My daughter is starting her junior year and this summer we are trying to make a timeline so we can plan family vacations/school obligations. She is our first so we are a bit clueless about the whole process…
Recently she did an on line pre-ACT and pre- SAT practice tests back to back and her scores were very close with SAT being higher and she claimed she “liked” the SAT better. So was considering having her take June 6th SAT (summer between junior and senior year knowing that she won’t have prepped much but will have taken all the classes she truly needs for it) and then August SAT (senior year and she should spend a lot of time reviewing over the summer) and then if things don’t go well then October 3rd SAT (senior year). Should we try to have her do an earlier one spring of junior year?
Pros: have another chance to try it and really find out what she needs to study/prep, also another chance to see if she changes her mind and decides to prep for ACT
Cons: middle of May she will have an AP test and all her finals to study for so not sure she has free time in April to realistically do much to prepare.
Are all the dates about the same level of test difficulty? Is there any curve or anything else that weights it so that the different dates has an effect?
Any other advice?
Jenn
Depending on the math level that she has completed and her schedule it might be wise to start prepping this summer and take an early fall of junior year test. My children had very busy EC schedules and extremely challenging junior year classes. It made sense for both of them to take the late summer/early fall tests in Junior year. We figured if they did not do as well as expected there was ample time to prep. They both had some down time during the summer to do some online review and they were well rested. The bonus - it was really nice to have it finished when they hit target scores and not have to worry about it all through junior year. At the time my DS20 thought it was too early but he thanked me multiple times during junior year when he was slammed with work and ECs and his friends were trying to fit in test prep and ruined Saturdays spent in testing centers. If they want to retake or take subject tests, they have the june option after junior year and also the late summer/fall options of senior year.
Our D also took Fall junior year tests. I worked out well for her. She had to take a state mandated ACT in February of junior year as well and was done after that. Frankly it was good to be done “early” so she could focus on her common app and all the essays. The one thing we greatly underestimated was how many essays she would need to write. She applied to 8 schools and had 19 essays to write.
I would not recommend planning any testing for senior year if you can avoid it.
Got it! We will have a look to see how a junior year test might look. She took Algebra 2 sophomore year and plans to take statistics junior year and AP Stats so I think the bulk of the math questions she should be ready to answer.
Jenn
I did the bulk of my studying during the summer between Soph and Jr. year, focusing on the PSAT (since a high score opens up the door to National Merit-related awards, which can be extremely generous). I found Junior year was very full and am grateful I did the work to kick up my PSAT score 60 points (improved from soph to junior year). Did a small amount of extra studying before my Junior SAT, but I really appreciated studying over the summer. That’s what I would recommend.
@CaliforniaMomma
Speaking as an SAT tutor, there is an advantage to taking the SAT for the first time a bit earlier, though there is nothing wrong with also taking it later, despite the bias against doing so on CC. For starters, I am not sure what math your daughter has taken thus far (she might already have enough–might not), but she is already certainly in a good position to start studying the reading and writing sections (sections 1 and 2) of the SAT.
Another advantage to testing a bit earlier the first time is this: most students don’t do as well as they would like the first time they test. This can be a very good motivator to study harder–the best motivator perhaps.
Starting prep earlier also gives your daughter more time to prepare. She will also probably be pretty busy with other college app related things the summer before senior year. For all of these reasons, I generally recommend that my students start prepping the summer before junior year (unless there are any outstanding academic weaknesses that would benefit from being addressed earlier). This is pretty common advice–and I think it is good advice.
With regards to test difficulty, unless your daughter is trying to score in the 1500s, as I explained elsewhere the difficulty of the tests won’t really affect your daughter’s score. The tests are curved to account for the difficulty of the test. You also can’t predict the difficulty of a test antecedently based on the month in which it is given.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions on what I said, feel free to ask.
“Should we try to have her do an earlier one spring of junior year?” Yes. She’ll have some idea of her score, which will allow her to pick some schools to see over the summer, and give her some idea of where she might apply. I think the early June SAT test may be too close to her regular final exams for her to get really “psyched” for the SAT and do well.