I appreciate your parenting advice, mainelonghorn.
I don’t mean to sound harsh - it’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way!
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Most schools awarding institutional merit scholarships based on stats will use either the SAT or ACT.
I’m not sure what you are referring to.
This kid does not ever have to take the SAT. Really…if she starts at community college and goes for two years…she might never need to take the SAT OR the ACT.
If she applies only to test optional colleges, she might never need to take the SAT or ACT.
But I will say…a little off topic…if she plans to go to medical school…I personally think it’s not easy to do well taking the MCAT cold.
@LeastComplicated, the OP’s daughter has not invested anything in either test company and therefore is unusual (no PSAT). SAT and ACT are tested on different Saturdays. However SAT and SAT subject tests are taken on identical Saturdays. This student, if she wishes, can choose any ACT Saturday to take the ACT. If she decides NOT to take the regular SAT, then she can also choose any of those Saturdays to take the SAT subject tests (if she wants). My kids are always busy on the weekends with competitions, including some state meets that always fall on an important SAT testing day (1st Saturday in November). So, I see value in the advice I have provided particularly because testing more than once can be of value… as in better choices and possible scholarships. 
Between sophomore and junior year we sent our son to what I call a 3 week “college camp” experience (the school gave it a far more pretentious name).
He learned he’ll have to budget, have a roommate from another country, attend lectures and labs, manage a meal plan, and do his laundry. I think it made him realize that the bridge to independence through college is the right next step for him and motivated him do the best he can this junior year.
He was at one of the schools that make the top 10-20 rank lists nationally and best part was he had no clue about the significance of where he was or that it was famous or hard to get into.
I highly recommend to parents and kids considering a 1-3 week program in a summer to preview college in a stress free, uncompetitive way if it’s in the budget. There are quite a few colleges, public and private, making money on this.
When I suggested test prep as a way to get to understand the test and do the best he could upfront and possibly even to get it out of the way in December, he actually said “that’s a good idea - I know colleges want you to send that test in and I want to visit ones that are ok with my test score”.
PS - I don’t recommend these programs if you are trying to resume build your kid, or expect some kind of educational edge, and know that the letter of recommendation he got at the end was impersonal, generic and worthless. I found that insulting given they charged a lot for this supposed “highly personalized” experience and they expected to receive a very personal and authentic recommendation to get in (which I am suspicious about, I think the best recommendation he got came from our wallet).
She’s a fall-semester junior? I wouldn’t worry about this too much. I think there’s a culture of intense pressure around standardized tests, but the reality is that bright kids will likely do pretty well on the tests with a decent level of prep, and that prep doesn’t require an entire year of attending to this. There’s no problem with her deciding to take the test for the first time in the early to mid-spring - there will be plenty of time for her to take it once or twice more if she decides her scores aren’t high enough. She’ll have the entire summer to study for a September or October testing date, for example. Studies show that retesting past a second time doesn’t really offer much to the majority of students anyway.
Most colleges don’t require subject tests. I know the super competitive ones do, but the vast majority of colleges in the country (including some really good ones) don’t.
It’s possible that it’s not that she doesn’t care, but she doesn’t want to make herself sick or crazy over standardized tests so early in her high school career. By my count she’s heavily involved in APs, is in four different activities and has a part-time job. Does she have a history of not having her stuff together on time? It sounds like you say she’s pretty self-motivated and is on the ball about everything else. Then I’d say she’s probably thinking about it and is fine.
Wait until the summer. Junior year is very stressful. Then she can choose to prep or not but she needs early Fall senior year testing. Many kiss don’t prep. Their HS is prep.
It is much easier to finalize the college list with test scores by end of junior year. It makes fall a lot more stressful if the student doesn’t know their scores by then and needs to retest more in the fall.
QMP took the SAT in April of junior year. Prep consisted of completing 3 or 4 of the math sections within an SAT or two, in the 10 Real SATs book, on the way to an EC. Also, I asked whether QMP was familiar with the meaning of “cavil.” That was plenty. It was a busy year. QMP did not even realize that the essay came first (back in the days with W included automatically).
I think people get freaked out about SAT prep because so many students do it. My standard advice to see whether prep is needed is: 1) Look at the percentile on the PSAT and see what that converts to on the SAT. Unfortunately, this one is inapplicable here. Many high schools have all the college-bound juniors take the PSAT. I think this is a good idea; too bad the school in question did not do that. 2) Take the parents’ SAT scores, adjust for the re-centering of scores in the early to mid 1990s, and average. How is the score? If fine, the odds are very high no prep is actually needed.
Some of the questions on the SAT, particularly the CR part, are rather culture-bound. SAT prep may make sense for a family where the parents immigrated to the US as adults, if some of the common cultural assumptions have not been absorbed by the student.
