Sneaking in here to add my two cents. My 4th (and last) S16 is safely tucked in as a college freshman. We have been through this four times now, and I believe we finally got it (mostly) right with the last one. He took a “trial” run for the SAT and the ACT during his first two years in high school. That baseline on both tests was valuable in order to know the areas he needed to improve in, including his time management during certain sections of each test. He then took each one again during his junior year (SAT in Dec., ACT in April). He also took two subject tests at the end of his junior year. He scheduled the tests this way with the plan to have everything done by the end of junior year, but also to have a “buffer” to study over the summer and retake early senior year if needed. In my son’s case it was not needed, but it was really nice to have done everything earlier, just in case.
As @my2caligirls said, some schools use superscores. That certainly was true for most of the colleges my son applied to. My son actually had one section that was higher on his first SAT attempt vs. his SAT his junior year. Overall his later SAT was much better, but thank goodness for superscoring. If he did not have that earlier test score to factor in, he would have retaken his senior year.
One more consideration: In addition to overall scores, some schools look at certain sections on multiple tests for overall consistency. For example, if the math section on the SAT, ACT, and on subject tests is stellar and the student is applying for a technical field (ie: engineering)…this may stand out in the eyes of the admissions committee. Multiple test takes may provide more opportunity for this consistency (in specific areas) as well.
If D had to do it over again she would have most definately taken her first test in the fall of junior year. She found that many of the questions were geared more to what she learned in her first two years of high school and she had forgotten some of the information by the end of junior year, agreeing with another poster that this was especially true of math.
“I have never heard that seniors do better. Unless a kid spends the summer preparing, it is not clear why a student would have much more knowledge between June of Jr Year and early October senior year.”
The data says most kids do better on the second test than they did on the first. Part of that is practice and familiarity. Part of that is just being older – teenager brains are still growing.
I tried with all of my three to have the testing done by end of junior year. But all three ended up taking the test in September senior year anyway. And all three did the best (by far) on that test.
Quality prep time is much easier to fit in during the summer. The spring of junior year is a real brain drain time – trying to nail down one more semester of great grades, finals, AP tests, SAT subject tests, etc.
You definitely need to do some testing during junior year. Maybe your kid (unlike mine) will nail down a 35 ACT and you’ll be done. More likely, the junior spring tests will be useful for practice and base lining, and your kid (no matter what you do) will be taking tests in the Fall.
Senior fall testing is MUCH easier to do with ACT than SAT. The fall ACT test dates are usually 2-3 weeks earlier than the SAT dates, and ACT gets you scores back 1-2 weeks faster than SAT. My most recent kid had the 9/10/16 ACT scores in hand by 9/20/16. The Fall SAT test wasn’t even given until 10/1/16.
That timing differential makes a big difference during the hectic senior fall application rodeo.
DS had very fine junior year SAT score. He did senior year retake (without studying) to try to raise verbal score by 10 points (for a slam-dunk stats based scholarship). He unexpectedly raised it 100 points. So ya never know.
I think students are more likely to gain in their verbal scores as they move through junior year than in math. Gaining vocabulary and analysis skills is a big part of doing well on the reading & English sections. I don’t see the point of an early SAT attempt (prior to junior year), as they are probably all taking the PSAT anyway.
@intparent – I wouldn’t be so sure about the verbal vs. math improvement in the junior year. D18 has far better math skills this year than her sophomore year. She’s taking AP Calc AB (the easy one) right now and things that were trouble last year are no problem this year. The only remaining issue this year were logs and exponentials … but I showed her some of the tricks and she’s fine with them now.
Another vote for “Do practice tests and take it whenever you are ready”.
If you are ready sooner, take it sooner. This gives you more chances to recover from an unexpected result. But I see no benefit in taking it before you are ready just to see how you do, when that can be done at the dining room table with a $25 book.
Do you have a college list with the mid-50s for your preferred schools? If your practice tests give you good results for that list, go take the test.