They usually either do best sitting or best combined score. 

[Lanny]

I am seeing on the CollegeBoard web site that the SAT will be given on May 5, 2018 and that the last day to sign up (without paying for late registration) is tomorrow, April 6, 2018.  My DD is going to sign up tomorrow.

[Lanny]

OP About the possibility of having taken the SAT or ACT multiple times being an issue.  We are aware of that possibility too, but I believe it is a very slight possibility of being a problem.  DD is planning to take the SAT twice and the ACT twice this year.  However, she has scores in her head (34 for the ACT, I forget  the number for the SAT) and if she gets scores that high, the first time around, she will not take the exam again.  

There is an official tie in between the Khan Academy and the CollegeBoard for the SAT.  That's where I suggest studying for the SAT.  And, it is FREE...

I think the CollegeBoard may have also (very recently?) added some other free study help, but don't remember where I read about that or if that is true.

 

[RootAnn]

1 hour ago, Lanny said:

I think the CollegeBoard may have also (very recently?) added some other free study help, but don't remember where I read about that or if that is true.

Lanny, you might be thinking about the ACT who just announced free prep (seems like mostly videos from other sources, even Khan!).

[Lanny]

23 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

Lanny, you might be thinking about the ACT who just announced free prep (seems like mostly videos from other sources, even Khan!).

 

Yes. That is extremely possible...  At this moment, DD is trying to register for the SAT for May 5th and when she presses the Register button, nothing happens...  She contacted their Support via email and if they do not answer in a few minutes, she will try to call them on the phone. We are overseas, but we have a magicJack so she can call the USA for free.  Today is the last day to register for the May 5th SAT, without paying the Late Registration Fee...

[RootAnn]

20 minutes ago, Lanny said:

At this moment, DD is trying to register for the SAT for May 5th ...

If she hasn't already, have her save her progress and log out. Close the browser, open, log back in and resume her registration (it should save everything). Sometimes, that does the trick.

Edited April 6, 2018 by RootAnn
Mobile interface clumsiness saved my post before I was done. Ugh!

[Lanny]

56 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

If she hasn't already, have her save her progress and log out. Close the browser, open, log back in and resume her registration (it should save everything). Sometimes, that does the trick.

 

She called CollegeBoard awhile ago and spoke with someone in their Support.  I believe the problem began when it asked for her Class Ranking and she wasn't sure about that.  Possibly her progress did not get saved properly, as you described above, or possibly there is a glitch in their system. The person asked her to try it again in 30 minutes. I think she can try it again now.  She is in the Top 10% of her class, as I suspected, but now we have that officially.   :-)  We didn't know they would ask for Class Rank or she would have had that before beginning the registration process. Hopefully she can finish that this afternoon, since  today is the last day.

[Lanny]

OT: I apologize for hijacking your thread. Please forgive me!   DD is registered for the SAT with Essay on May 5th.  :-)     I am usually prepared for things, but hindsight is 20-20 and  we got blindsided on the registration process.  I am going to read a web page on the College Board web site about the SAT Registration process and then shutdown my Laptop.  Didn't know that we would need to have DD's "Class Rank" (#8 of more than 200 students  :-)  or that she would need to answer all of those questions or that she would need to Upload a photo.  This is the URL DD and I should have read BEFORE she began registering for the SAT:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/online-registration-help

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by Lanny
change question to questions

[TwoEdgedSword]

No worries Lanny! And thanks all for your replies. Haven't figured out how to like comments now...it looks like a trophy or other expressions. Are there no more regular likes as there used to be?

[RootAnn]

5 minutes ago, TwoEdgedSword said:

Haven't figured out how to like comments now...it looks like a trophy or other expressions. Are there no more regular likes as there used to be?

Use the Heart for a regular like. Trophy is a "thanks"

Various faces for other things. I like the "sad" face - for when you want to offer support, but you don't "like" what's in the content. 

[wapiti]

3 hours ago, Lanny said:

Didn't know that we would need to have DD's "Class Rank" (#8 of more than 200 students  :-)  or that she would need to answer all of those questions

Most of those questions don't actually need to be answered.  They're optional.  Just press continue.

I have read about people having trouble registering such that using a different browser might help.

[Lanny]

8 hours ago, wapiti said:

Most of those questions don't actually need to be answered.  They're optional.  Just press continue.

I have read about people having trouble registering such that using a different browser might help.

 

Since we are overseas, I wish they had asked about Citizenship. I suspect the universities who contact her based on the SAT Registration questions are going to assume that she is an International applicant, but she is a U.S. Citizen, so any universities she is interested in, she will need to respond and ask them to transfer her to their normal Admissions. I'm not sure how that will work, but it isn't a big issue.   I think it is a plus to receive those emails from schools and she can (and will) discard most of them, but some of them will be of interest to her. At least one of the 5 schools she is interested in now had contacted her after she took the PSAT/NMSQT. 

