March 27, 2025 • 42 mins
In today’s episode, I’m sharing a replay of a recent webinar on test prep. I break down key updates to the SAT and ACT, including the ACT’s shift to digital and its new optional science section coming in April 2025. I also discuss test-optional policies, when to start prepping, and how to use the Common Data Set to make informed decisions. Plus, I share tips on managing stress throughout the process. Don’t miss this essential guide to navigating college admissions testing!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sheila Akbar (00:00):
So you may not be feeling the kind of frustration
(00:02):
that the title of this webinarsuggests, but believe me, there
are a lot of people feeling thisway, and what I want to do today
is just sort of take the stresslevels down, help you understand
what is going on with testing.
What do you need to know aboutthe SAT the ACT test, optional
potential policy changes, andthen how do you navigate it?
Right?
(00:35):
Hi folks. Welcome back to thepodcast. I can hardly believe
it's the end of March. I'm suremany of you are in the same kind
of disbelief, but here we are,and in springtime, I tend to
start thinking about testing. Ofcourse, that's maybe very
specific thing that I start tothink about. But you know, if
(00:55):
we're working with juniors, Ireally want to make sure they
have a clear plan. They'reeither about to take the test,
or they've started their prep,and we've got a plan for if
they're testing, it will be doneby the end of the school year or
into the summer. If we'reworking with sophomores, they
start to put testing on theirradar. Not that they need to
start prepping or doinganything, but we need to start
(01:17):
thinking about a plan. Are yougoing to test? Which test are
you going to take? When are yougoing to study? When are you
going to take it, all of thatstuff. So for me, Spring is the
season of testing, and thisspring we are expecting some
changes to the ACT, and we knowlast spring we had a big shift
in the SAT over to the digitalversion. So today, what I'm
(01:39):
sharing with you is a replay ofa recent webinar I did, kind of
explaining those changes andhelping people understand, what
do they need to know about howthe testing landscape has
changed, what's the timelinethey should be operating on?
And, you know, sort of brasstacks around. How do you choose
which test to take? How docolleges see it? How do you get
(02:01):
a hold of data that helps youmake the right decisions, both
for your child and for theircollege applications? And so I
do you know a couple of thesesessions a year, actually,
because there's been so manychanges in the testing
landscape, and this one is no nodifferent. So I hope you find
this helpful. One of the thingsthat you'll hear me say, here is
(02:21):
everybody should get some dataon how they're going to perform
and then talk to somebody theytrust who can really help them
understand what's going to bethe best decision for them. And
so if you are curious if yourstudent has already done a PSAT
or a pre ACT, and you just wantan opinion on should they test?
(02:43):
Should they not test? Well,what's going to happen? Please
just give us a call. Most testprep companies also do these
sort of free consultations, butlike I said, just be aware of
who you're talking to, and getgood information and make the
right decision for your kids.
All right, take a listen to thereplay, and I'll see you on the
other side. Well, I'm Sheila.
(03:04):
I'm signets, President and CEO.
And you know, in my line ofwork, I focus a lot on college
admissions, executive function,navigating High School and, of
course, standardized testing. Weare really paying attention to
what is going on in the testingworld. And so when I hear, oh my
gosh, the ACT is now changingformat, this is my reaction,
likemore testing changes. And for
(03:26):
me, it's sort of my lifeblood. Ineed to know what's going on
here. But for a parent who isjust starting to test the waters
in high school, thinking about,does my kid need to test? You
probably don't even know thathow many changes have been going
on. So you may not be feelingthe kind of frustration that the
title of this webinar suggests,but believe me, there are a lot
(03:49):
of people feeling this way, andwhat I want to do today is just
sort of take the stress levelsdown, help you understand what
is going on with testing. Whatdo you need to know about the
SAT the ACT test, optionalpotential policy changes, and
then, how do you navigate itright? You probably don't know
yet whether your kid needs atest score or not. Hopefully you
(04:09):
have some time to plan aheadbefore they get to that phase of
their college applicationprocess. But I want to give you
a sense of how you can movethrough this keeping your
child's best interest in mindand their actual goals in mind
without feeling like, you know,you're listening to 15 million
voices and the story keepschanging and you don't really
know what to do. So we are goingto dive in with just sort of an
(04:33):
emotion check here. I wastalking to a colleague of mine,
and we were saying, like, youknow, the fact that you have to
take the test is just sort ofthe tip of the iceberg. The
thing that's really stressfulabout it is not necessarily the
sitting for a couple of hours ona Saturday morning and filling
in the bubbles. It's all theemotions that are coming up
around it, and some of them comeway. Before you even start the
(04:59):
process of looking into what youneed to do, right? I get calls
from parents all the time whoare convinced that they are too
late or so worried that evenbringing up testing to their
child is going to spike theiranxiety through the roof. We're
not sure what colleges reallywant. Who do I listen to? Maybe
your kid is one of those that'sa little bit more disengaged
(05:21):
from their academics or thinkingabout college, and so that's
another worry. But I just wantyou to know, I know there's a
lot going on for you. Is one ofthe reasons we do these free
webinars every month, just totry to, like, connect and like,
get the right information andmake sure you have what you need
so you can parent withconfidence through this process,
(05:42):
I want to start with just kindof grounding us and what is the
reality? What is on these tests?
We have a couple of optionsthese days when it comes to
testing for college admissions,you can take the SAT, you can
take the ACT, or you cannot takea test. And I'll help you think
about when is that appropriatefor your child. If, like me, you
(06:05):
applied to college in the 90s,you probably took one of these
tests. Most colleges requiredthem. We have the SAT which
definitely at that time was alittle more popular among test
takers, not necessarily amongcolleges, but among test takers
on the coasts, or if you're likeme, you grew up in the Midwest,
the ACT was the one we alltalked about. Colleges today do
(06:28):
not have a preference betweenthe two tests, and so it is in
your best interest, your child'sbest interest, if you're going
to take a test to figure outwhich one they are more
naturally suited to, which onethey feel is easier for them.
Now, neither of them are justeasy. They require some practice
and preparation, but becausethey are in different formats,
(06:49):
some students are just going torespond better to one or the
other, and it's worth figuringout which one that is for your
kid. So the SAT is scored out of1600 it is now a digital test
given on a computer screen. Itis also computer adaptive, which
means how you do on one sectiondetermines how you do on the
next version of that same topicthat you get. You have four
(07:13):
sections to our reading andwriting, which I'll just
shorthand is verbal to our math.
