Philpsych, thanks very much for the help on testing sequence and GPA comparisons. The once junior year and then once again early senior year sounds sensible and balanced, and aligns with another advice post I saw last night on the SAT/ACT forum that I thought, coupled with your reply, laid out a recommended sequence similarly well:
“Have you already prepped for PSAT for this October (if you’re trying to make National Merit)? If not, then get hopping on that with what’s left of this summer. That should put you in good shooting range for the real thing. Then schedule both your SAT & ACT in January and plan to use a good chunk of your Thanksgiving and winter break prepping for your Jan tests. Alternatively, you could schedule your SAT in Dec (after Thanksgiving break) and your ACT in Jan (after your winter break). Then based on whichever test you liked/scored higher on, focus extra effort on that one and take it again – possibly in June after AP exams are over – unless you need to take your SAT Subject Tests then.”
From your comment and that post, this makes sense to me if it makes sense to my D: PSAT prep now, PSAT, either ACT and SAT once in junior year (or just one or the other if D takes practice exams of both and has a strong preference), and then either ACT or SAT a second time in fall of senior year.
Thank you Philpsych, and the best on your future endeavors.