Making College List - Lots of Questions

Ds (a junior) got his SAT scores back so we finally have a firm number to work with - 610 CRW, 720 M, 1330 total.

His GPA is 3.75. He’s homeschooled and has no APs, but he is planning on 3-4 DE courses per semester next year. ECs are basketball w/a few awards, summer job, some volunteering. Hook is URM, but not first gen and we’re not low income.

Coming in under budget ($10-15,000 per yr) is our main priority. I’ve identified about 6 in state schools that have competitive scholarships for SAT scores beginning around 1200 that would put us in this range. I did look on college data and his scores are at or above the top 75% for these schools. How do I reasonably estimate and maximize his chance to win these scholarships?

Also, he studied pretty hard for the SAT - several prep books plus 8 practice tests. He still didn’t finish the test, and left 15 questions on the reading section totally blank. A 50 point increase on CRW makes him auto admit at TX A&M and eligible for a few of their scholarships. 1400 makes him competitive for a full scholarship at University of Houston. He says he’s willing to do a prep course and retake, but dh thinks it might be best to go with what he has rather than continuing to chase bigger numbers. Any thoughts?

He has no idea what he likes in a school. I made a list of schools for him to apply to based on affordability and thought maybe this spring we’d choose 3 schools to visit to get a feel for what they’re like, and then not visit any more until we get acceptance letters and see which schools are affordable. Is there a reason to visit more schools before receiving financial aid offers?

Last thing, a friend who works with first gen college bound minorities says he is a shoe in for merit money and should even apply to private schools like Baylor and TCU with current SAT scores. How do I know how much credence to give this? I know URM supposedly gives kids a boost, but I don’t see this info out there in any way that’s verifiable. Also, he’s not first gen or low income. I want to plan well and not set him up for disappointment.

Any thoughts?

Currently planning to apply to 10 schools - 3 in commuting distance, 1 OOS but has scholarship potential (OU), 3 matches, 3 reaches. This is all based on finances. Based on his stats, he should get accepted to all.

I’d be asking different questions than the ones you are.

College is a lot of reading no matter what your kid majors in. I’d be more concerned about not being able to finish the SAT in time than I’d be about where to apply (not that this isn’t important). Has he ever been tested for a reading issue, when is the last time he had an eye exam, is he a slow reader in general or just had some test anxiety?

I’m less worried about his score than I’d be about a prospective college kid who just didn’t have time for 15 reading questions on the SAT. That does not bode well for him handling a full college load- and if he’s not full time, that changes the financial calculus quite a bit.

Was he surprised that he ran out of time?

What is your EFC (understanding that your budget is up to 15K) but what do the calculators think you can pay?

I think it is 100% worth him taking the test again. But leaving 15 questions blank is a no-no. There is never a reason to leave more than a couple blank. Whenever he finds a question difficult, he should simply guess, mark it for later, and move on. Then, go back if he has time.

There are a ton of simple strategies he can find online or in a test prep book. There is no point just taking test after test without trying to incorporate some strategies. I am a test prep tutor and I find that kids ignore common-sense strategies all the time, because they just approach the SAT/ACT as another test, rather than the unique thing that it is.

He’s a junior, so he should spend time learning about various strategies and retake in the spring.

@blossom EFC calculators think we can pay 30-40K.

Re: SAT, he wasn’t surprised that he ran out of time. He didn’t finish the practice tests in time, either. The plan was to choose a letter and fill it in all the blanks at the 1 min mark, but the SAT proctor only gave a 5 min warning, not a 1 min warning, so he didn’t get the cue to fill them in.

I really don’t think he has a reading problem, and he’s not really a slow reader. He’s just a slow test taker. I am not sure why, really. I think it’s a just a timing issue. He did finish one practice test in time when I broke down the reading portion into sections and gave him 12 min per section. But I couldn’t do that on test day, and figured he wouldn’t finish.

But I’m not overly concerned about his academic ability. A 610 on CRW is low for here, but it is still in the 78-80th percentile so that makes me think I shouldn’t worry about it. But maybe I’m wrong???

He is not applying to any tippy top schools. His super reach is TX A&M, and we won’t have him apply there if he doesn’t improve his SAT score to make merit possible. Other than his 3 reaches, the other schools are easy to get into, so there will be a mix of students, and he should be fine.

That’s how I’m looking at it, but do tell me if I’m missing something.

@Lindagaf

He was either unable to do the strategies, or I was unable to teach them.

We talked about not spending too much time on difficult questions. Once, I even analyzed his misses and told him specific reading questions to skip (questions he normally misses) so he could get more right at the end. That was his worst reading score ever.

I think his brain gets so focused on answering the questions that he cannot use the strategies.

If he retakes the test, I’m going to have him do a prep course first.

I wouldn’t worry about his reading ability; I think it sounds more like he needs to learn the strategies of taking the SAT. Maybe a paid tutor or test prep course where they teach these strategies. As a junior, I would definitely have him take it at least one more time.

