SAT in 8th grade

I am thinking about having my child take SAT in 8th grade - just for practice. Will the result (which will obviously be low) go anywhere on his record? Any downside for this extra experience?
Also, I hear that many kids take SAT in 7th or 8th grade for Talent Search - to qualify for CTY. In our case this is not necessary because John Hopkins changed eligibility criteria and the test my child successfully took in 5th grade (SCAT) will keep him qualified for CTY programs through the end of his HS. Yey!

My D took the SAT in 8th grade for the practice. She did a prep program with some our her middle school teachers (Math and English) and classmates. I don’t see any downside to it other than some of the math problems she hadn’t covered in school yet and had to guess the correct answers. As long as you keep it in perspective, I say go for it.

Socaldad2002, thank you for your reply!

If he scores poorly (very possible), will the result be dropped? Any chance it may affect him later?

Also, would you mind sharing your daughter’s preparation process? You mentioned middle school teachers. Do you mean you hired them as SAT prep tutors? Are there any on-line prep courses geared towards middle schoolers?

My kid took it at 8th grade. It was a very good practice. And the beauty of it (unless you request otherwise) is that the score would be dropped. So it will not affect your kid’s future college app.

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/special-circumstances/younger-students

Quoted:

If you test in the eighth grade or below, your scores are removed from your file at the end of the academic year you tested.

If you want your scores to be part of your permanent record, you must let us know before August of the year you tested. Include the following with your request:

Full identification information
Registration number
Test date

My understanding is that the SAT scores will not be seen by anyone and she certainly will not submit her scores (she got a 1240 which isn’t great but ok for a 13yo?). Yes, we paid the teachers for the SAT prep time and about 20 of her classmates attended this optional, after school class. I think they prepped for 4 - 6 weeks several times a week. Again, the only reason she did it was to get a feel for the exam and taking fast paced, long tests. I’m not aware of any online prep courses that are geared to middle-schoolers but I would think any SAT prep course would be sufficient just like it is for older test takers.

Fast forward a few years and D20, a rising junior, in a few weeks will take a practice exam given by her private counselor (split 50/50, SAT & ACT questions) to see which test she is better suited for. The goal is to take the SAT, PSAT this fall and maybe ACT a few months later if she is not happy with her SAT scores. Her PC is encouraging her to be done with all testing no later than early spring of Junior year to focus on class grades and ECs. Hope that helps?

This is exactly what I wanted to know! Thank you, 85bears46!
Would you mind sharing any tips regarding preparation of 8th grader and what to start the whole process with?

Why not just do a timed test at home? There are prior administrations available online. I would print one out (practice tests #5-8).

Evergreen5, I think that doing it in a real setting will provide a better (more realistic) experience for the child. What are the practice tests you are referring to?

Son took SAT/ACT back in the day for the talent search. The value included comments on how other gifted kids did. Just taking the tests alone will not give this valuable feedback. Of course he went in cold- no prep. The objective was to see where he was at. Of course his scores jumped a lot by HS junior year.

Please do not subject your child to excessive testing and prep work. Unless needed I would just wait a few years- any prep will need to be redone. These test scores will not help in knowing the test (they may change it- again) or predicting scores. Let your kid be his/her age! Just doing well in school is plenty of prep. Two and one half years until spring of junior year testing. Start the prep work at least two years from now, no sooner.

Both my kids took the ACT in middle school. I definitely think it was helpful to both of them and since my rising senior took it this spring for the last time, I do think it set him up for success well. My kids aren’t the naturally focused testing type though they are very bright. Having some exposure to the format well ahead of time was worthwhile and I really saw no downside. My rising 9th just took it this spring.

I did not do prep other than to just get them familiar with the type of questions. We spent maybe a few hours over a couple weeks before the test. I don’t think prep is worthwhile or necessary at this age.

My No.1 took the SAT for fun in 8th grade. He was invited to the Northwestern CTD program but had his own priorities. It’s a good experience to take the test early in an “actual” test setting. I don’t know about prep, coaching, and the like, at that stage. Our kids never prepped for SAT/ACT basic or advanced tests, or AP exams. But they did gain experience in time management and pacing their work from repeated opportunities to test in real test conditions and settings. They got into pretty much all the colleges they applied to. (After she had been in the economy for several years, my DD wanted to earn an MBA. At that stage, to refresh her math she took a math course at a local college, then prepped like crazy – on her own – for the GMAT test using a Princeton Review self-administered program. That test would really matter; it wasn’t fun in any way. But she took the test online, got high scores, and went off to a top 10 business school.)

