@jedwards70 – My son will take the SAT next month. Original plan was for fall, but his fall weekends were very busy this year so he decided to move exam up to March.
Studying has so far consisted of taking two practice tests from the Blue Book. I have the QAS tests from when my older son took it so he can use those also, as they are more current. The curve is harsher now than the Blue Books. (For example, one incorrect on Math would have earned 800 in blue book, but one wrong on this past Nov’s exam was a 750.) CB also posts one test on their website.
I used a semi-private tutor for my older son but younger son has no interest in tutoring and scores are at a level now where he can teach himself what he needs to. Testive used to offer ten free questions/day. They have since moved to a pay model, so I don’t know how many free questions are still offered. I have not paid for any on-line prep programs.
@CT1417 that is great that your S is taking the SAT next month. I haven’t heard of anyone in S’s school who is taking it as a sophomore. It would be really nice to have it out of the way. Most kids here start prepping summer before junior year and take the test in the spring of junior year.
S is taking the SAT in March also, rescheduled from January because of the robotics build season. He is getting the Barrons book and a stack of SAT vocab cards, also Barrons I think. His sister did well with Barrons, but no formal testing class. He took the PSAT in October (old version) and did reasonably well. He was also part of the field test for the new PSAT and he liked it better than the old PSAT, but we haven’t heard how he scored yet. I am going to see how this SAT goes, maybe schedule one more in fall, and then, if he still needs better scores, have him take the ACT. D15 didn’t take the ACT because her SAT scores were high enough that it would’t have mattered. I think S is more suited to the ACT, but we are hoping he will move up the NMF food chain, so he has to do “well enough”. I may have to get the blue book for him to use. We haven’t tried that one yet.
S is taking the SAT in June. Then we’ll see about fall testing on SAT or ACT. Fall weekends have been generally much better for him than spring, so we’d like to have testing over by the end of fall independent of the changes to the SAT.
He is prepping using PrepScholar, an online service. (He uses it as an excuse not to do driver’s training.) It was recommended by parents on the Class of '16 forum here. I like it because it gave him a diagnostic test to start with and focuses on questions at his current level and harder. I think he is more suited to the SAT than the ACT. (But coming from a west coast state, I don’t have any personal experience with the ACT.) I think the shorter time limits on the ACT would stress him. He liked that on the PSAT he had time to check everything over except on one of the verbal sections.
I also paid for a webinar and some additional materials about the SAT essay. I think the usual topics of the SAT essay–“happiness”, “success”, etc–may cause him to overthink and get stuck if he isn’t prepped for that. The new SAT essays may work better for him–evidence-based on historical documents.
I don’t know what he will like related to small/large universities and rural/urban locations. We are in suburbia and the local UC is around 20,000 students. Even the local community college claims about 20,000 students. So, that size may seem “normal” to him. He wants a place with a lot of STEM research, so that usually would mean a larger university. There is a local religious college with <1500 students, but he’s only been on that campus for various events and camps on weekends, summer, and evenings.
His 5th grade teacher and a family friend tries to talk his favorite students into applying to his alma mater, Deep Springs College (well male students, since it’s all male so far). I’m pretty sure that would be way too small (26 students), too isolating, and too rural (farm chores) for him.
Ynot-I had never heard of Deep Springs College until recently, when reading about the Telluride Association and its founder. D has applied to the Association’s sophomore seminar program. That seems VERY much too small for almost anyone!
D has decided that any place with more than 10K is just too big. Her entire class is only 35 kids so I can see why she feels that way. Her top choices right now have about 600 and 2,000 students.
S took the ACT for the second time last weekend. He did fine the first time, but hopes to increase his score by a few points and then move on to the SAT. He’ll take the SAT twice before it changes …and hopefully be finished with testing and able to concentrate on AP tests and SAT Subject tests during junior and senior years. Did this with my other kids, and it worked out fine…junior year, especially, is so busy…it was nice to not have to prepare for all of those tests.
That’s one reason I want S to take the tests now. We didn’t do that with D and it was hard to fit the tests in junior year. Then again, she was more mature than S is at the same age.
@sseamom Good luck to your D with the TASS! Back in the dark ages, I got to the interview stage for TASP but didn’t get in. I didn’t know how selective TASP was until recently…all the things we didn’t know before the Internet.
To those of you with students taking the upcoming ACT/SAT, you are great planners! I wish DD is in the position to take a test. She has been working hard on her independent research project and not yet cracked open the study guide. Sigh!