The verbal questions are basedon short text. So you might be
used to the idea of readingcomprehension, having a long
passage and then having like, 10questions about it on this new
digital SAT, which came out lastyear, you have two or three
sentences, and that's what theycall a text, and there's one
(07:34):
question per text. So studentsare getting, you know, 54 texts
over the course of this test,the math section doesn't really
change much from how you knewit, though. There are some
questions which are of the type,like the ACT science questions,
which I'll explain in a minute,which are more like data
analysis type questions, ormaybe you have to read a graph.
(07:56):
Those are actually sprinkledthroughout the SAT they're not
just on the math question.
You'll see them in a readingpassage or in a grammar
question, but that content ispretty similar across both
tests. It's a little bit morejargony on the ACT, but the
skills that are being tested arestill being tested on the SAT as
well. There is no essay on theSAT. There used to be required
(08:20):
when they got rid of that duringCOVID, and then the whole test
takes about two hours and 14minutes. That's not really
including the breaks or the slowprocess of, you know, filing
into your room and all of that,but the testing itself is two
hours and 14 minutes. Now theACT is a pretty different test.
Generally. We think of one ashaving more time per question,
(08:43):
the SAT and the ACT being a morespeeded test where you don't
have quite as much time perquestion, the ACT is scored out
of 36 It is currently paperbased, and it is a linear test,
meaning how you do on earlyquestions does not determine the
difficulty of the laterquestions as it is on the SAT,
(09:03):
section by section, there arefour sections on the ACT we have
in English, which is reallygrammar, math, reading and
science. Those reading questionsare based on the longer
passages, and science is reallyjust a technical reading
section. I described some ofthose questions that you might
see on the SAT you're going toread, you know, a scatter plot.
You're going to read adescription of an experiment.
(09:25):
You're going to see a table withresults, and you're going to
have to answer questions aboutthose experiments or results.
There are a few questions ineach section that assumes some
outside scientific knowledge,but they tend to be more basic
science facts, like, what isDNA? What is, you know, the
greenhouse effect and thingslike that. But the vast majority
(09:47):
of content in that section isactually given to you in the
passage. So it's like an opennote test. Students just have to
be comfortable reading that kindof technical language and those
graphs and charts the ACT stilloffer. An essay, though no
college requires it, and it is alonger test at two hours and 55
(10:07):
minutes total. Now there arechanges happening to the ACT,
which I'll talk about in my nextslide, but I want you to keep in
mind the perspective that thesetwo tests are competitors. The
SAT is run by the College Board,which is technically a
nonprofit, has very largerevenues. The ACT was just
(10:28):
bought by a private equity firm,and so they are no longer a
nonprofit. They are a for profitcompany, but they are a B Corp,
a certified Benefit Corporation.
So you know, it's supposed to belike doing good things even
though they're a for profitcorporation. But keep that in
mind, because you'll see a lotof the changes that are
happening between these testsand the way that they are
communicating with parents isreally just marketing to compete
(10:49):
for test takers, right? They arecompeting for market share, and
that hopefully will help youremember that these tests are
not necessarily measuringintelligence, or you don't
necessarily have your child'sbest interest in mind. You're a
hoop that we have decided as asociety is important for
students to jump through ontheir way to college. But of
(11:11):
course, we have more and moreschools being test optional, and
I'll talk about those policiesin a second. As I said, the
changes to these tests aremotivated by market share. So
the SAT for a long time. Was apaper test. They turned their
international test digital in2003 and then last year, here in
the US, they turned their testdigital as well. They shortened
(11:36):
it quite a bit, they gavestudents even more time per
question, and they change theformat of the questions a little
bit. This tends to happen aboutevery eight years with the SAT
and it's really obvious thatthey are just looking at what is
the ACT doing? How many morestudents is the ACT taking on?
How can we get those studentsback? The ACT is now responding
(11:56):
in kind. The ACT, for a verylong time, didn't make radical
changes. They did make somechanges, like they added a
comparison passage in thereading section, but they didn't
overhaul the test and change thescoring and all of this stuff
that the SAT likes to dowhenever they make a change. So
this change that is coming forthe ACT supposed to happen in
(12:19):
april 2025 a lot of folks in theindustry are a little skeptical
that the change is going to rollout the way that it was
described to us in Septemberwhen they announced it, because
they haven't really given us,like, detailed updates or
released more practice tests oranything like that. So, you
know, remains to be seen howthis transition is going to go.
But they are transitioning to adigital format, so a computer
(12:42):
based format, but it will not beadaptive. It will stay a linear
test. The questions you doearlier will not determine the
questions you get later. The waythat that happens on the SAT
they are making the sciencesection optional. A lot of
colleges have not told us whattheir policy is going to be on
the science section, whetherthey're going to still require
(13:03):
it or not. I would imagine thateven if a college says, well,
the science section is optionalat the most selective colleges,
I think we can be fairly surethat the majority of candidates
applying will take the sciencesection to be as competitive as
possible. And so if your studentis applying to a test required
(13:24):
school or a highly selectiveschool and decides to take the
ACT, I would say you're probablygoing to need to do the science
section. I actually love thescience section. It's my
favorite section of any of thesetests. If one can have a
favorite, it's like a puzzle,and you do have to move quickly,
and, you know, be accurate, andso there's this, like element of
a race in there, but the ACT ismaking it optional, because they
(13:45):
know the science section is thething that scares a lot of
people off of the A, C, T, eventhough you all know now that
it's just a technical readingsection. It's not like you have
to have an advanced backgroundin physics or something to do
well on it. But a lot of kidsfeel that way, or they're just
sort of turned off by the chartsor the technical jargon, and so
(14:06):
they decide, by default, they'regoing to take the SAT instead of
actually trying the ACT, whichis my recommendation, this new
digital format is also going tohave some small format and
content changes. So we knowright now, the ACT has four
reading passages, long readingpassages. They are going to
introduce two short readingpassages into that mix as well.
(14:27):
We know that science generallycovers, you know, these topics.
They are expanding the list oftopics to include some
engineering type passages,again, not requiring outside
background knowledge. It's allgoing to be in the passage, but
the topic is going to be morerelated to engineering and
design. Instead of five answerchoices in the math section,
(14:48):
they're going down to four, somostly cosmetic changes.