My kids enjoyed taking the SAT in middle school which they did for CTY. It ended up being helpful when we were advocating for some more advanced classes for my oldest and you could see where he fit on the bell curve. If he’d scored just a tiny bit higher he’d have had some extra benefits from the CTY Set program. My kids didn’t do any prep. They both had quite a few friends who were also taking it, so they didn’t feel particularly intimidated - in fact the high schoolers felt intimidated by them! They both had higher scores as juniors.

@2018Summer2018 #5

I generally agree to post #8, #9, and #10 ( @wis75 @MusakParent @mackinaw ). I would advise not to prep your kid for SAT/ACT. Since the College Board is going to erase the test score, you may as well let your kid take the test for the experience. Unless he/she scores over 1520, there is no point keeping it. The whole idea is just let the kid sit through a 3 hour standardized testing in an alien environment (e.g. gym of another school).

We didn’t prep our kid for SAT in 8th grade. On top of it, my kid had a fairly eventful night (for a middle school kid) right before the SAT test date. We were fully prepared for a really bad test score but it turned out to be quite good. Well, quite good for a 13 year old but at around 25% range of the schools we have in mind for my kid. So in the end we decide not to keep the score.

Thank you all for the replies! I really appreciate your attention to this thread.
Of course, I am not talking about rigorous/serious preparation, but I think that familiarity with the test would be helpful. Is there a popular source to start with?

socaldad2002, just noticed that I missed your post #4.
Thank you for your detailed reply. Very helpful.

You can just download and print a single sample test online for free. I wouldn’t even bother buying a book. Then time a section or even a subsection and let them try.

I actually consider the early taking like prep for later. Gives them a chance to get the nerves out and sit in the room and be timed like that. Comfort and familiarity with the process can make a big difference later on.

I would not have him take it in 8th grade unless needed. If he is in CTY, he is clearly a smart kid that does well on tests,. Have him prep for the PSAT and take it in 10th grade to see if his score is close to the National merit score and then prep for the 11th grade PSAT and the real SAT. If there is some other benefit to the test (like for SET or other talent search), then no harm.

IMHO, there is almost no benefit to starting high stakes testing this early for a kid that is likely to do really well without it. Let him have fun or study things of interest at this point. You don’t want him to resent prep or to burn out too early.

My kiddo took the SAT in 7th?/8th? grade for one of the talent-search programs and did quite well - for an eighth grader. After a year or so, we forgot about hm taking it. In high school, his SAT was extremely high. So I was surprised during college application season when he got a letter from one of our state schools saying that he would not be eligible for merit aid because of his low SAT score.

WHAT? They listed his score and I recognized it as HIS EIGHTH GRADE SCORE!

He didn’t want to go there, so we never followed up, but beware, I guess.

Mom2and, isn’t PSAT similar to SAT and by prepping for SAT the kid is also prepping for PSAT? Also, I thought that PSAT can also be taken in 9th grade (just for practice). Am I wrong?

Digmedia, I am sorry about this experience and thank you for your post.

My two cents: if the child attends school, surely the child has plenty of experience with timed standardized testing in a classroom setting - more experience now for a test that will occur in 3-4 years does not add any value in my opinion. (There’s also the PSAT 8/9 for this purpose, which some schools use, and in my experience tells very little about what will happen three years hence - not just because it has a lower ceiling but because there is so much growth that occurs in the interim.)

My suggestion would be SAT prep (starting with a diagnostic practice test at home) during summer between sophomore and junior year, leading up to the October junior year PSAT - and potentially an official SAT around that time if the student is scoring on practice tests in a range that seems to be close to his potential.

College Board and Khan Academy have the same official 8 practice tests on their websites (for free). The latter four are actual prior administrations of the New SAT. Presumably there will be more practice tests available three years from now when it’s time to get serious about testing. There has been a little bit of inconsistency in difficulty since the New SAT debuted in 2016 and consistency will probably have improved by the time your child takes the test as a junior.

The PSAT tests are given by schools and can be tricky to get access to if your student is a homeschooler. Is that the case?