…and the competition from the offspring of the hyped-up parents on that other board and thousands more like them.
Bumping. Any parents with 2018-ers who took the SAT today? At 7D1’s new school she was one of the only Juniors to sit for it.
@SevenDad I think it would be a great practice for PSAT coming in two weeks. Wish I had done that with DS1 (2017-er). Wait, no, 2017-ers ended up being guinea pigs with redesigned PSAT and old SAT in October. >:P
It is a great idea to test early if kids test well. DS1 was done with all testing in June so it is so nice not having to do any testing in his Senior year.
Hope it went well! :x :)>-
My 17er also did early testing and was done in 11th grade. He took Nov SAT (old format) and April ACT. Might have taken Feb ACT but it wasn’t offered at his school.
DS1 (at public school) took January SAT (the last offering of old form) and April ACT twice (one National, one State-mandatory) and June ACT. He did not take the new SAT. He took SAT subject tests in December, May, June of Junior year, one subject at a time.
Our impetus for the early sitting was possibility of athletic recruitment. All advice received pointed to having testing done sooner rather than later. She did some prep over the summer so it wan’t totally cold.
Figured the Oct. sitting would either be sufficient or allow for time to work on one or more sections before January and/or March sitting. So far, only planning for one subject test this year…maybe we’ll re-evaluate.
Dude, this thread makes me feel old.
DS took SAT subject tests when it made sense with his classes. That ended up being 1 SAT subject test at each sitting in May of 9th grade, Nov 10th grade (language with listening which is only offered in Nov), May 10th grade, and May 11th grade.
My kids’ school tells them when and how to test. So my son has been directed to take the ACT in October and December, and my daughter has been told to take the SAT in November and December (I think). They were each told to take a couple of subject tests last year. We’ll go with whatever they recommend. Things have changed a lot in the almost 40 years since I took the SAT!
So is anyone else spending a lot of time learning about colleges and imagining possible spring break trips? I feel like that is pretty much the only thing I can do for my kids right now. 
Yes, imaging trips…but finding it hard to figure out when to go. DS just signed up for a trip abroad over spring break. He’s not taking the ACT until April. I love the school-day, small-group, mandatory test prep, and am looking forward to (after Thanksgiving) hearing what schools the college counselor recommends for him. We have a list, but am curious if our expectations align with theirs.
How long is his Spring Break, @hellomaisy? My kids had 3+ weeks so we had room to do both. I think those junior year spring breaks really need to be used for some college touring. Another good time is late August before school starts up again. Personally, I’m in the camp of summer visits being somewhat useless as school won’t be in session.
I don’t really get the point of the very early testing. Maybe it’s just because they can’t prep all the kids at once, so they have to space out the groups? If the kids do very well, of course, it will be great to be done with it and to have a better sense of what colleges to look at.
@twinsmama: Re: Very early testing.I think there’s something to be said for “getting things out of the way”/getting an early read on what range a student’s scores will be in. For 7D2, the possibility of being an athletic recruit pushes things up a bit as coaches want to be able to present a complete application for a pre-read. And as I think was noted, for the subject tests, doing the test while the material is fresh. 7D1 took the Bio SAT her freshman year, long before she sat for the SAT I.
Regarding visits, for 7D1 we visited my wife and my alma maters the summer before Junior Year…then did a few throughout Junior Year/summer after. I agree with doschicos about summer being suboptimal for visits, but I think it at least give you sense of campus/location.
For 7D2, we did bunch of unofficial visits with various coaches over her Spring Break of Soph. year. Again, to echo the words of doschicos, she was able to fit in a 5 day visit with a friend in another part of the country in addition to visiting schools both near and far over a single Spring Break. Obviously, YMMV depending on length of break and the trip DS is signed up for.
@hellomaisy , you probably know this, but just in case… the counselor will want to hear what’s on your list as well as it’ll help them tweak theirs too.
We spent 5 or 6 days of a long spring break on visits. DS felt like that would be plenty. To his credit, he was less consumed by the process at that point than I was. 
My 2018er will take the ACT in Dec and Feb, and maybe the SAT in Jan as well. Hoping, REALLY hoping to get this out of the way before the end of Junior year, so DD can focus on her regular coursework as well as subject tests at the end of the year.
Bump
How’s that junior year workload treating all the 2018s?
To circle back on testing…she’s pretty happy with scores from Oct SAT but I have signed 7D2 up for Jan sitting.
First round of testing is done, with very respectable results. One glitch is that my son’s ACT essay was scored bizarrely low, lower than he even knows how to write. From what I see on the ACT website, there is no point asking for a rescore, because they refuse to reread it. Both kids want to try again and will do so this month. The college counseling office assigned them all kinds of lengthy surveys, with one for parents, too, which my husband says is just so they will find out which parents are likely to be PITAs. I am, as everyone here should know already, a natural PITA, but will try to restrain myself. 
So that’s why we had the surveys!