Students who have been preparingfor the ACT in its paper form
will probably not find it toohard to move to this. Test
digital form. But it's importantto know that the paper form is
not going anywhere. The ACT hassaid we'll always offer a paper
test so you can choose whetheryou want to do a test on a
(15:08):
computer screen or paper. Andthat does really make a
difference for students, whetherthey can mark up their test or,
you know, do math, scratch workright on the diagram, instead of
looking at on a screen andhaving to write it somewhere
else, or just like eye fatigue,right? That changes things for
students. So that's definitelysomething you're going to want
to take into account as you'replanning your students testing
strategy. But this paper versionis going to stay in the old
(15:32):
format of the ACT until the Julytest, and then in September, the
paper version is going to changeto match this new digital
format, but it'll still beavailable in paper, so you'll
have a little more flexibilitythere. Now, if you have a junior
who is considering taking thisdigital ACT, I would say, don't
do it in April, unless there areconstrictions on their time, and
(15:53):
you really got to get a testdone in April. And for whatever
reason you can't do the paper,maybe you have to. But this is a
little bit of a like guinea pigsituation I wouldn't want you to
be in, right? So if you don'thave to do it, don't do it.
Stick with the paper ACT. Wehave lots of practice materials.
We know what that test lookslike, and then hopefully you'll
be done with testing before itswitches. I'm gonna keep it
(16:16):
moving a little bit. There aremany different policies out
there. There are some schoolsthat are requiring tests. There
are some schools that say, Hey,even if you have a great test
score, we're not going to letyou submit it to us. We're not
using test scores in ouradmissions policy or admissions
evaluation. And then themajority of schools are test
optional. So those testsrequired schools, some of them
(16:38):
are just like the public schoolsin Florida are all tests
required, and that seems to be apolitical choice. There are a
lot of highly selective schools,so like a lot of the Ivy League
schools, brought the test backlast year, MIT has required the
test, Georgetown has broughtback the test, and then on the
test blind side, the Universityof California system is probably
(16:59):
the most famous set of schoolsthat are test blind. But you
know, we can count how many testblind schools there are and how
many test required schools thereare. Probably just on my fingers
and toes, test optional is over2100 right? So the majority,
vast majority of colleges aretest optional. And test optional
really started becoming a thingin the 80s. And then, of course,
(17:20):
with COVID, we had like a majorswitch. But even before COVID,
there were over 1000 schoolsthat were test optional, and
then COVID made almost everybodytest optional. And these are
just the major categories here.
Each school kind of talks abouttheir policy a little bit
(17:41):
differently. So you'll see someschools that are technically
test optional, but if you readthe fine print, they say, we
really expect you to have a testscore, and they might call their
policy test expected. So there'sa lot to navigate in here. So
when you're building yourcollege lists, really important
to look at what the policies areright now, consider whether they
(18:02):
might be changing, becausecolleges are changing their
policies every year. And then,you know, as we'll talk about in
a moment, think about what yourstudents abilities are on these
tests as you make your decision,it's also important to know that
a student may be applying to avariety of these schools. Maybe
some of the schools are testrequired, and some of them are
(18:23):
test optional, and some of themare test blind, Even so, it
might not be a question of, arethey going to take the test or
not. It might be more of aquestion of, are they submitting
their score or not. And that mayhave to do with the policies of
the schools. It may also have todo with how competitive their
score is with the average scoresof the applicants to those those
(18:44):
schools. So like I said, it'svery nuanced, as if this process
didn't need to be morecomplicated, is very
complicated, all right? And thenone note of caution, as I sort
of tease, colleges are changingtheir policies. So I'll give you
an example. Harvard said thatthey would be test optional
until 2026 Well, guess what?
Last year, they've canceled thatpolicy, and they said, Just
(19:07):
kidding, we're bringing the testback next fall. And that didn't
give people a lot of time to geta test score together if they
needed it, if they didn't haveone already. There have already
been a couple of schools thathave decided to go from test
optional to test required thisyear. University of Miami is one
that just comes to mind. And atthe same time, there are still
schools whose test optionalpolicy was set to expire this
(19:28):
year, and they decided to extendit or make it permanent. So this
is a changing landscape. And oneother thing that I really have
to mention is there's a wholelot going on at the Department
of Education right now, and oneof the things that happened in a
letter that the Department ofEducation sent this to the
colleges perhaps test optionalpolicies are illegal. Most
people in my industry arereceiving that with just like
(19:53):
complete disbelief like this isnot going to change, but remains
to be seen. And how that's goingto be playing out, and a lot of
that uncertainty is why I'mgoing to recommend to you that
everybody take a good look attheir testing plan and have a
backup plan in case some schoolthat they just love ends up
becoming test required. Okay,not to freak you out more.
(20:16):
Sorry, but have to say it, Ialso think it's important to
make sure you all understand therole of test scores in
admission. Now, the reasoncolleges say that they want to
see test scores is because itprovides this additional data
point on a student's academicpreparation or readiness,
ability to succeed in theircollege. A lot of research shows
that it doesn't really add thatmuch more information they can
(20:39):
get that information prettyreliably from looking at things
like the GPA, the rigor of thecoursework that students are
taking, things like that, butsome schools have just decided
they want that extra piece ofinformation. Now, even when the
test scores are required, theyare still never the top factor
in deciding whether somebodygets in or not, we've been
(21:01):
tracking, not me personally, butthe industry has been tracking
the factors in admission, ascolleges say, these are the
things we look at in anapplication, and this is sort of
how we think of them. In orderof importance, test scores have
never been the top factor.
Sometimes they're number threeor four, depending on the
(21:22):
school. And of course, sincethings have gone more test
optional, they're just droppingand dropping in importance, but
they're always considered incontext. And most colleges in
the United States use somethingcalled holistic admissions,
where they're looking at, youknow, the grades, the
recommendation, the leadership,the essays, all sorts of things
to form a picture of a student,and the test score is just like
(21:44):
one little point, right? And sowithout scores, colleges can
still make good decisions. Theylook for confirmation of
academic skill and preparation.
In other areas, they may pay alittle more attention to the
recommendations or an academicextracurricular or summer
program that the student did,sometimes they'll request a
graded paper with a teacher'scomments on it so they can
(22:06):
really understand the student'sabilities in you know, a
particular area. So be preparedto see that if, if your student
is looking at schools that aretest optional or decides not to
submit a score, because theseare areas you can use to really
demonstrate that academicreadiness. So giving you lots
and lots of context andbackground information, I'm sure
(22:27):
the thing you actually reallywant to know is like, Well, what
do I do? I have all thisknowledge now. How do I make the
choice? And so as I said, Ithink it's really important that
everybody has some sort ofbackup plan. Have a plan for
testing. So every student, Ibelieve, should take diagnostic
practice tests to assess theirbaseline performance. And I
(22:47):
usually recommend this at theend of 10th grade. It's not
really useful to do it before.
