when to take SAT, ACT, SATII tests?

<p>I (rising junior) am so confused about when the best time it is to take all of these tests for college?</p>

<p>So far I was thinking</p>

<p>PSAT in oct.
SAT in dec.
ACT in feb.
IB Psych exam in the beginning of may
SAT II in may.</p>

<p>When do you think I should take it? I kind of care more about the SAT then the ACT so I want to do awesome on that but I still want enough time to study for all of them. Also feel free to share when you're taking them.</p>

<p>I would recommend (and this is just me) taking a few practice SATS and a couple practice ACTs, and deciding which one you take based on those scores. There is no point at all in taking the ACT if you start with a better SAT score, because it takes longer to improve ACT scores, and if you get a good ACT early on, you have no reason to bother with the SAT.</p>

<p>That sounds like a good schedule, but if you have any ap tests that you are going to take, I would take the SAT subject tests in June because May gets pretty frantic with all the AP studying and preparation. Also, don’t forget that you can always retake SAT and SAT II’s in the first few months of your senior year so you have a back up if you need to retake.</p>

<p>My daughter took the Sat II Math II in January. It was the best decision because no one takes it then (Got 720). She took the Sat in March and June. Sat II history in May right after the AP exam. She did amazing on it (770).</p>

<p>I agree with clandarkfire–take a sample test for both kinds rather than assume you’ll need to take both. My D didn’t take the ACT; she started studying for the SAT 1 right after the PSAT, which she didn’t prepare at all for (in hindsight, she should have taken at least a couple of practice tests for the PSAT). She took the SAT 1 for the first time in Jan, got a pretty good score and a sense of what to work on, and took it again in March and raised it by an appreciable chunk (but the variability of the scores was striking: her Jan CR score was 800, so she didn’t bother studying more for it, instead concentrating on math and writing. When she took it again, her CR score had gone down by quite a bit, while M and Wr were higher. So her superscore is very good, but the individual scores all vary. Shows, I think, how much studying can matter–her superscored SAT was almost 200 points higher than the standard projection from the PSAT). She then took SAT IIs in May, when she was also studying for the APs; by June, when all her friends were taking the SAT I for the first or second time, she was making them brownies. She’s done with SATs, and very happy about it–now she can spend her senior fall working on applications and school work.</p>

<p>I would take the SAT in January because it’s one of 3 administrations (May and October are the others) when you can order the Question and Answer service. This means you can purchase a test booklet to be delivered after the test so that you can see which questions you missed.</p>