Wake has a very unusual “Rolling ED” plan. I’m not aware of any other schools that combine these two approaches like that.
Some state schools also have applications and decisions in the summer-Maybe Kansas? some of my daughter’s classmates were admitted to college before senior year began.
To me, the biggest difference is that the top 15ish or so schools no longer want kids from the top London private schools. This is a big change from only 5 years ago. What I have seen is the only top 15 schools that still want London kids are Duke and Chicago. The Ivies only seem to want first generation kids and URMs, despite the fact that many of the London applicants are top notch with IB scores of 42+, all A-stars on A Levels, etc. The Ivies are getting more successful in finding poor kids who are willing to move to the USA and are using charities such as the Sutton Trust to find these students. It seems like the top New England and other top LACs are still happy to take these kids as are schools in the next tier such as Georgetown which accepted 50 kids from UK schools this year.
@mamaedefamilia "As for takeaways from this year - first, based on the many highly qualified seniors that I know - outcomes at the top 20-30 schools seemed utterly capricious to me. This, of course, fuels the strategy of throwing out many, many reach applications in the hopes that one will stick.
Second, it was a drag being the rollout class for the new SAT."
Agree and agree. In addition to us getting the SCEA school rejected, I am not sure whether focusing only on the new SAT was such a good idea. We will never know whether the schools used the (incorrect) concordance tables or not and what effect it had on admittances.
@londondad, agree that first generation and URM continues to be a bigger focus for the top schools, and I think it’s great. That’s coming from someone with twin DD’s who profiled in the top-25% and arguably were penalized for not being either - change is never easy.
I advised D to skip the SAT and take the ACT instead for this reason. There just seemed to be a lot of uncertainty as to exactly what the test would be like.
For those who did take the new SAT, how was it different from the old one (if you have older kids as comparison)? I had read that the new format was supposed to make it more like the ACT, in that there was more advanced math and less emphasis on arcane vocabulary words (another reason I suggested that D skip it – my older D spent many frustrating hours with vocab flash cards when she was taking the SAT). Would you say that’s accurate?
What will you advise your younger kids, if any, to do with regard to choosing ACT vs. SAT?
Why not one of each in 11th grade? Then use the higher one, or concentrate preparation for a retake on the initially higher one?
Where our twin DD’s live they usually take the PSAT for the first time in the Fall of 10th grade, so we used that and an ACT diagnostic in Spring of 10th grade to determine best path for each. It turned out that one achieved the same results and the other did better on The ACT, so because they were prepping together we went the ACT route thereafter for both. Funny part was they then took the new PSAT format in the 11th grade for National Merit and achieved the same SI, so I don’t think it would have mattered which path they took.
@ucbalumnus - because if what I read was true and the new SAT is a lot more like the ACT, there’s no reason to take both since you’re likely to do just as well on one as on the other.
But if experts still believe that there are at least some students who may do better on one than on the other due to innate characteristics of the two tests, then it makes sense to think about which one they should take – or at least, which one they should take first.
Neither of my kids would have agreed to take both SAT and ACT unless they completely bombed the first one they took. I could barely get my older D to retake the SAT once. My younger D scored high enough on the ACT that she didn’t need to take it again. No way were they going to go through the prep process again for a whole new test. Your kids may be more tractable. But it’s still worth thinking about whether they should spend the time and energy taking two tests if their results are likely to be the same.
@dustypig, that is what our twin DD’s experienced - on the old PSAT they had different results, on the ACT they had exactly the same results (3 times), and then they had exactly the same results on the new PSAT for NM.
Last year, I knew several kids who did markedly better on the ACT than on the new (and old) SAT. None the other way round. They were all kids who were somewhat weak in math. Not sure if they were all outliers, but interesting that the profile was very much the same.
@mamaedefamilia true about the SAT! I’m still trying to understand what was wrong with the old 1600 version. The college board must of had nothing better to do than confuse the heck out of everyone. D 1-4 took the old one and that’s the one I was familiar with. D#5 HS first gave preparation for the new one then the instructors who were giving prep for the ACT sent letters home informing us not to have our kids take new SAT because they didn’t even know what was on it and thus couldn’t prepare kids. Then it was decided by school that they would take the old if that’s the one with 1600 max score. It was mass confusion and IMO the college board should have left well enough alone
@Daisy192 and @Chembiodad and @londondad We were not clued in about the Old/New SAT shift until it was too late. Too bad, because D is very strong in vocabulary and might have done better in the old format. D studied and practiced for the new SAT and got a very respectable but not extraordinary score. As it was unclear what that score meant, we urged her to try the ACT and she prepared for that and got a 35!
There’s a long thread somewhere on CC about the concordance between new and old and the gist is that scores at the top end (1400+) may actually be harder to get on the new SAT. IIRC, schools like Williams reported SATs for this year’s admitted students that were slightly lower on the new SAT than for last year’s applicants who took the old SAT.
@dustypig My impression is that the ACT is more straightforward but requires that one move at a faster pace.
Additionally, there has been a lot of criticism about how verbally dense the new SAT math section is. The number of words per problem went up by a significant amount. So the test taker spends a lot of time trying to figure out what the question is. This potentially negatively impacts students for whom English is not their first language or who are less gifted verbally than numerically.
@mamaedefamilia My daughter liked the ACT better too. Took it twice 33 first time 35 second time. ACT wasn’t around when D 1-4 were applying. I’m almost embarrassed to admit but I didn’t even know what the ACT was and that students had a choice between taking ACT or SAT. She also took new SAT with 1480 score and when I asked to compare both she said ACT seemed to move faster.
It’s common knowledge that the ACT has easier questions but you get less time to answer them. The SAT questions are more difficult but more time is given to answer them.
We heard this year that in the NE, ACT test takers outnumbered SAT test takers for the first time - let the arms race begin!
My S17 avoided the new SAT altogether at the advice of his school GC. “It’s new! It’s experimental! We don’t know what how difficult it will be!” In the end, the time factor killed him on his ACT. He ran out of time on 3 of 4 sections both times he took the test. As an experiment, he took old exams for practice, taking as much time as he needed. He did very well, almost perfect scores, and he only needed an extra 10 minutes, 15 at most.
Because time was the most important factor for him, I should not have listened to his GC and steered him toward the new SAT.
Oh well.
This is interesting to me because so many people refer to the new SAT as if its so much easier to get the high scores of 1350 and up?!
My daughter (D18) prepped for the ACT and then took the new SAT one month later, with almost no prep specifically done for the SAT (a little tweaking on verbal and writing, was told that ACT math should cover SAT math and really no need for new prep). She did very well on each (so no more testing - yay!), but what was interesting is that her score was pretty much the exact equivalent on conversion charts.
So for some kids, it doesn’t really matter. Also, she was specifically told that if taking them both, to take them in that order - ACT first, then SAT. Not sure if it mattered (no control for this), but we were told ACT prep covered a lot of SAT prep.
@manykids2000 There’s no longer a penalty for guessing with the new SAT, so if all other things are equal a student should score slightly higher on the new SAT compared to the old.
D18 took the new SAT and ACT. She hated the ACT for some reason but still scored a 30. She scored a 1400 on the new SAT.