I'll talk about why in a moment,practice tests are freely
available on the ACT and the SATwebsite. I'm going to give you a
link at the end of this talkthat will point you to those
sites so that you can justdownload the tests, have your
student do it in a realisticsetting, and then you can talk
(23:11):
with the testing expert. That'smy second step here, who can
help you compare those results.
Now there is an officialconcordance between the two
tests so we understand, you knowwhat an SAT score of 1300 would
be on an ACT, and that canreally help us decide which test
is actually better for them,right? If they got a 1300 on the
ACT, we know that correlates.
(23:32):
I'm making this up. I don't knowthe number off the top of my
head. Let's say it correlates tolike a 29 on the A, C, T, but
when they did a Practice ACT,they actually got 31 that means
there's a relative strength onthe ACT, and that's probably the
test I would recommend. Butbeyond comparing those numbers,
which is a little morequantitative, we really also
want to understand, well, ifthey are going to do that test,
(23:55):
what do they need to work on,both in terms of the content
that they need to review, thetype of strategies that they
need to learn and practice, andthat can help us understand when
should they test, what do theyneed to do in the testing test
prep process. But there reallyis an entire ecosystem
quantitative and qualitativefactors to really build a
(24:15):
strategic plan. And you want toremember that this is not just
test prep for the sake of testprep, if you're going to do one
of these tests, it better play areally important role in your
college strategy. We're nottaking the SAT just to see how
high we can score and likethat's our only goal. It's
hopefully going to make usstronger college applicants for
(24:36):
the colleges that we're lookingat. And so you really do need to
keep your college list in mind,as you're also doing this. And
so here's my kind of map ofthose factors. The college list
is important not just because ofthe policies of those colleges,
but because of the averagescores that their admitted
(24:56):
students tend to have. So thenyou can understand already is
my. Score kind of where it needsto be in order to be competitive
at that school, studentengagement. I put that first
after the college list, becauseit really is a make or break
factor. If your kid is just notinto it, they've decided, No way
am I doing the ACT or SAT andthere's no change in their mind.
(25:20):
Doesn't matter what the strategyor plan is when a kid really
digs in their heels, you know,usually it's pretty hard to get
around that, though, I will saythe right tutor, the right
college counselor, the rightmentor, can really help them
move through that block and seehow it might open some doors for
(25:40):
them only if, in fact, it willopen doors. Right? We don't want
to waste our goodwill gettingthem to get on board with
testing only to find out, well,they're not going to use the
test score. So you know, that'swhy I said. It's an ecosystem.
It depends on a lot ofvariables. I also encourage
parents to really keep in mindthe mental health and stress
levels of their kids, moststudents will be practicing and
(26:01):
prepping during their junioryear, which is a really hard
year. It's the first timestudents are in a lot of high
level classes. They might havemore responsibility in their
extracurriculars. Maybe theyjust got their driver's license,
right? There's a lot going on inthat year, and so adding in
testing might not be good ifit's going to be a distraction
(26:24):
from their grades, which we knoware more important on the whole
in a college application than atest score, if it's going to
stress them out so much thatwe're going to lose sleep over
it. It's like gonna cause realproblems. It's not always worth
it. We also want to assess theirtest taking ability. And this
could be as simple as like, dothey remember their geometry
(26:46):
formulas, or do they know how touse a semi colon? It could also
be, are they, you know,confident in managing their
time? Do they understand how topace themselves? Are they adept
at avoiding careless errors? Oris that their biggest problem,
right? Because some of thoseproblems, like, they don't know
how to use a semi colon, wecould fix that in 30 seconds, if
(27:06):
they have, you know, real timemanagement problems, that's
going to take a couple of weeksto work on, right? And that
needs to be integrated into yourplan. And then, of course, the
timeline and availability, whenwould four to five minutes of
prep. And that doesn'tnecessarily mean they're doing a
course for five week or fivemonths or working with a tutor
for five months, but they aregoing to have to study and
(27:29):
practice and keep practice,testing and all of this stuff,
even as maybe they're learningactive learning has stopped.
They need to practice this. Andmost students do take the test
two or three times. So even ifthey're only prepping for three
months before the first test,they might need to take it
again, right? And so they'regoing to have to do something in
between. So we want to assesswhen would that fit into their
(27:51):
lives best? And I do recommendthat it's like all at once. If
you try to do a little bit ofprep, maybe over the summer, and
then you stop and you startagain next spring. Now they
would have lost a lot of theskill that they've developed, or
the, you know, memory of some ofthose formulas or whatever they
might need in that time inbetween. So you really do want
(28:13):
to find a consistent length oftime where they can be engaged
in learning what to do, studyingon their own and practicing on
their own. And then it's alsoimportant to think about like,
when do they need a score? Sowe'll talk a little bit about
the timeline for each grade. ButI do like to see juniors
finished with testing by thesummer after junior year.
(28:35):
Hopefully it doesn't even gointo the summer. Hopefully by
like, June at the end of theirjunior year, they're done, they
have the score they want, orthey have committed to going
test optional, and they're noteven thinking about it anymore.
We've moved on to working oncollege essays and the rest of
that stuff, because you don'twant the college application to
take over the fall of senioryear, because when school
(28:55):
starts, it gets crazy again. Gota lot of things to manage.
Starting a little bit earlierwill help you. So if you are a
junior or parent of a junior, itis time to get a move on on this
testing plan. If you haven'talready built your college list,
and maybe you're stillformulating some of it, and
there's some chance that youmight need a score, or you just
(29:15):
want to know, like, hey, like,where am I on the testing kind
of spectrum here, and would ascore be helpful for me, even if
none of my schools require it, Irecommend you get the
diagnostics done as soon aspossible and then talk to
someone like me or one of mycolleagues to figure out what
you should do, because youreally want to make sure you
(29:37):
leave time for prep time for asecond test and then try to be
done before the end of theschool year, which means right
now is the time to start andagain. You want to lock in that
score before 12th grade starts.
There are opportunities toretake the test in 12th grade if
you absolutely need to. But justknow that that adds another
thing on top of actuallyapplying to the colleges and.
