Many states now require high school juniors to take either the SAT or ACT (see, for example, Education Week) for the states’ federal accountability, a fact that presents new strategic standardized testing options for college bound students. This year here in Connecticut, public school juniors will take an SAT (NOTE without the Essay, or even the option to pay for and add the Essay) on the state’s nickel on March 27 or April 4 (check with your school) with makeup dates on April 23 and 24. For students applying to competitive colleges, the best strategy to maximize their scores and therefore admissions chances, especially for those who do some form of preparation (which, again, is most students who apply to competitive schools), is to take the exam twice in March. Once on March 9, a CollegeBoard regular national testing date, which does include the option to write the Essay, and then again in school on March 27 or April 4. This blog post explains why.
Students/Parents to whom this post does NOT apply:
- Those in private schools, which do not administer the free SAT
- Those who know based on prior exam results that they will be sending ACT scores, not SAT scores, to colleges
- Those applying only to test optional colleges.
- Those who already have an SAT score that is good enough to get into all the schools on their list (according to Naviance or colleges’ profile stats).
For every other junior in CT, I strongly recommend you take TWO SATs in March: one on 3/9 (for which you need to register) and the freebee on 3/27 or 4/4 (for which you do not need to register since that’s your school’s responsibility).
I know what you’re thinking: this guy’s a little test-happy and this is an extreme and torturous recommendation even in our competitive, test-happy culture. I get that, and I would’ve thought the same thing back in the day, but like you, I’d’ve been wrong. 😉
Before I get to my concrete reasons, let me offer an analogy that should make it intuitively obvious why this is good advice. Say one of your teachers marches into class next week and announces the following:
“I made a decision about your final exam. Instead of offering you one exam date in June, I’m going to offer two, a week or two apart, and while they won’t be the same test, they’ll be very similar. It’s your choice whether to take one or the other or both. If you take one or the other, whatever you get on it goes in the gradebook/PowerSchool/etc. If you take both, I’ll not only count the higher of the two scores, but I’ll also mix and match your better individual sections on each exam to give you an overall ‘super score.’”
Because finals count so much toward your final grade in each course, only complete stoners or those whose highest career aspiration is to ask people whether they want fries with that wouldn’t take both, right? The only real difference between this analogy and the two SATs in March is that your SAT score counts a lot more than any one (or two or three) final exams. Personally, as an educator, I don’t like it, but that’s a cold hard fact. If my analogy doesn’t work for you, here are six concrete reasons why I’m pushing two SATs in March:
- If you’re preparing properly for the free SAT on 3/27 anyway, you absolutely should take a full-length practice test simulating the actual test experience as closely as possible a week or two beforehand. The 3/9 SAT is right on time and there’s no simulation like the real thing.
- If you happen to do better on 3/9 than on 3/27, for whatever reason, it can count!
- The optional Essay section on the 3/27 exam is NOT included, nor can you pay to have it included. That means if you’re applying to even one school that requires an Essay score (and generally speaking, the more competitive the school, the more likely it is to require the essay), you’ll have to take another SAT anyway.
- If you’re investing in a private tutor or class or even just time on Kahn ACademy, you get twice the bang for your buck since the two dates are so close together (the next SAT after March is in May, when some of your learning gains from prep in March will have worn off).
- In general, the more SATs students take, the higher their scores go.
- There is no downside since you don’t have to report any scores you don’t want to report.
To help you get ready and give you the very best chance to significantly raise your score, CollegePrepExpress has several programs to choose from. In addition to private and semi-private tutoring, we offer three classes to help student prep for March SATs: our most popular 6-Session Prep Class, a 9-Session class for those who want extra practice and learning or those who are positioning for maximal score gains, and a 3-Session Crash Course for second-timers, last-minute Charlies, and those whose schedules don’t allow for either of the others. For all the dates, times, materials, and other details, visit our Classes & Registration page and for complete course descriptions for each of the three classes, visit our SAT Classes page.
Good luck, juniors. You have my unqualified sympathy. But look at the bright side: the hardest working year of high school is already more than half over. Down the stretch don’t forget, we’re here to help 🤓.