Good luck with the exams.
ynotgo, I am wondering how you feel about Prep Scholar. I have read their website. Is the program good? Does your Son do it with frequency and commitment? Does he think it is helpful. your insights would be appreciated.
@BigPapiofthree He kicks himself a lot for not doing all the things that are on his To Do list. But, that’s a general thing with him kicking himself about procrastination, and not rewarding himself internally when he does accomplish things. (Maybe genetic, as that seems personally familiar.) So, he would say that he isn’t doing it with frequency and commitment. He currently does about an hour a week. It sends him email reminders to suggest that he spend more time on it. But, I think he’s does a fair bit considering he’s not taking the test until June. He should take a full practice test sometime, since they have 10 of them. Those take ~3 hours, so that hasn’t happened yet.
He does like that it focuses on the harder questions on the test for him and has good explanations of the judgement calls required for some reading/writing things. The diagnostic test put him at the “advanced” level in most all categories. So he only has to work up to “mastery” from there. Other parents have told me that their kids did the in-person Princeton Review group classes, and a lot of the material was stuff the kids already understood.
I have heard that different prep companies prep aiming for different score levels. So, while some companies may be aiming to get kids to at least a 2100, others may aim higher. PrepScholar says it aims for a 240 point gain over a previous score to a max of 2300. Beyond 2300, they say there’s too much luck involved to make a promise. All we have so far to base expectations is the one PSAT score. So, the top score they are aiming for is probably a good question to ask.
He hasn’t tried anything else other than the SAT Question of the Day app, so we can’t really make a comparison. The district recently made test prep through something called “Shmoop” available free, but he hasn’t tried that. He may try it for AP test prep.
@4beardolls What is her independent research project about? Independent research certainly seem like a useful way to spend one’s time.
@Ynotgo, thanks for sharing your DS’s testing prep experience.
This year, DD is working in the area of zoology. She was working in a biology lab last year and had great results at the science fair. This year, the professor didn’t get the funding and is no longer willing to support her project. It was really sad that she had to quit her project and scramble to find a different project in time for this year’s science fair.
I just ran across this article, which claims to list “some of the top liberal arts colleges and universities with their decisions as to whether they will accept the current (“old”) SAT for the class of 2017, whether or not they will require the “optional” essay, and whether or not they will “super score” across both versions of the SAT”.
I’m happy to see that so far, none of them say “no” for accepting the old SAT. I did just send an email to CMU to inquire about their “junior or senior year” policy, mainly because I looked a their admissions website and discovered that they also want the SAT Subject Tests to be from junior or senior year, which would be inconvenient for DS, since he took those last year.
BigPapiofthree, No more findings on PrepScholar so far, though there has been a tiny bit of progress on Driver’s Ed.
4beardolls, Zoology certainly sounds cool. Best of luck to her with that project.
@Ynotgo – will you be so kind as to update us here with CMU’s response? They have very specific testing requirements by school, but I confess I had overlooked the fact that they only accept Jr & Sr year scores. Son plans to take Math II this spring and took Bio last spring, so I would hate for him to have to sit for Math II again, just for the sake of CMU. I imagine he will sit for physics next year so that could sub for Bio, but annoying nonetheless.
Prep for the March SAT is a bit of a daily challenge this week (winter break). He doesn’t see the need and I won’t excuse him until he nails the CR, so we negotiate daily!
@CT1417, I don’t think that the change to the SAT will affect the SAT subject tests. My S is also going to take the Math II this Spring and Physics next year and wont want to to take any of them again. As far as I know and have read (and been informed by S’s school counselor who is all over the change), the subject tests will not undergo revision.
@mtrosemom – I agree that the changes to SAT I will not have any substantial impact to SAT IIs (other than the usual random tweaks) but @Ynotgo said that CMU only accepts scores from tests taken during student’s Jr & Sr years. Since my son is interested in CMU (he thinks), and he has a good Bio score from 9th grade, I wanted to know if CMU’s policy is firm.
@CT1417 I just got an email from CMU admissions that says, “We will accept standardized test scores from your sophomore/freshman year; you do not need to worry. Your son’s current plans for taking tests will work fine for our admissions process. We just prefer scores from junior or senior years.”
The current plans I described to them were being done with SAT Subject Tests based on 2 freshman tests and taking the (old) SAT in June of sophomore year, which may or may not be the SAT score he will use, depending on how he does.