(29:58):
And maintaining your grades andextracurriculars in 12th grade,
it's a lot to deal with. Now, ifyou are the parent of a 10th
grader, you have a little moretime. I recommend taking the
practice tests right afterschool is out. Or if your
student is really curious aboutthis stuff, some of them want to
do it over spring break. That'sfine, too, but wait towards the
end of 10th grade, and then gothrough that process of, you
(30:22):
know, analyzing the results,looking at your college list,
and build a really intentionalplan. I do work with a lot of
10th graders who want to prepover the summer between 10th and
11th grade. I highly recommendthat if it fits in with your
students schedule, because itcan be really nice to either
just take the test at the end ofthe summer and be done with it,
(30:43):
or be ready to tackle the testin the fall of junior year,
before things get really, reallyintense at school, or before
you're bumping up against theseother kinds of deadlines in the
spring. And then, if you have aninth grader or lower, you have
a lot of time, and as Imentioned earlier, the space is
always changing, so it's reallynot worth locking in a plan just
(31:06):
yet. Colleges also prefer to seescores from later in high
school, in junior or senioryear. So even if they could take
the test in freshman year andget a really good score, I
usually recommend against it,because you might want to submit
a more recent score with yourapplications. I also recognize
there are a lot of families whoare like, Oh, I think my kid
(31:28):
might be one of those whodoesn't like tests or doesn't
perform their best on tests, andwe want to get an early start on
the prep to make sure that bythe time they need a score, they
are really comfortable. And Itotally understand that. But the
thing we want to balance thatconcern with is not burning out
the kid. If you're gonna embarkon like a two year test prep
(31:50):
plan, your students gonna getover it really fast. You might
run out of good practicematerials. And again, that
question of goodwill you mightbe focusing their attention on
something that they may notneed, they may not reap the
benefit from, they may have todo again later. And then, of
(32:10):
course, the all thisuncertainty. So there are ways
to help your students becomebetter students and test takers
in their school classes that istotally separate from the SAT or
the ACT, right? Actually, I liketo share that when I'm working
with student on test prep, Itell them, I say, Look me in the
(32:30):
eye. I want to make sure you'rehearing me. What I'm teaching
you to do on the ACT I neverwant you to do in school, right?
There are, you know, shortcuts.
There are ways to speed throughreading content and things like
that that will actually hurtthem in their English classes or
(32:52):
wherever else they they mightwant to try to apply it. And so
school academic performance isvery separate from performance
on an SAT or an ACT, right? Soif you're concerned about your
students general test takingability, or if they get anxious
about tests in school, Iwouldn't say SAT ACT prep is the
(33:13):
place to start them. I would sayan executive function coach,
sort of confidence coach, maybeeven a subject tutor for
whatever classes they're feelingthis way in is the way to go,
right? Somebody who can helpthem with study skills and test
taking skills, not necessarilySAT ACT skills. Alright? I
harped on that point a lotbecause I get that question a
(33:33):
lot from families. So my companyonly does one on one prep, but
we know a lot of people in thisspace that do courses or group
sessions. You know, one of thethings that sometimes we'll do
with like really precociousstudents, is set up a study plan
for them and just check in withthem once every three weeks,
instead of our normal weeklymeeting. So there are a lot of
(33:54):
different ways to approach this,and it all depends on how your
student does on one of thesepractice tests. It's really,
it's really key to building agood study plan.
Guest 1 (34:05):
I have a question so kind of sounds like maybe,
unless your kid is reallyshooting for a top tier, very
competitive school, the factthat all these schools are test
optional, it doesn't hurt yourkid to just forego this
altogether. Is that kind of areasonable interpretation?
Sheila Akbar (34:26):
That is absolutely a reasonable interpretation with
a couple of caveats. The firstI'll say is the policies are
changing and could still changethis year for people who are
applying in the fall. So youdon't want to be caught flat
footed on that, right? If theyhave built a college list, and
they will feel really good aboutit, all of a sudden, two of the
(34:47):
schools on their list decidethey're going to require
testing. Are you comfortabledropping those schools, or
should we just try a test?
Right? So that's why I sayeverybody should do the
diagnostic and create a plan.
You may end up not needing it,but. But at least you have the
information if you do need to goforward with testing. The second
caveat I will share with you isthat you can see on a college's
(35:10):
common data set, you just Googlelike the name of the college,
and then the words common dataset, you can see how many
students enrolled, so it's nothow many applied or how many
were admitted, but how manystudents ended up enrolling had
an SAT or an ACT score. And youcan actually see how many of
them had SAT and how many ofthem had ACT I don't want you to
(35:32):
think that differences in thosenumbers mean that, oh, this
school really likes the SAT morebecause 40% had SAT scores and
only 20% had ACT scores, but youwill be shocked at how many
students apply test optional andget in. Some schools, it's like
15% submit test scores. Otherschools, you're going to see
(35:53):
it's more like 60 or 70% so itreally behooves you, as you're
building your colleges, to takea look at that information and
make sure you're understanding.
Do most of the students who gothere? Do they submit scores, or
do they not before you decidesort of a blanket we're not
going to do it.
Guest 1 (36:13):
Yeah, that second part is definitely really helpful to
know. So thank you.
Sheila Akbar (36:16):
Good. Yeah, great question. Okay, we had a couple
of other questions - Would it bebetter to take the ACT in June
versus April? I think it reallydepends on your student, how
close are they to their targetscore, the score that they
eventually want to get, becauseif they're further from it, then
June would probably be better.
There's no difference in, like,the difficulty of the test on
the different months. That'slike, kind of an urban legend
(36:40):
that has persisted for a longtime, but it's not the case. And
so that is really not going tofactor in. But the other thing
to think about is like, what isyour student got going on? Are
they going to be studying for APexams right before the June ACT?
And that might be a distractionfrom studying for the June ACT,
and then in that case, maybe theApril one is better. There are a
lot of kind of factors to thinkabout there. There are some good
(37:02):
questions coming in. Do we havea recommended resource to
understand what is happeningwith testing changes over time?
Having a freshman, it soundslike we may need to watch for
changes. Absolutely Watch thisspace, the best resource. So I
was talking to a gentleman namedBob who popped in at the
beginning. He had to leave, buthe runs a group called fair
test, and they are a testingwatchdog that maintains a list
(37:26):
of test optional schools.
They're the people that I ampaying attention to to find out
when some school has, likeannounced a change to their
policy. They do a lot ofresearch and advocacy in this
space. So that's definitely theone of the easiest places to go
to. If you're not alreadyfollowing me on LinkedIn, you
(37:47):
know, you'll always hear aboutit from me as well. You know,
whether it's on my mailing listor just on LinkedIn. So there
are a couple of places that thatyou can look for that. Okay, we
got another question. This is agood one. A lot of people ask
this question, if my child's GPAis weak, would taking the test
help improve her chances takingthe test, I don't know, having a
(38:09):
really strong test score, yes.
