Hi has anyone 's child taken the sat as a rising sophomore or during early sophomore years. what are the pros and cons for doing that? How do you know if your child is ready to take the SAT as a 15 yr old?
Cons are that if your kid applies to a school that requires all scores to be reported, a lower score would have to be reported. Kids can also burn out if they need to study over too long a period and take the test too many times. Colleges do not give credit for early high scores.
The PSAT is practice for the SAT. I think taking the PSAT 10 is beneficial — it gives a sophomore a taste of the test.
Have your kid start prep summer after sophomore year. The PSAT fall of junior year matters for NMF qualification.
There is zero benefit in taking it as a sophomore.
There is one rationale that I can think of, just for argument sake. The math portion of the SAT goes up to trigonometry. So the argument is, if one has already completed Alg 2/Trig by the end of their freshman year, take the SAT while the material is fresh in their mind, ie as a sophomore.
I will say that scores are helped by preparation and repetition and test taking maturity more than anything, and though I do see quite a few kids of the really smart kids take their first attempt at the end of their sophomore year, I don’t see any advantage to it. My kid had an 800 on Math every time he took the SAT, including the beginning of his senior year - 2 years removed from taking Trig.
My daughter took the SAT spring of sophomore year. She started prep about 8 weeks in advance, took practice tests each week and focused on the areas that needed improvement. She scored well enough that there was no reason to take it again. It was nice to be able to look at colleges and know where she stood in terms of their selection criteria and a huge relief not to worry about it in junior and senior year. Junior year she focused on her GPA, APs and SAT subject tests. Senior year she applied ED to an ivy (unhooked) and was admitted. So much less stress in her life than so many of her classmates.
I have to agree.
This is not uncommon for the younger high-achieving students. However, IMO, the skills/knowledge needed for the EBRW section are ones that come with age. Yes, I am sure that somebody knows a 13 yo who scored a 790 or 800 on that part, but for the vast majority of kids, this is something that improves exponentially over time.
I’ll agree from personal experience on the reduced stress part. So as an alternative suggestion, which is what I did and which only makes sense if the student has the preparation, is to knock out some/all Subjects Tests before junior year, so that junior year can be focused on SATs and the rest. Since a common science progression is bio in 9th and chem in 10th, these Subject Tests can easily be taken before junior year. It’s only on College Confidential where students seem to think that they need to take the AP version first.
Stellar advice given about the SAT IIs, and PSAT in 10th grade.
To all the parents helpfully responding in this thread, how did you decide to take the SAT over the ACT? The latter option seems simpler to me as no subject tests are evidently required…
This is totally dependent upon the university. Few colleges even require Subject Tests at all, but some that do require/suggest Subject Tests do so regardless of SAT/ACT, while others do not require them with the ACT. As always. check with the target college for the requirements.
If you want skiparents to reply to your question, you will be met with a blank stare. If you want to know why I chose the SAT or ACT? The college counseling office at my HS recommended not taking SAT/ACT before 11th grade, but then taking both. I personally only took the SAT because of the calendar - the SAT was offered first, and based on those results, I opted to be one and done.
If you take SATs before junior year, can the score be used as a qualifying score if your PSAT is in National Merit range?
@Mom24boys - no, it’s only the PSAT. Although the PSAT is used as an indicator of how a student will score on the SAT, the official PSAT score is calculated by a different method for the national merit competition. So although you may hear someone say that they got a 1440 on their PSAT, that’s not actually true. They actually probably got a score around 221 +/- but that would be an equivalent of a 1440 on the SAT.
@USCWolverine - just because you take the ACT doesn’t mean you don’t have to take SAT subject tests. Most of the elite schools require at least two of them regardless of whether you submit the ACT or SAT scores.
I agree with the others that state that there is no benefit to take the SAT as a rising sophomore except for that very rare student that has the language maturity to score high on that portion. Maybe acceptable to take at end of sophomore year at the May or June sitting.
colleges may not give credit but a major criteria gets met and less stress in junior year…if student is ready and can do well which I am not sure if my son is.
My son got 1330 in PSAT in 9th grade. what is that equivalent to in SAT ?
That’s excellent. My son’s school has everyone take PSAT starting 9th grade so he will be doing that in 10th grade. What subject tests can he take ? he will take biology in June 2018. He has done algebra 2 in 9th grade and knows half of pre calculus. Is it worthwhile attempting Math II? after prepping in August.He doesn’t like history very much.
Many kids are offered the SATs early for admission into the TIP programs. In the SE, the talented program could take a class at Duke during the summer. Talent Identification Program.
In other areas of the country, similar programs exist.
Mine took the SAT in 7th and 8th as part of both the Duke TIP and Johns Hopkins CTY talent searches. As scores are discarded for students before 9th grade, we weren’t worried about them being provided to colleges. The plan was then to focus on PSAT’s through 9th/10th/11th NMSQT and then start actual SAT tests again fall/spring Junior year.
Preparation/study/experiences with the PSAT should be sufficient to familiarize a student with the process so he/she isn’t thrown off at the first actual SAT. So there’s really no reason that I can see to take the SAT as a sophomore and there is the noted downside of likely having lower scores than taking the test later, complicating sending scores to colleges. So I’d generally recommend sticking to PSAT for 9th-fall 11th, then SAT (or ACT equivalents) thereafter.
The exception I would note is a very high talent student who can get a score in the bag early and not have to worry about it later. My daughter was fortunate enough to do that in 8th (you can override the automatic discard of the scores), but she did it without risk. If a 9th/10th grade student can regularly score 1500-1550+ on the practice tests, and you’re confident in that ability, getting it done as a Sophomore might make sense. But I think that’s a rare case.
My D took the SAT fall of Freshmen year. She scored a 730/800/780 for a 2310. I knew she was ready for the test because she scored similarly on one or two practice tests that she took from the Blue Book. I believe she is an outlier and I wouldn’t recommend others taking the SAT that early unless they had some type of confirmation that they would score well.
The pros for her taking the test so early were that she didn’t “have to” take the SAT again and she could develop a college list early. She actually did end up taking the SAT again since NMSQT required the new SAT as a confirming score. She took the new test as a junior without prep and scored a 1580. She wound up submitting both sets of scores to colleges.
There were no cons for her taking the test early because she did so well. She also felt no pressure with both administrations of the test.
Pickup a prep book and take a practice test at home. If the child aces it, go ahead and sign up for the real thing. Otherwise wait until next year (as the Cubs’ fans used to say).
Your daughter is an outlier for sure. how does one reply to a particular post. Whenever i reply to someone it just shows up as a regular post
Quote the post and/or tag the user @pearl0607
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/1290677-how-to-quote-posts-tutorial-p1.html
Referencing the post number is not recommended because the post numbers will be adjusted if a mod deletes a post for ToS violation.