His SAT’s are solid.

I think a test prep class makes sense.

In an ideal world, being a slow test taker could trip you up in HS and then never be a problem again.

In the real world- GRE’s, GMAT’s, MCAT’s, licensing exams for nurses, CPA’s, CFA,- you name it. I was in a humanities major as an undergrad so had the luxury of research papers, writing exercises, and few tests… and then boom- grad school- back to tests where speed REALLY makes a difference. The specific strategies for the SAT don’t apply to many of the other types of tests in college and grad school, but learning to pace yourself and learning to blast through reading sections is a really valuable lesson going forward. If he likes to read then his current verbal score likely doesn’t reflect his actual ability (15 questions is a LOT of questions!) and once he improves his speed his score may well go up substantially.

Any idea what he thinks he might want to study?

He doesn’t know what he wants to study. We are planning to get him a formal career assssment/career counseling and have him do some job shadowing or camps this summer.

Personally, I see no point at this stage in spending money on a formal career assessment. That’s what college career centers are for. He can take online career aptititude tests if he really wants to think about it. He’s very young to be choosing a career. Save that money. Invest in a few hours of private test tutoring. Or use Khan Academy for free. If he gets his score up by fifty points, he is going to be in a much better postiton for scholarships and acceptances.

Every student is capable of learning some basic test-taking strategies. Yes, his score is fine for all kinds of colleges, but it probably is going to limit his choices of where you can afford to send him. Leaving fifteen blank makes no sense, because at the very least, he can allocate one minute for randomly bubbling in. Every blank answer is wrong. He is a junior so he has plenty of time to study and at least four more opportunities to take the test before he applies to college.

I would definitely focus on getting that SAT score up to 1400 points.

College visits are a good idea to help him grasp what he likes and doesn’t like. Don’t worry about disappointments- life is full of them and as long as he’s realistic and you are choosing to visit schools where there is a possibility of merit or FA, I would go ahead and see some schools. You are right to focus on colleges that put him above 50% - but URM does help.

His current scores would admit him to UT Dallas or San Antonio and probably get a nice merit package from Prairie View AM.

It may be time to lessen your own involvement a bit by using an outside person to do the test prep. There are many excellent test-optional schools but the 720 may make him prefer to use his scores. (Google test-optional colleges and the Fairtest site will come up with a long list.)

For schools that are not stats-focused, I would be more concerned with his volunteering, working and time spent outside of academics in general. Does he mainly play sports? Many homeschoolers use the freed up time to intern or volunteer or do an art etc. and your post didn’t convey much about his interests.

Many of the schools that welcome homeschoolers without extra hoops, are also (small) schools that are not stats-focused and will be on the Fairtest list. Hoping all the schools mentioned above don’t have extra steps for homeschoolers.

There is no need to do career assessment, at least in my view. College can still be a time to explore interests, and career and major do not have to match in many or even most instances. Clearly, if he wants to be an engineer, accountant or a nurse, it is a different story.

The reason I was planning to do a career assessment is because if he applies to TX A&M and wants to do either engineering or business, he has to apply to those departments and might not be able to change major and get into those departments if he wants to later.

For 5 of the 10 schools on his list, he is auto admit based on current SAT scores. None of the schools have any hoops for homeschoolers, thankfully. Just transcript, letter of rec, and SAT scores.

I’m mainly concerned about evaluating potential for merit money.

I’ll start looking for a good SAT prep for him to see if he can grab a some extra points and retake in May or June.

Run the net price calculator at each school. Many (not all) ask for GPA and test score and will estimate merit for you.
You could even run it twice with an improved reading score to see if that makes any difference.

If the 12 minute increments are what makes him finish, he should bring his own watch or timer and time the test himself. That way he can do the 12 minutes and he’ll get the cue for that 1 minute mark without relying on the proctor.

A higher test score will get you more merit aid at just about any school. He has good potential to raise his score - so spend some money on outside test prep - it will really help.

As for the privates, the NPC for the school will give you an idea of how much merit he will get based on GPA and test scores. But it doesn’t tell you about the intangibles such as a good essay or URM or something else that particular school would like represented in the class. You could make an appointment with an admission rep and ask about his merit prospects if there a particular school he likes.

Has your kid tried the ACT?

All of mine turned out to be better ACT-ers than SAT-ers.

We basically used practice tests or real tests during JR year to decide which was the preferred test. Prepped for the preferred test over the summer between JR/SR year. Took the preferred test at the very beginning of SR year. All three got much better scores, which lead to much better merit awards. We got tremendous ROI on the $$$ spent on test prep.

YMMV.

Do any of you have experience with test prep from Testmasters (it also goes by Score Perfect)? A friend said she knows a lot of high scorers who went there. It is pretty pricey, but might be worth it if his scores jump a bunch. They have a class to get him ready for the test in May.