For many reasons, I would like to take the SAT and the ACT early on in high school. To give an idea how early, I plan to take the SAT my sophomore year in May and the ACT in September of my junior year. Any subsequent retakes will be decided after I receive those scores after the test.
My question is if there is any downside in taking them so early, excluding the chance that I may be underprepared. I don’t exactly understand how the score reporting works, so will taking the tests early affect that?
That doesn’t seem particularly early to me assuming you’ve completed precalculus. My kids did their first tries end of sophomore year. They got scores they were satisfied with and opted not to test again until beginning senior year.
I don’t see a downside. The scores are valid. Just be aware that some schools require all scores to be sent. Some applicants don’t like he ideas of being required to send a potentially low score.
I will also add my kids did prep for the test sophomore year. They took full length proctored practice test at a local tutoring service to get their baseline.
It is good to start early, better than starting late and feeling pressed on time. go for it, but make sure you are scoring well on practice exams before taking it officially
The math section of he SAT only goes up to Algebra II. For that reason I had my two take the SAT the spring they took that class. That was their freshman year. They scored well enough to have a good baseline. They took both the SAT and ACT spring of their sophomore years. Typically you will test better on one than the other. They were both better on the ACT. By the spring of their junior year all anxiety was gone because they already had decent scores and knew they could only do better. Their friends who were taking it for the first time were a stressed out mess. Some of them even scored lower their senior year because it was their second and last shot. They improved their scores by enough points to qualify for some really good scholarships. The older one was slightly higher going into his senior year and already had the score he wanted. He decided to take the ACT one more time anyway and went up one more point. The younger one had to take the ACT 2 times senior year to get the one extra point he needed. They both ended up with ACT scores of 33 which qualified them for GUARANTEED full tuition at a few schools.
My two have always tested well. They never took a prep class. The choice to have them practice test on the real test ended up earning them each $100,000+ scholarships. Good scholarships seem to start at a ACT score of 28. Not everyone will be able to score as high as my two, however, I think you have the best shot at scoring at your highest potential with some of the stress removed. You score can only go up and the schools do NOT care how many times you take it and do not hold any bad scores against you.
I would take a real practice test under timed conditions of both the SAT and ACT. Then evaluate the scores and areas of strength and weakness. In the future, if you apply to highly competitive schools, many want to see your complete testing history. You don’t want a low score on your record that doesn’t accurately reflect what you can do.
If the SAT and/or ACT practice tests look good, then there is no harm taking them “early.” It is not uncommon for students to begin testing the fall of their junior year, especially if they have all of the necessary math skills. There is some evidence that the verbal score increases with the length of time in school, so you might want to take that into consideration.
I personally like the idea of the first try being in late fall junior year, leaving time for another attempt before the summer. It can be very stressful to not have those scores in place before the fall. Also, there are many, many threads on CC started by students who are stressed about not getting their scores back in a timely way and coming up against EA or ED deadlines.
My kids take the SAT March of 10th grade and Oct of 11th grade to align with the PSAT. We had good results with this schedule and leaves time for them to take to ACT if they feel they need to.
Elite colleges require you to send all of your scores, so if you take the test without adequate prep, and score, say, a 1300 the first time, and then a 1460 the next, the colleges will see both scores.
Some, but not all, elite colleges require all scores.
One should not take the test without prep; this is not the way to do a practice test.
Not a reason to not take a test, if one feels prepared. Colleges are used to, and kinda expect, improvement over time. At the end on the day, most colleges say that they will either take the best single sitting or will superscore the sections.
I think prepping is a fairly new concept and doesn’t seem like how the test was meant to evaluate students. In the 80’s I didn’t know anyone who prepped beyond getting familiar with the format through a take home practice packet you could get at school. We also pretty much took the test one time. I took the ACT once and SAT once because at that time many schools only took one of the tests.
That said, many students do prep now so it puts you at a disadvantage not to. If you are good at standardized tests and take a practice that gets you close to your target, I would feel comfortable testing. If you have taken PSAT freshman and/or sophomore year you have already practiced for that and have an idea where your score range would be.
My D took ACT spring of sophomore year after taking a practice test. She scored a 33 and doesn’t feel this score will hurt her when sent to colleges especially since it was end of sophomore year. She sees what to work on to retake this spring of junior year and hopefully get a 34 or 35. This year she did prep for PSAT so went ahead and signed up for November SAT. Again she did well but will probably test one more time on that one as well. It’s nice to know she already has respectable scores on the books and just needs to fine tune before her one retake. It also helps a lot with knowing which colleges are matches and getting the swim coaches of her target schools seeing those high scores early has helped generate interest in her athletically.
I don’t see any benefit before fall of junior year. In particular, I think a student’s reading and analysis skills continue to develop throughout high school. You won’t impress colleges by taking it earlier, and if you apply to top schools, a few require all scores. I’d wait. Study the summer before junior year so you are ready for the PSAT and SAT in the fall.
my kids prepped before their junior year, both had a tutor and both got 36. Done by December of Junior year. What a relief. I would NEVER use the real testing to practice. Taking practice full length tests over and over is the way to go.
@intparent I am aware I won’t impress colleges by taking it earlier. The reason why I want to take it late sophomore year/early junior year is because I want to get it over with sooner, and I feel pretty prepared in time for the May SAT. I do agree about the reading and analysis skills, but with enough prepping, I think they should be good enough for a great score in time. My math should be fine, and actually another reason I feel the need to take the SAT earlier is because I am a year ahead in math, so I learned geometry 8th grade and algebra II last year, and I don’t want to forget everything by then. Not to mention, I’ve taken the SAT (albeit the old one) when I was younger for a summer program, as well as various practice tests and the PSAT.
I guess the main concerns are sending all scores to colleges and underpreparation. I feel I should clarify a statement in my original thread:
Since so many people have mentioned not to take the actual SAT or ACT as practice tests, don’t worry, I’m not going to do that. What I meant by the above statement is that after I know what scores I get, I will decide on retakes then. I have online resources and preparation books to help me, and plenty of time to study and take practice tests. The SAT, as I said before, I have some experience with, but the ACT I have little to none, so I know to prepare a lot for that.
The reading and analysis parts are harder to study and prep for than the math portions. My own kids barely studied for the English portion – they were huge readers, and had very strong vocabularies and reading interpretation skills honed from all those years of reading. If you are easily getting top scores in those areas on practice exams, then fine. Otherwise, my opinion is that you’d be better off doing a lot of reading in the next year to build those skills. Don’t be impatient – the college application process is a marathon, not a sprint. And one of my kids took the SAT in middle school as well – but she still waited until junior year to take it for college admissions.