<p>“There is a REALLY easy answer to that question: take it when YOU are most ready – and not before. For some students, that will be Sophomore year. For others, fall in Junior year after spending the summer prepping for the psat. For others, it may be Dec of senior year…” - bluebayou.</p>
<p>Of course, this is the only best answer.</p>
<p>highly professional GC should know that every child is different. There are many variables that go into the calculation of when might be the best time for any particular child to sit for the actual SAT.</p>
<p>Some are: Math level - If your child is very advanced in Math, he/she will take the SAT level math between the 8th and 10th grade; therefore, to wait until junior year or senior to sit for the SAT will require the time commitment and discipline for math review. If your child has the time and discipline, then waiting for the end of the junior year for the first SAT sitting is a sound option. Just be aware that all kids are different.</p>
<pre><code> Disposition re stress - the SAT is a high stakes test. Some kids handle that stress better than others. If you choose to wait until the end of junior year to sit for the SAT for the first time, you may increase the stress level for some kids because there are fewer opportunities to remedy shortcommings. Most kids do better on the second sitting than the first. If you don’t do as well as you would like on the first test (and that is the end of Junior year), then you have added a lot of stress to your second sitting in the fall of senior year. For some kids, a better strategy is to build in a “fudge factor” merely to minimize stress. Stress can lead to poor results.
AP tests are in the spring - for some kids it is a good idea to knock out the first sitting of the SAT before the AP season. If a kid has a lot of final exams + APs + heavy duty spring EC (musical, track, baseball, etc) it might be better to have one sitting of the SAT prior to all of that kicking in.
Age - maturity helps many kids sit for four hours and helps kids reading comprehension. for some kids, it is better to wait until the child is older for that reason alone.
<p>My daughter started working with an SAT tutor in August before her junior year. We figured that, if she was going to work with a tutor, she might as well do it before she took the PSAT, in the hopes that she would have a strong PSAT score. She didn’t quite reach NMS scores, but she did take the October SAT and scored the highest CR and W scores she managed to achieve, despite several sittings in the spring. She did improve her math score by June of Junior year. I can’t imagine waiting until the fall of Senior year–that seems stressful to me.</p>
<p>In addition to superscoring (which most college do) there is also score choice-so there is really no downside, only upside, to taking the test multiple times.</p>
<p>A few suggestions of when NOT to take it & why:
January: for our district, this lines up with 1st semester finals
May: APs (could consider Subject test too, but their brains might explode)
June: best time to take Subject tests</p>
<p>That leaves October, December, & March as the best times for our school calendar. Other data points to overlay for your child will be sporting commitments. As I look at my now HS freshman - he’s a swimmer and the important state level meets occur in early March, so that may not be best date for him.</p>
<p>Adding on along the lines of post #24, I suggest looking at all of the SAT/ACT test dates for junior year and comparing them to your school calendar, and picking dates with everything in mind.</p>
<p>When are mid-terms and finals? Want to avoid those. </p>
<p>When is prom? Last year, both junior prom and senior prom were the night before SAT or ACT test dates. Senior prom was an issue for juniors who were dating seniors, not the seniors themselves. </p>
<p>When are your kids’ EC activities especially busy? A friend of my S’s, the lead in the HS musical, took the SAT during the show performance weekend - definitely not recommended. </p>
<p>Best to avoid the SAT in May, so close to the AP exams. Possible take a subject test if it is very related to the AP exam, e.g. US History. June is a good date for subject tests, as long as it isn’t on top of final exams for your HS.</p>
Even this depends on the kid. My youngest was adament that he wanted to do the subject tests in May while the material was fresh. He got a fabulous score in US History and a very good one in Biology. Not so good a one in Math 2 - which unfortunately doesn’t test you on your knowledge of calculus. He was convinced if he waited until June he might forget material. As it happened (because he was applying to Georgetown which required 3 subject tests) he ended up taking the tests again June, he retook the US History for giggles (well to see if he could get 10 more points for a perfect score, instead he went down ten points), he took the other Biology (molecular instead of environmental) and got exactly the same score, and he took Lit and got a score he was happy with. So for him it turned out to make no difference. His mistake was taking the math test, he knew from the practice tests he probably wouldn’t do well, but it didn’t occur to him that Lit would be easy, since he’s not particularly fond of English classes.</p>
<p>My older son would have taken the subject tests in May, but saw that the Physics test covered a lot of material that is not in Physics C, since he hadn’t had physics since freshman year he said he wanted to review the material after the APs. His scores couldn’t have been better so for him June was the right answer.</p>
<p>S1 took the SAT in March of junior year, one and done. He did Math Level II as a freshman, World History as a junior (after the AP) and self-studied Physics fall of senior year for the October sitting.</p>
<p>S2 also took the SAT in March of junior year, retook it that June with zero additional prep (too many AP and IB exams) and went up 90 points where he needed it. He did Math Level II and USH as a soph (after pre-calc and AP USH), and took Lit stone cold as a junior (IB HL English was sufficient prep).</p>
<p>Caveat: if you think the ACT might be an option, do the SAT in Jan.-Feb. of junior year and take the ACT in the spring. (My niece did this and found the ACT was a much better test for her.)</p>
<p>My advice would be to pay attention to whether or not colleges want to see SAT-II subject tests, and to align taking them with the end of the associated course. This assumes some sort of clue about a college list and prior planning. Good luck. ;)</p>
<p>Senior year is hectic enough without adding high-stakes testing to the mix. Get it all done by the end of junior year if possible! S2 was involved in football, and taking a high-stakes exam the morning after a game was not a viable option at our house.</p>
<p>D took the SAT in October of Junior year, a week before the PSAT. This was after taking a Princeton Review class that started late in the summer. She ended up with a fairly good PSAT which helped her get National Hispanic Recognition Scholar. It also gave us a better idea of where to focus her study efforts during junior year.</p>
<p>She achieved a 650 in reading in October so she was done with studying for that. (She ultimately went up to a 720 in June without further study.)</p>
<p>She also did in the 500’s in math, so we paid for private tutoring. She went up by over 100 points in March.</p>
<p>She also took the ACT’s early to use as a baseline. Math scores never really went up, but she did get a 35 in English in March. We are sending that single sitting. She did not really prepare for any of the other sections of the ACT.</p>
<p>We were done by June of Junior year. 1330/2000, 29.</p>
<p>Here is a free SAT from collegeboard. I think this SAT was a real test in 2005. Have your student take this test to see where he/she stands. I’ve printed them out for D1 to take and then entered the answered and essay. The online version will score automatically for you.
[Free</a> SAT Practice Test - Prepare for the SAT](<a href=“The SAT – SAT Suite | College Board”>Downloadable Full-Length SAT Practice Tests – SAT Suite)
D1 took it and her real scores came out very close to this test.</p>
<p>OP here–thanks for all the comments. My original question related to advantages to Nov and Jan of junior year and those dates considered D’s school calendar, her ECs, her academic preparedness, etc. May and June are not options for reasons that have been stated above so, taking the SAT for the first time in March doesn’t allow for a second sitting junior year. D2 had to take her second SAT fall of senior year and it just added to the stress–so much better to be done junior year. D1 was one and done…D3, if I had to guess, will want to take it more than once so I’d like to reserve March for her second sitting, if needed. She’ll prep over the summer prior to junior year so we’ll just wait and see if she feels like she’ll be more prepared for Nov and Jan. Thanks again for all the thoughts and comments.</p>