So if they have a, you know,some weakness in their GPA, a
strong test score is not goingto make up for that, by any
means, but it could indicate,you know, some of these academic
skills, that, for whateverreason, they're just better at
showing on a standardized testthan they are in school. Now, I
will say, if you have a choiceof you know, where should we
(38:31):
invest our energy? Is it findinga way to bring up her GPA, or
putting all these resources intoprep and hoping that she gets a
test score that reallyoutperforms with the GPA, would
suggest, I would say, invest instrengthening her academic
skills so you can bring up theGPA colleges do love to see a
grade trend, right? It's okay ifninth grade or maybe 10th grade,
(38:53):
there are a couple of weakspots, but by the time that
they're hitting, you know, endof 10th grade, beginning of 11th
grade, we really hope thatthey've hit their stride there.
They figured out high school,they've figured out their you
know, their study skills and howto keep themselves organized,
and then their grades are reallyimproving. You can tell that
story in a college application.
(39:16):
Just slapping a high test scoreon top of mediocre GPA might
actually raise more questionsthan you know, make them feel
confident. Oh, the student canhandle it, right? And so you
have to remember all thesethings are interacting with each
other, but certainly a strongtest score typically helps a
(39:36):
student. All right. What otherquestions do we have?
Guest 2 (39:41):
Sheila, Hi, it's Amy.
Can you say one more time whatthe common data set is telling
us? It's telling us how manykids enrolled and which tests
they took. Is that right?
Sheila Akbar (39:53):
Yes, yes. So the common data set actually has
just a wealth of information. Soas you build your college list,
that is a. Resource. I encourageyou to go to often if you're
working with someone like me oranyone on my team like that's
where we're going for our truth,right? How many men applied? How
many women applied? Were theyout of state? Were they in
state? Who had ACT scores? Whatis the score distribution like?
(40:15):
What's at the 90th percentile?
What's at the 80th percentile?
Right? It's how we advise onwhether you should submit the
score you have or retake thetest or whatever, right? So you
will see lots of information onthe common data set, but you are
correct. They tell you thepercentage of enrolled students
that submitted an ACT score oran SAT score.
Guest 2 (40:37):
But it tells you a lot.
It sounds like it tells you alot of a lot of other stuff.
Pick a school, go learn how toread it, understand the data.
Okay, awesome.
Sheila Akbar (40:44):
Yeah, it's a really great resource. Well, I'm
going to tell you about what weare doing next month. We are
doing a session. The ideas formy sessions always come from
conversations I have withparents, and the conversation I
seem to be having this year is,oh, my God, how do I get through
high school with this teenageboy? So if that's you, that is
(41:06):
the session we are doing nextmonth. We've got a panel of
experts who are going to talkabout what parents can do. How
can parents structure theirconversations so that their
student is a little more willingto listen to them? Why are boys
so unwilling to accept help.
We're gonna have two of myacademic skills coaches join us,
who typically work with most ofour boys that come to us, and
(41:27):
we'll hear some success storiesfrom them too. So you know, it
is possible to get through it.
Things can really change. Allright, so you heard me mention
the session that we're about todo on surviving high school with
a teenage boy at the end of thatreplay, turns out that session
(41:48):
is today, March 27 so maybe notsoon enough for any of you to
get it, but you can access thatrecording on our website, at
Signet education.com/events, Youcan access recordings of any of
these sessions there, and we'llhave a replay of that session on
the podcast in the coming weeksas well. So stay tuned. If that
(42:10):
sounds like something that wouldbe really useful for you. We're
also continuing with our livecoaching and Q and A sessions,
and I'm excited next episode tohave signets account manager
Emmeline cook join me for aconversation, so you won't just
hear me drone on and on. I'llhave a co host to banter with,
and we'll be tackling some ofthe questions that she hears day
(42:33):
in and day out from the clientswho call us all right, I hope
you all taking care ofyourselves and each other, and
we'll see you next time. Thanks.
So you may not be feeling the kind of frustration
(00:02):
that the title of this webinarsuggests, but believe me, there
are a lot of people feeling thisway, and what I want to do today
is just sort of take the stresslevels down, help you understand
what is going on with testing.
What do you need to know aboutthe SAT the ACT test, optional
potential policy changes, andthen how do you navigate it?
Right?
(00:35):
Hi folks. Welcome back to thepodcast. I can hardly believe
it's the end of March. I'm suremany of you are in the same kind
of disbelief, but here we are,and in springtime, I tend to
start thinking about testing. Ofcourse, that's maybe very
specific thing that I start tothink about. But you know, if
(00:55):
we're working with juniors, Ireally want to make sure they
have a clear plan. They'reeither about to take the test,
or they've started their prep,and we've got a plan for if
they're testing, it will be doneby the end of the school year or
into the summer. If we'reworking with sophomores, they
start to put testing on theirradar. Not that they need to
start prepping or doinganything, but we need to start
(01:17):
thinking about a plan. Are yougoing to test? Which test are
you going to take? When are yougoing to study? When are you
going to take it, all of thatstuff. So for me, Spring is the
season of testing, and thisspring we are expecting some
changes to the ACT, and we knowlast spring we had a big shift
in the SAT over to the digitalversion. So today, what I'm
(01:39):
sharing with you is a replay ofa recent webinar I did, kind of
explaining those changes andhelping people understand, what
do they need to know about howthe testing landscape has
changed, what's the timelinethey should be operating on?
And, you know, sort of brasstacks around. How do you choose
which test to take? How docolleges see it? How do you get
(02:01):
a hold of data that helps youmake the right decisions, both
for your child and for theircollege applications? And so I
do you know a couple of thesesessions a year, actually,
because there's been so manychanges in the testing
landscape, and this one is no nodifferent. So I hope you find
this helpful. One of the thingsthat you'll hear me say, here is
(02:21):
everybody should get some dataon how they're going to perform
and then talk to somebody theytrust who can really help them
understand what's going to bethe best decision for them. And
so if you are curious if yourstudent has already done a PSAT
or a pre ACT, and you just wantan opinion on should they test?
(02:43):
Should they not test? Well,what's going to happen? Please
just give us a call. Most testprep companies also do these
sort of free consultations, butlike I said, just be aware of
who you're talking to, and getgood information and make the
right decision for your kids.
All right, take a listen to thereplay, and I'll see you on the
other side. Well, I'm Sheila.
(03:04):
I'm signets, President and CEO.
