I agree with @WWC4me and @sahmkc that it helps to get in an early baseline test.
DS insisted he did not need a prep course and would do some online tests on his own. We had a deal that he would take it first in March of Junior year and if it did not go well enough, he would do a prep course over summer and take the August SAT. He did better than I would have expected in March but was able to do even better in August. SAT prep over summer was much better bc he did not have to worry about his schoolwork and sports at same time. And, if we thought he needed it, he had time to take the Oct. test as well.
We also made sure some of the schools were test optional just in case but ended up sending scores.
Lots of kids don’t prep and they do just fine. Your daughter might be one of them. How has she done on previous standardized tests? After years of acing the stupid MCAS (state test in MA), I just assumed my kids would do well on the SAT and they did. Both did a few practice tests from the free study booklet a few weeks before they took their one and only SAT in June of their junior year. They didn’t take the subject tests until October of their senior year. They’re both high-strung and one has a mood disorder, so the last thing they needed was to take the test multiple times. Lots of kids feel this way.
Don’t stress your kid out this early in her junior year. Have her register for a late winter or spring sitting and then encourage her to open the booklet to familiarize herself with the questions. If she does well (and I’m guessing from her GPA, she will), she can be one and done. If she doesn’t, she can retake if she likes.
If you aren’t willing to wait her out on taking care of it herself, get her scheduled to test whether she has prepped or not. I’d schedule her for early next year (Jan or Feb). Many students test more than once these days. If her scores aren’t what she wants when she takes the test cold, she will have incentive to study.
My kids just weren’t allowed to be brats about anything related to college applications. Visits, testing, essays, etc. The cost of college is way too high for that, and they were getting way too much of our family resources for their benefit during that window to be anything but cooperative. They got a lot of leeway on where to visit and apply, but deadlines and stuff like SAT prep were pretty nonnegotiable.
Another question, is your spouse sending mixed messages?
I didn’t study for SAT or ACT. Just took them. My generation has taken dozens of standardized tests in our academic careers and honestly, I was just super burnt out by junior year.
When I was in high school, the only SAT prep that I did was look through the paper booklet with a few sample questions to see what the questions were like.
Most students don’t need test prep as they should have covered the material in school. I think every student benefits from practice tests. It is really valuable to get the timing of each section down so they have a feel for how much time to spend on each question. Our local library offers free practice tests several times a year.
@intparent “My kids just weren’t allowed to be brats about anything related to college applications. Visits, testing, essays, etc. The cost of college is way too high for that, and they were getting way too much of our family resources for their benefit during that window to be anything but cooperative. They got a lot of leeway on where to visit and apply, but deadlines and stuff like SAT prep were pretty nonnegotiable.”
Wow! Sometimes there are very real psychological factors going on with a child. If you could look at your child while she was crying, shaking and telling you she was going to vomit and still sit there and say “you’re a brat and you have to go take this test” then I just don’t know what to say. Your child’s mental health has to come first. You don’t know really what’s going on with OP’s child in terms of her reasons for having this reaction to prepping. She’s a junior and she has time to take the test and do test prep if the result is not as desired.
I don’t hear anxiety in this post. And there are too many stories out here about kids who refuse to get out of the car on visits, etc. To me this particular instance sounds like a kid who doesn’t understand the timeline of college admissions and also may not fully understand the financial burden college places on a family. Sometime there is a real mental health issue at work, but sometimes…, I think the kids are kind of spoiled and behave the way they’ve been allowed to behave. My kids don’t consider me a “mean parent” – but they know there are some subjects that are non-negotiable. We worked around kid’s EC and academic commitments and preferences in the process, but they knew in general it wasn’t optional if they expected to go to college and have me (single parent) foot the bill.
Junior year is tough as it is. And although thinking ahead is critical, so is enjoying her high school life. Focusing on the future at the expense of the present, especially if she’s happy in her present, is a bad life practice. With that said, adhering to some timeline is important as well.
So… let her take the test without prep in January. She may do great. Or she may realize she needs prep.
Figure out which SAT 2 she wants/needs and plan to do those in June as the classes end. She probably won’t need to prep for those.
She can prep for SAT over the summer if that’s necessary and prepping during the school year doesn’t work for her.