Proud father brag:   DD was told yesterday when trying to register for the SAT that she is #8 of 200+ students.    I had assumed that she was in the top 10% but that puts her into the top 4%    I do not see the Smile things that the old forum platform had available or I would insert a Smile here.   :-)

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Lanny
typo

[wapiti]

2 hours ago, Lanny said:

Since we are overseas, I wish they had asked about Citizenship. I suspect the universities who contact her based on the SAT Registration questions are going to assume that she is an International applicant, but she is a U.S. Citizen, so any universities she is interested in, she will need to respond and ask them to transfer her to their normal Admissions. I'm not sure how that will work, but it isn't a big issue.   I think it is a plus to receive those emails from schools and she can (and will) discard most of them, but some of them will be of interest to her.

The others may speak to this better than I can because we are still a few months away, but I'd assume the app itself asks about citizenship.  I don't think the info in College Board's registration is relevant to the admissions process.

My dd isn't interested in the spam unless it comes from a school that is already on the Colleges I'm Thinking About list in Naviance (which is a compilation by herself, her counselor, and me).  Last week she got a big envelope of spam from Harvard and she never even opened it.  I might open it before I throw it out just to see if there's anything in there I can make fun of - not sure why H needs to send out spam with a 4% acceptance rate.

[Lanny]

1 hour ago, wapiti said:

The others may speak to this better than I can because we are still a few months away, but I'd assume the app itself asks about citizenship.  I don't think the info in College Board's registration is relevant to the admissions process.

My dd isn't interested in the spam unless it comes from a school that is already on the Colleges I'm Thinking About list in Naviance (which is a compilation by herself, her counselor, and me).  Last week she got a big envelope of spam from Harvard and she never even opened it.  I might open it before I throw it out just to see if there's anything in there I can make fun of - not sure why H needs to send out spam with a 4% acceptance rate.

 

I suggested to DD that she set up another email account, for the SPAM from universities and she did that. I told her that she will probably Delete 99% of it, but that there might be an occasional one that is of interest to her. At the moment, she has five (5) universities on her list.  One of the top 3 is because they sent her email information after she took the PSAT/NMSQT last October.  She looked into it and she likes it... The top 4 on her list will get the SAT results from the May 5th exam and I suspect after that she will hear from them, because I'm guessing that if they see that someone had their SAT score sent to them they will see some interest...

And yes, the universities actually send stuff in Snail Mail to a lot of people.  I don't know what happened to the post office here, 2 or 3 years ago, but the mail from the USA is so iffy now that we don't permit anything to be sent that way now. It might never get here or it might get here in 6 months.

We had her school send something via our Receiver/Forwarder in Miami recently, but that's costly, so is only for critical things.

Yes, open the envelope!   Possibly they included a T shirt or something... Probably not, but inspect before discarding... 

 

 

[RootAnn]

2 hours ago, wapiti said:

Last week she got a big envelope of spam from Harvard and she never even opened it. 

DD got one, too.

1 hour ago, Lanny said:

Yes, open the envelope!   Possibly they included a T shirt or something..

No t-shirt. Nothing exciting. DD looks at some of them & just tosses the rest into her "college box." The U of Oklahoma post card with National Merit $$ clearly spelled out was probably the first time she showed actual interest in how much making National Merit Finalist would change the cost of a college education. I told her that they reduced their offering in the last year (or so) and the $ number she was seeing were actually less than they used to be. (DH boggled a little at the $, too.)

[Lanny]

Root Ann: I lived in North Central Texas for 28 years. There is a big friendly rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma. I think OU is probably an excellent school and there are Texans who go there, and there are Oklahomans who go to UT Austin or other schools in Texas.  I did not want to stress my DD with trying for National Merit Finalist, but she said after taking the PSAT/NMSQT that had she studied, she thinks she could have made it.  From what I have seen while browsing around, the past few months, my gut feeling tells me that there is less aid going to National Merit people now than in the past.  As you and your DH had known...  I am thankful that my DD qualified for the National Hispanic Recognition Program. That's not a scholarship, but it is an Academic Honor and I hope when they look at her Applications, that will be a "plus" for her.  In general, I think it is harder to get Financial Aid from Public Universities, but there are some exceptions, like UVA in Charlottsville (which my DD is not interested in) and UNC in Chapel Hill (which I read by state law requires at least 82% of the Freshmen class be NC residents, so I suggested to DD that she not bother with UNC...)

Sorry they didn't include a T shirt or something you could have used...