Finally, I think everyone taking the SAT needs to know the proper entry format for the non-multiple-choice math section (assuming that they still have that). It is possible to lose points for a correct answer if it is formatted wrong. But it should not take more than 5-10 minutes to learn the formatting. And it’s better done closer to the test date in any event.
When our son was a junior he had no real interest in testing and certainly no interest in college. It was me who got swept up in the need to do this or that for fear of getting behind. I was so worried that he would never get interested in colleges and it wasn’t until the summer before his senior year that he finally was ready to open that door. We toured a few schools from late spring junior year through summer and early fall of his senior year. He had told me the previous year that I shouldn’t confuse his lack of action with lack of interest and that he would take the next step when he was ready. I thought I’d lose my mind but he really matured over the summer and is working his way through applications and acceptances now.
Living in TN, he was fortunate that the PSAT is given each year at his school and all hs students can sign up to take it and in fact, are encouraged to do so. He never knew there was an option. Junior year is mandatory for the PSAT in the fall and ACT in the spring, however. He never prepped and never opened the book, just went in and took it each year. TN tests the kids to death all through elementary, middle, and high school so he’s used to it.
I know it’s stressful when our sons and daughters don’t see the larger picture and react when we think they should. However, it sounds like you have an amazing daughter and that she will see the wisdom in taking either the act or sat. My best advice is to enlist the help of her counselor to be the bad guy and get her committed to a test date. It sounds like she’ll do great with no prep anyway. And, if she doesn’t, she can take it again. Good luck to you.
I think she should take the test in January. While it would be great if she actually practiced on her own, I know from my own kids they were always pretty reluctant to do much. They are both fast and avid readers and had no problems with the CR. My math guy also did very well in the math, my non-math guy got a math score in the high 600s. Neither of them had scores that changed much the second time the took the test. But I agree with whoever said, once you have the scores you can start making more realistic lists. If she doesn’t want to study, that may indicate going to a high powered institution where high scores are necessary is not for her. And that’s okay. (See the big fish in the little pond thread.) And those lists can certainly include the test optional schools as well. There are hundreds and hundreds of great schools in the US.
Our school just has all the sophomores and juniors take the PSAT - it really is too bad that your school doesn’t do that. It’s not stressful if everyone just has to do it. And as sophomores it doesn’t count, but it does give you an idea as to whether your kid is even likely to be up for a National Merit award.
Just FYI, there is no January test. They got rid of January when they began offering August this year. Next one after December will be March.
My second kid took the SAT with no prep and got a score. She then did a ton of test prep and took the test again…and got scores within 5 points of the first testing. Really, no difference in the total CR/Math total at all…with the prep. Oh…and she got accepted to the s hoops of her choice!
First kid…is a musician. Really, the prep he did most was for his auditions. He took the test cold and wasn’t happy with his score. Did test prep and improved his total from about 1100 to over 1300.
So really…YMMV.
Both of our kids took the SAT the first time Spring of junior year in HS. Both retook in September.
Tell her that taking the SAT is liking running a mile for time - it takes more than a week to prepare. Just set a goal to do 1500 practice questions on Khan Academy (free via College Board) and start knocking them out. By the time she hits the goal, she’ll be in pretty good shape. Best of luck!
My older daughter probably didn’t study 10 hours total for SAT or ACT. But she did take a timed practice test of each before taking the tests and took each three times. She took ACT as a freshman for a boarding school and then Fall and Spring of junior year. She took SAT once each Fall and Spring of junior and then Fall senior. She did jump on the last SAT. Comfort with test day was worth a lot. She may have been able to get perfect if she’d studied but she had too many other things going on and her scores were good enough to not get rejected on them.
I vote practice test at Christmas break and first SAT in Spring. If she needs subject tests, I recommend June of 2018.
Neither one of my kids prepped. First one got a superscore of a 35 and the second thus far a 34 as a junior. Just register her for the test and see how she does.
She has very good grades and ECs. Assuming she does well on SAT / ACT, she would be quite competitive at many highly selective schools. However, not taking or not doing well on them will eliminate many of them. If she just won’t do it or doesn’t do well for whatever reason, fortunately there are several high quality test optional colleges. The list is growing and growing. Of course that limits her to those schools (which would be more than fine for most but not everyone). Perhaps a serious conversation about actions and consequences resulting in available choices. She can do quite well in many fields from many (jf not all) of the test option colleges. Come up with a list of the best schools for her interests based on several criteria (location, size, quality of program, social, etc.) Then you can discuss the options if she takes the test vs. not taking. May be that not taking works fine OR the school(s) she is really excited about requires the test.
If she’s going for pre-med, I wouldn’t be aiming for a “super competitive school.” That sounds expensive and possibley grade deflating.
If she is going for pre-med, she needs to get used to high-stakes standardized testing (e.g. the MCAT).