Donna Cox
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QUESTION: When should my child take SATs/ACTs? Our standard recommendation has been that students take the SAT Reasoning Test (what most of us think of when we say "SAT") in May of Junior year and then again in October of Senior year, using the PSAT that most students take in the Fall of their Junior year as "practice" or as a "benchmark" for the SAT. There is a service available to everyone on the May SAT called "Question and Answer Service". For an additional fee of $18, QAS gives you a much more detailed score report than the standard. With this report in hand, CTG can analyze your student's score and determine where the strengths and weaknesses are and where more attention needs to be paid before your child takes the test again. We have also always recommended that every student take the ACT at least once, in June of Junior year. Many students achieve better scores on the ACT than on the SAT, and this is good news for all students. If both sets of scores are good, then your student has an additional point in his or her favor; if the ACTs are significantly better, then your child can send those scores to the colleges and leave the less-favorable SATs unreported. Our standard recommendation was predicated on the fact that SAT did not have a "score choice" option for students in the graduating classes of 2009 or before. This means that when a student asked for his/her SAT scores to be sent to the selected list of colleges, the SAT folks sent every score from every time that student took the test, and most college counselors and guidance counselors advised students that they should take the test no more than three times and preferably only twice. All this changes for the class of 2010 and beyond with the institution of score choice. Students who are Juniors this year (2008-2009) can tell the SAT folks which scores to send and which to ignore on the reports that they send to the colleges. This means your son or daughter CAN take the SAT in October, November, December, January, March, May and June of Junior year, and then in October, November and December of Senior year before most college applications are due. This is NOT what we recommend and for absolutely everyone, it is way too many times. But what score choice does allow is for your child to take the SAT three or four times if steady progress is being made and if your child feels that (s)he can improve with multiple testings. Be advised, however, that your child cannot "cherry pick" scores to send from different score dates: (s)he must send the Critical Reading, Math, Writing and Essay scores from the same date, even if one of those scores is not his/her best achievement in that section overall. So, how does "score choice" affect CTG's recomendations on when to take these tests? It opens up some possibilities but these all have pros and cons. The QAS (Question and Answer Service) is also offered for the Saturday tests in October and January, but since most Juniors at comprehensive high schools where most graduates go on to college already take the PSAT in October, and since the PSAT results are very similar to those of the QAS service, we do not recommend the October test for Juniors.
The PSAT results usually come in shortly after Thanksgiving, so one option would be to study the PSAT results and prep for the weaker of the verbal or Math areas for the January or March tests, depending on what other commitments your child has during the Winter months. If the first scores show acceptable gains in the weaker area(s) and if your child doesn't lose ground in his/her stronger area(s), then (s)he could wait until summer (if summer is less busy) to prep for a re-take in October of Senior year. If the January or March scores do not show enough improvement over the PSATs, then there is still enough time to schedule weekly sessions in preparation for the May SAT and, if necessary, the October.
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FAQs SAT and ACT: What's the difference?
Which is better for my child?
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