And you know, in my line ofwork, I focus a lot on college
admissions, executive function,navigating High School and, of
course, standardized testing. Weare really paying attention to
what is going on in the testingworld. And so when I hear, oh my
gosh, the ACT is now changingformat, this is my reaction,
likemore testing changes. And for
(03:26):
me, it's sort of my lifeblood. Ineed to know what's going on
here. But for a parent who isjust starting to test the waters
in high school, thinking about,does my kid need to test? You
probably don't even know thathow many changes have been going
on. So you may not be feelingthe kind of frustration that the
title of this webinar suggests,but believe me, there are a lot
(03:49):
of people feeling this way, andwhat I want to do today is just
sort of take the stress levelsdown, help you understand what
is going on with testing. Whatdo you need to know about the
SAT the ACT test, optionalpotential policy changes, and
then, how do you navigate itright? You probably don't know
yet whether your kid needs atest score or not. Hopefully you
(04:09):
have some time to plan aheadbefore they get to that phase of
their college applicationprocess. But I want to give you
a sense of how you can movethrough this keeping your
child's best interest in mindand their actual goals in mind
without feeling like, you know,you're listening to 15 million
voices and the story keepschanging and you don't really
know what to do. So we are goingto dive in with just sort of an
(04:33):
emotion check here. I wastalking to a colleague of mine,
and we were saying, like, youknow, the fact that you have to
take the test is just sort ofthe tip of the iceberg. The
thing that's really stressfulabout it is not necessarily the
sitting for a couple of hours ona Saturday morning and filling
in the bubbles. It's all theemotions that are coming up
around it, and some of them comeway. Before you even start the
(04:59):
process of looking into what youneed to do, right? I get calls
from parents all the time whoare convinced that they are too
late or so worried that evenbringing up testing to their
child is going to spike theiranxiety through the roof. We're
not sure what colleges reallywant. Who do I listen to? Maybe
your kid is one of those that'sa little bit more disengaged
(05:21):
from their academics or thinkingabout college, and so that's
another worry. But I just wantyou to know, I know there's a
lot going on for you. Is one ofthe reasons we do these free
webinars every month, just totry to, like, connect and like,
get the right information andmake sure you have what you need
so you can parent withconfidence through this process,
(05:42):
I want to start with just kindof grounding us and what is the
reality? What is on these tests?
We have a couple of optionsthese days when it comes to
testing for college admissions,you can take the SAT, you can
take the ACT, or you cannot takea test. And I'll help you think
about when is that appropriatefor your child. If, like me, you
(06:05):
applied to college in the 90s,you probably took one of these
tests. Most colleges requiredthem. We have the SAT which
definitely at that time was alittle more popular among test
takers, not necessarily amongcolleges, but among test takers
on the coasts, or if you're likeme, you grew up in the Midwest,
the ACT was the one we alltalked about. Colleges today do
(06:28):
not have a preference betweenthe two tests, and so it is in
your best interest, your child'sbest interest, if you're going
to take a test to figure outwhich one they are more
naturally suited to, which onethey feel is easier for them.
Now, neither of them are justeasy. They require some practice
and preparation, but becausethey are in different formats,
(06:49):
some students are just going torespond better to one or the
other, and it's worth figuringout which one that is for your
kid. So the SAT is scored out of1600 it is now a digital test
given on a computer screen. Itis also computer adaptive, which
means how you do on one sectiondetermines how you do on the
next version of that same topicthat you get. You have four
(07:13):
sections to our reading andwriting, which I'll just
shorthand is verbal to our math.
The verbal questions are basedon short text. So you might be
used to the idea of readingcomprehension, having a long
passage and then having like, 10questions about it on this new
digital SAT, which came out lastyear, you have two or three
sentences, and that's what theycall a text, and there's one
(07:34):
question per text. So studentsare getting, you know, 54 texts
over the course of this test,the math section doesn't really
change much from how you knewit, though. There are some
questions which are of the type,like the ACT science questions,
which I'll explain in a minute,which are more like data
analysis type questions, ormaybe you have to read a graph.
(07:56):
Those are actually sprinkledthroughout the SAT they're not
just on the math question.
You'll see them in a readingpassage or in a grammar
question, but that content ispretty similar across both
tests. It's a little bit morejargony on the ACT, but the
skills that are being tested arestill being tested on the SAT as
well. There is no essay on theSAT. There used to be required
(08:20):
when they got rid of that duringCOVID, and then the whole test
takes about two hours and 14minutes. That's not really
including the breaks or the slowprocess of, you know, filing
into your room and all of that,but the testing itself is two
hours and 14 minutes. Now theACT is a pretty different test.
Generally. We think of one ashaving more time per question,
(08:43):
the SAT and the ACT being a morespeeded test where you don't
have quite as much time perquestion, the ACT is scored out
of 36 It is currently paperbased, and it is a linear test,
meaning how you do on earlyquestions does not determine the
difficulty of the laterquestions as it is on the SAT,
(09:03):
section by section, there arefour sections on the ACT we have
in English, which is reallygrammar, math, reading and
science. Those reading questionsare based on the longer
passages, and science is reallyjust a technical reading
section. I described some ofthose questions that you might
see on the SAT you're going toread, you know, a scatter plot.
You're going to read adescription of an experiment.
(09:25):
You're going to see a table withresults, and you're going to
have to answer questions aboutthose experiments or results.
There are a few questions ineach section that assumes some
outside scientific knowledge,but they tend to be more basic
science facts, like, what isDNA? What is, you know, the
greenhouse effect and thingslike that. But the vast majority
(09:47):
of content in that section isactually given to you in the
passage. So it's like an opennote test. Students just have to
be comfortable reading that kindof technical language and those
graphs and charts the ACT stilloffer. An essay, though no
college requires it, and it is alonger test at two hours and 55
(10:07):
minutes total. Now there arechanges happening to the ACT,
which I'll talk about in my nextslide, but I want you to keep in
mind the perspective that thesetwo tests are competitors. The
SAT is run by the College Board,which is technically a
nonprofit, has very largerevenues. The ACT was just
(10:28):
bought by a private equity firm,and so they are no longer a
nonprofit. They are a for profitcompany, but they are a B Corp,
a certified Benefit Corporation.
So you know, it's supposed to belike doing good things even
though they're a for profitcorporation. But keep that in
mind, because you'll see a lotof the changes that are
happening between these testsand the way that they are
communicating with parents isreally just marketing to compete
(10:49):
for test takers, right? They arecompeting for market share, and
that hopefully will help youremember that these tests are
not necessarily measuringintelligence, or you don't
necessarily have your child'sbest interest in mind. You're a
hoop that we have decided as asociety is important for
students to jump through ontheir way to college. But of
(11:11):
course, we have more and moreschools being test optional, and
I'll talk about those policiesin a second. As I said, the
changes to these tests aremotivated by market share. So
the SAT for a long time. Was apaper test. They turned their
international test digital in2003 and then last year, here in
the US, they turned their testdigital as well. They shortened
(11:36):
it quite a bit, they gavestudents even more time per
question, and they change theformat of the questions a little
bit. This tends to happen aboutevery eight years with the SAT
and it's really obvious thatthey are just looking at what is
the ACT doing? How many morestudents is the ACT taking on?
