I am currently a junior in HS and I was wondering if you guys on CC think it would be a good idea to take both the current SAT in January and the revised one in March. People who are doing this have told me that they don’t really know what to expect on the new one, so they are taking the old one because of all the existing prep, and the new one just in case. What do you think I should do? Do colleges prefer the old SAT or the new SAT? Is it worth taking both, or should I reserve all my study time from now until March for the new SAT?
Don’t take the new one. You won’t be able to prep effectively. As a junior, you don’t have many opportunities to retake it if you don’t like your score. Colleges won’t know what to make of scores without established precedent. Don’t waste your time splitting precious prep time between the two tests; just focus on the old SAT.
@MotherOfDragons Do you happen to know when the October PSAT scores are released to students? The registration deadline for the January SAT is the 28th…
@Ariz0na The students receive emails with codes to check online on January 7, and the counselors get paper scores about a week later. I’ve been struggling with the same question (I’m a junior also). I talked to my counselor today and we came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t hurt, and while he didn’t know if it would help a huge amount, it always gives me more options and that’s a good thing.
Take a practice test for the old one out of the blue book and score it. You can get one from your local library or your school library, and there are cheap used ones on Amazon.
The PSAT will tell you how ready you are for the new one, the blue book will tell you how ready you are for the old one.
Whichever you take you will do better if you prep. Prep for both for free using Khan Academy.
I took the old one in dec and will probably take it again in jan. I just found it was easy to study for since there is more knowledge and materials for it. If you haven’t started studying i agree with the above posters that you should take a blue book test and if you do somewhat decent take the old test. You still have a month to prepare and if you use it effectively then you have enough time. I say if you don’t do aas good as you wanted on this test just completely forget the SAT and focus the ACT instead since the new SAT seems experimental and hard to prep for inmo. At least thats what my plan is as of now. If I get my PSAT scores back and they are good I may consider taking the new one but as of now I wouldn’t take it.
My advice is take practice tests this week for both the old SAT and the ACT and choose which ever one you do better on. If you do better on the ACT, just never take the SAT.
Why not take the old SAT just to give it a shot? All you have to lose is some cash and a Saturday morning. In my school, I know that we have been prepped to do well on the old SAT because we are used to deducing vocab with Greek and Latin roots and doing math with a calculator. It depends on your education.
@lonelymoonlight@Studious99 Exactly what I have been thinking. I’ve been answering some of the current SAT prep questions and I like them. My only concern is the essay on the current SAT - I’ve never done an SAT-style essay prompt before, and have no idea how it will be graded.