Sat and PSAT, ACT - extra time
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Anonymous
| DC is 2e - gifted with anxiety, dyslexia, and auditory processing disorder. They need extended time for virtually everything and that is documented in a 504. Looking at the college board website, it suggests that we need to provide evidence of performance in timed tests. Do they require another full educational psych battery for test accommodations? I’m trying to plan ahead - we have about a year before this becomes a concern. DC has always had untimed (multi day) tests or double time and to lose that would be a shock. Thanks for any feedback. |
Anonymous
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I think the school applies on your behalf and just notes the accommodations that school has offered for you. This was a relatively easy process from our perspective, we just signed a form authorizing the school to share that information.
The SAT, PSAT, and AP tests are all one company so if you do it once, you are finished for all of them. The ACT is administered by a different company. I’m not sure what their process is. |
Anonymous
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ACT is same process -- school applies and if you have a 504 you don't need any more documentation (unless you are asking for something that is not on your 504).
Main difference is that I think you are not supposed to register for an ACT test date until you have your accommodation, but you should double check that. All the stuff about providing evidence of performance on timed tests is really for parents of homeschoolers, those without 504 plans (maybe because they go to private which doesn't document accommodations) or someone who is newly diagnosed and doesn't have a 504 plan yet. So that doesn't apply to you if you are at a public or private school and have a 504 -- then your school applies for you and the 504 is enough because a qualified group of people evaluated your child and decided it was necessary. Whatever the underlying data was for that decision, neither ACT nor SAT is going to review that decision or go against it -- it's too much effort and just opens a legal can of worms for them. |
Anonymous
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Reach out to HS counselor the summer BEFORE 9th grade and have them apply for College Board extended time (for those AP exams in spring). In 10th, have HS counselor do the same for ACT.
Do not wait until junior year or it will be an uphill battle |
Anonymous
Plus your child should be doing all the practice PSAT's offered (PSAT 9, PSAT 10) WITH their extra time otherwise the score and practice is meaningless. |
Anonymous
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What is "evidence of performance on times tests"?
If someone gets a non perfect score on a timed test, what does that prove? Most people don't get perfect x yet don't get extended time. |
Anonymous
There's usually a comparison of timed v untimed performance - number of Qs right v wrong and error analysis as to what kinds of mistakes. Many people given extra time can't actually answer the harder math questions. And many kids who need extra time can't get through nearly enough questions. I currently have a student who has such a slow reading pace she can only read 3 out of 5 passages on an ACT section. What she does, she can answer correctly. If she tries to do all the questions, her score drops dramatically. If she has extra time her work is near perfect. By contrast, many kids who don't need extra time, will still get the same kinds of questions wrong even when they have extra time. No amount of extra time is going to help you get a math question right if the key is knowing the quadratic formula and you just don't know it. It's a myth that everyone benefits from extra time. |
Anonymous
| My DS is a freshman and took the PSAT9 this past fall. We discussed extra time with his counselor and she suggested that he do his first one without it. She said that it really does depend on the kid on whether the extra time will be helpful and they should try it out first. My kid has an IEP and he took the PSAT9 with no extra time and it was the right call for him. He won't be requesting it in the future. |
Anonymous
| Make sure your kid knows that once they have extended time they have to use it. They cannot finish a section early and say they're done and move on, if it's a 40 minute section they must use 60 minutes (or take a nap for 20, I guess). |
Anonymous
This is OP and this is my kid exactly - perfect score with enough time and significant fluency issue that means they don’t get through even one or two passages in standard time. My other kid - even if we told that kid that they could take a week, I’m pretty sure the score wouldn’t be any higher. |
Anonymous
Thanks - that might only happen in math (which is an area of extreme strength). I will let them know though. Thank you! |
Anonymous
This is true on the new SAT, but not true on the ACT if you have a multi-day or solo administration. Also, even if you have accommodations, you can still register for a regular test administration and test without accommodations - it is the student's choice. This might be useful in superscoring where a kid has a deficit that only appears in one domain - maybe they have dyscalculia and get extra time but are a super reader for which they don't need the extra time but get it anyway because it's too complicated to administer extra time by section. So if they just want to retest in the RW score, they could register for regular time (although they would still have to do the Math sections.) Also, in the SAT/ACT testing context, if a kid needs extra-time but can't hold it together for a 5 hour test, the answer to that problem is not to give up on extra-time but to ask for extra time and multi-day test administration. You have to ask for multi day test administration in the IEP/504 meeting. They will initially refuse to put it in the plan saying "we don't decide that SAT does" or "we don't have tests that long at school, so we can't put it in the plan.". The latter is not exactly true - all HS offer AP, PSAT 9, PSAT10, PSAT/NMSQT and SAT as part of the school day, both for practice and "for real". Students in AP are often administered practice tests in whole or part for an in class grade. The school is therefore obligated to evaluate whether a child's disability creates some kind of testing maximum. This is commonly expressed as "tests longer than X hours administered in multiple days" and/or "no more than X number of exams on the same day" "Have to use accommodations" is also not true in school in general. Kids with accommodations are always free to decline to use their accommodations. A teacher might ask the kid to sign a form saying they were offered the accommodation and declined. I often see/hear of school teams leveling the "if you have this accommodation you must always use it" threat to discourage kids from taking accommodations. They try to scare the family/student into not taking an accommodation because it will be too onerous overall. You may not have meant it that way, PP, but I wanted to clarify, IME. |
Anonymous
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My kid has a 504 with specific details on 1.5 extended time and was still denied by College Board. We are appealing with results from a recent Woodcock Johnson test that corroborates his need for extra time. We will be submitting again for SAT and he also would like to take the ACT.
Our school was shocked he was denied for the accommodations the first time. |
Anonymous
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My child had accommodations for both with 1.5 extra time. We applied in 10th grade before PSAT through the HS counselor. They had it with 504 plan and it was no issue to he approved and the approval covered all college board assessments for the remainder of high school (SAT, PSAT, and AP). They applied separately for ACT and that was also approved.
Double time is a little trickier because at least for the ACT it is a multi-day test administration in a 1:1 setting. Still doable but not given at the same time as other ACT tests. With the new shorter digital SAT double time is a same-day accommodation. |
Anonymous
I have kids at 2 different schools--one public and one private. At both schools, the counselors told me that I had to apply for ACT accommodations but that they would apply for College Board accomodations |