This, btw, was my kid as well. He agreed to do a weekly class but no practice beyond that. Would he have done better with more concerted prep? Absolutely. Were his scores good enough for his top choice schools without it? Yes.
It depends on her goals. And fwiw, I respect your stance on letting her drive. It can be hard when you understand the terrain to let someone else work it out.
As long as your DD realizes that there are consequences for choices and accepts that, stop the stress. It seems many students internalize the stress of getting into college and mental health issues arise. I’m talking to myself in this regard, since I also have a junior DD. My DD is very active at school and I know if I make the process more stressful, she will not be able to do her best. I’m going to sign her up for a prep class afterschool on her campus in the spring and see how the first test results come out. It is more important to have a whole child when this is over than to have a broken one in a “better” school.
One potential downside, possibly, is if she applies to a school that wants to see all the test scores and a score isn’t so great for some reason. This wouldn’t worry me terribly though.
@SouthFloridaMom9 on the other hand, if you’re applying to a college that wants to see all scores and you show them a solid jump from try #1 to try #2, it’s a good way to impress. The results from try #1 will inform your college search.
“Whenever we bring up colleges she quickly changes the subject. She claims she’s just overwhelmed, and she’ll get to it. We’ve inquired about all you’re thinking- is she having doubts about career, maybe she doesn’t want to get into a super competitive schol and this is her way to self sabotage, maybe she doesn’t want to move away from home. She claims none of that is true.”
@intparent This is the section that worries me and sets off alarm bells. Something is going on here because she doesn’t even want to discuss college plans. This was DD pre-break down. Now that she has gotten through the first test, she is bringing up college and talking about plans. This does not indicate “brat” to me. This indicates that there is something deeper going on with OP’s DD. Trust me pressuring her is going to lead to nowhere good. There is a thread on here about kids killing themselves over this kind of school pressure. If she ends up at a state college versus a prestige school is that honestly the worst thing that could happen?
Add me to the slacker parent pile. I encouraged my kids to study but did not force them (none studied). I did make sure they were signed up for the tests junior year as it helps them craft their application strategy. The teen years are stressful enough without artificially adding more unneeded pressure.
For the majority of colleges, they just want to see that the kid has high enough test grades to support the GPA. Even if it doesn’t it is not the end of the world. One of D’s friends was a 4.0 student but had a 23 ACT. That takes about 100 colleges off the table out of the 3000 or so. She is doing just fine at a decently rated public.
Let her play the rebel. No SATs. BUT she must start taking the ACT now. There are lots of schools that give set scholarships for good ACT scores. Share this type of info with her. Maybe tour some schools that are “reach” schools for her. Hopefully she will like some of them and become motivated to study. Tour some “match” schools that will give great scholarships for good ACT scores and perhaps she will get motivated to self-study. If not, find a commercial study program for her to attend on the weekends. If she is more interested in studying for certain subjects only, say biology and French, then have her study for the SAT II subject tests. They only take one hour each. But remember that not all schools care equally about subject tests. Some state schools don’t consider them at all. Others, like Middlebury will accept 3 subject tests in place of a regular SAT or ACT score.
That could definitely happen @ninakatarina. I just wanted to point out the only pitfall I could think of doing standardized testing with no prep. I have heard of students gaming the “super score” (which is a different issue entirely of course).
@Decal7 If it were my kid, I would have her take a practice SAT or ACT at home over the December holidays. That would allow you to begin to understand where she is at this point. Maybe she is really good at the tests already and doesn’t need much practice. Different students can vary a lot. If she already have scores to get into the schools you are considering, then you don’t need to worry.
I had one kid do no prep at all, still got into a decent college (though did not end up going).
Had one kid who prepped quite a bit (at my urging).
It’s tricky because the standardized test scores can open or shut doors (including $$), and we parents know it. But if we push too hard, then it becomes “our” issue and not the student’s. They need to be “invested” in the process imho.
If she does well anyway and gets good admission and scholarship results, then all is well. If she does not do that well and ends up limiting herself to commuting to the nearby low cost state university or starting at the local community college, then that is the result of her choices (and those college directions are perfectly fine for many students’ goals).