When will your student study for/take the SAT/ACT?

[Anonymous]

Does your school’s guidance department recommend taking the SAT/ACT in the fall of junior year, or do they advise you to wait until the spring? When will your student begin studying for the exam?

[Anonymous]

This will depend on the kid and their individual situation. On the one hand, the sooner it's finished, the easier life will be, both for the pressure of testing lingering out there in the future, and the ability to make a more definite college list. On the other hand, some kids perform better the later they take the test. I would not start until after the kid has completed algebra 2. For reading and writing, some kids perform better after more experience with those skills following junior year AP classes.

In our family, first kid prepped summer between sophomore and junior year, took the SAT near the time of the PSAT. Ended up taking it again early in senior year and improved in EBRW, so we were happy with the superscore. Second kid, a junior, recently started prepping and will take next month. This one is even harder to motivate so I would have preferred to wait, but the spring will be very very busy, with extracurricular activities in March and APs in May. June feels a bit late to take a first SAT. We are planning on a likely second test in August.

Many kids are not motivated to prep. Getting them to actually do something is half the battle. (In our case, having a one-on-one tutor has been helpful for this.)

[Anonymous]

Kid is sophomore. PSAT results comes out in Dec. Will start filling content gaps on Khan Academy for one or two months. Start prepping full steam from June. Study hard over the summer and then take the test in the Fall of Junior year and hopefully not take it again.

[Anonymous]

Took it beginning of junior year. Studied over the summer. Took 2nd time that December.

[Anonymous]

My kid studied summer before junior year. 1520, which hit above 75% for all his schools, one and done, which was a huge relief junior year. If it hadn’t been where it needed to be, he would have had time to do more studying and retake. Junior spring was APs and SAT subject tests, so it was nice to have it done.

[Anonymous]

For those who took it in the fall and spring, did the scores rise?

[Anonymous]

Current Junior took it in August, did well, but wants to take again. Self studied some over summer. Now signed up for test in March, two months before AP exams. Will use some winter break days, school holidays and snow days to study more this time. Hoping the AP social studies class helps out on the verbal score. No subject tests planned.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the coursework your child is taking too. We realized that after taking AP Lang and a few other APs in 10th that English skills were very strong and no prep class or studying was needed. Took one mock test for ACT and one for SAT over the summer. If AP Lang was junior year, we might have chosen later test dates. Spring testing is terrible if your child is taking a lot of AP tests. I guess it also depends on what math class your child is taking. Sometimes being too far ahead past Calc requires going back to review typical SAT math

[Anonymous]

ACT. Start prepping in August of junior year. Had mock test in July (32), Oct. (34), Jan (35). Took test in February at his high school. Worked out quite well for DS with a 36 one and done.

[Anonymous]

Oh, simple, at her private boarding school. Prep classes, check. Practice tests, check. Pro three exams, check. This is what we pay the big bucks for, loving life right now!

[Anonymous]

DD did not study and took them May of Junior year; 1400. She then "studied" during the summer and took them in august. Her score dropped 50 points.

Based on where she is looking at going, we figure 1400 is good enough. (only one school has that not as the 75%, and there it is 50%)

[Anonymous]

my DS is going to take it cold in June when sophomore year is wrapping up. then based on scores can study August and Sept for taking it again in October of Junior year and could hopefully be done with it all.

We'll see how it works out. He has two friends that did it this way.

[Anonymous]

Kid took the SAT in October with zero prep. Did well IMO (DCUM would probably disagree but I'm ok with that...we're not targeting HYPS or even UVA for that matter since the kid would hate it there). A retake is planned for March, before AP exams get going, with prep over winter break and hopes for a better math score/superscore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my DS is going to take it cold in June when sophomore year is wrapping up. then based on scores can study August and Sept for taking it again in October of Junior year and could hopefully be done with it all.

We'll see how it works out. He has two friends that did it this way.

That's what we did with my DS. The advice I got from some other parents was to take as soon as he finished Algebra 2, which was the end of his sophomore year. Which we did with no prep.

Over the summer he was supposed to prep with Khan Academy, which he did maybe ten minutes of. He took it again in October (as a junior) and his score went up 80 points with virtually zero prep.

His school is participating in the in-school SAT in March, so he's planning to take it again then. And ACT in the Spring as well.

[Anonymous]

Never take the “real SAT” cold—- take one of the official practice tests available online.