How can we get those studentsback? The ACT is now responding
(11:56):
in kind. The ACT, for a verylong time, didn't make radical
changes. They did make somechanges, like they added a
comparison passage in thereading section, but they didn't
overhaul the test and change thescoring and all of this stuff
that the SAT likes to dowhenever they make a change. So
this change that is coming forthe ACT supposed to happen in
(12:19):
april 2025 a lot of folks in theindustry are a little skeptical
that the change is going to rollout the way that it was
described to us in Septemberwhen they announced it, because
they haven't really given us,like, detailed updates or
released more practice tests oranything like that. So, you
know, remains to be seen howthis transition is going to go.
But they are transitioning to adigital format, so a computer
(12:42):
based format, but it will not beadaptive. It will stay a linear
test. The questions you doearlier will not determine the
questions you get later. The waythat that happens on the SAT
they are making the sciencesection optional. A lot of
colleges have not told us whattheir policy is going to be on
the science section, whetherthey're going to still require
(13:03):
it or not. I would imagine thateven if a college says, well,
the science section is optionalat the most selective colleges,
I think we can be fairly surethat the majority of candidates
applying will take the sciencesection to be as competitive as
possible. And so if your studentis applying to a test required
(13:24):
school or a highly selectiveschool and decides to take the
ACT, I would say you're probablygoing to need to do the science
section. I actually love thescience section. It's my
favorite section of any of thesetests. If one can have a
favorite, it's like a puzzle,and you do have to move quickly,
and, you know, be accurate, andso there's this, like element of
a race in there, but the ACT ismaking it optional, because they
(13:45):
know the science section is thething that scares a lot of
people off of the A, C, T, eventhough you all know now that
it's just a technical readingsection. It's not like you have
to have an advanced backgroundin physics or something to do
well on it. But a lot of kidsfeel that way, or they're just
sort of turned off by the chartsor the technical jargon, and so
(14:06):
they decide, by default, they'regoing to take the SAT instead of
actually trying the ACT, whichis my recommendation, this new
digital format is also going tohave some small format and
content changes. So we knowright now, the ACT has four
reading passages, long readingpassages. They are going to
introduce two short readingpassages into that mix as well.
(14:27):
We know that science generallycovers, you know, these topics.
They are expanding the list oftopics to include some
engineering type passages,again, not requiring outside
background knowledge. It's allgoing to be in the passage, but
the topic is going to be morerelated to engineering and
design. Instead of five answerchoices in the math section,
(14:48):
they're going down to four, somostly cosmetic changes.
Students who have been preparingfor the ACT in its paper form
will probably not find it toohard to move to this. Test
digital form. But it's importantto know that the paper form is
not going anywhere. The ACT hassaid we'll always offer a paper
test so you can choose whetheryou want to do a test on a
(15:08):
computer screen or paper. Andthat does really make a
difference for students, whetherthey can mark up their test or,
you know, do math, scratch workright on the diagram, instead of
looking at on a screen andhaving to write it somewhere
else, or just like eye fatigue,right? That changes things for
students. So that's definitelysomething you're going to want
to take into account as you'replanning your students testing
strategy. But this paper versionis going to stay in the old
(15:32):
format of the ACT until the Julytest, and then in September, the
paper version is going to changeto match this new digital
format, but it'll still beavailable in paper, so you'll
have a little more flexibilitythere. Now, if you have a junior
who is considering taking thisdigital ACT, I would say, don't
do it in April, unless there areconstrictions on their time, and
(15:53):
you really got to get a testdone in April. And for whatever
reason you can't do the paper,maybe you have to. But this is a
little bit of a like guinea pigsituation I wouldn't want you to
be in, right? So if you don'thave to do it, don't do it.
Stick with the paper ACT. Wehave lots of practice materials.
We know what that test lookslike, and then hopefully you'll
be done with testing before itswitches. I'm gonna keep it
(16:16):
moving a little bit. There aremany different policies out
there. There are some schoolsthat are requiring tests. There
are some schools that say, Hey,even if you have a great test
score, we're not going to letyou submit it to us. We're not
using test scores in ouradmissions policy or admissions
evaluation. And then themajority of schools are test
optional. So those testsrequired schools, some of them
(16:38):
are just like the public schoolsin Florida are all tests
required, and that seems to be apolitical choice. There are a
lot of highly selective schools,so like a lot of the Ivy League
schools, brought the test backlast year, MIT has required the
test, Georgetown has broughtback the test, and then on the
test blind side, the Universityof California system is probably
(16:59):
the most famous set of schoolsthat are test blind. But you
know, we can count how many testblind schools there are and how
many test required schools thereare. Probably just on my fingers
and toes, test optional is over2100 right? So the majority,
vast majority of colleges aretest optional. And test optional
really started becoming a thingin the 80s. And then, of course,
(17:20):
with COVID, we had like a majorswitch. But even before COVID,
there were over 1000 schoolsthat were test optional, and
then COVID made almost everybodytest optional. And these are
just the major categories here.
Each school kind of talks abouttheir policy a little bit
(17:41):
differently. So you'll see someschools that are technically
test optional, but if you readthe fine print, they say, we
really expect you to have a testscore, and they might call their
policy test expected. So there'sa lot to navigate in here. So
when you're building yourcollege lists, really important
to look at what the policies areright now, consider whether they
(18:02):
might be changing, becausecolleges are changing their
policies every year. And then,you know, as we'll talk about in
a moment, think about what yourstudents abilities are on these
tests as you make your decision,it's also important to know that
a student may be applying to avariety of these schools. Maybe
some of the schools are testrequired, and some of them are
(18:23):
test optional, and some of themare test blind, Even so, it
might not be a question of, arethey going to take the test or
not. It might be more of aquestion of, are they submitting
their score or not. And that mayhave to do with the policies of
the schools. It may also have todo with how competitive their
score is with the average scoresof the applicants to those those
(18:44):
schools. So like I said, it'svery nuanced, as if this process
didn't need to be morecomplicated, is very
complicated, all right? And thenone note of caution, as I sort
of tease, colleges are changingtheir policies. So I'll give you
an example. Harvard said thatthey would be test optional
until 2026 Well, guess what?
Last year, they've canceled thatpolicy, and they said, Just
(19:07):
kidding, we're bringing the testback next fall. And that didn't
give people a lot of time to geta test score together if they
needed it, if they didn't haveone already. There have already
been a couple of schools thathave decided to go from test
optional to test required thisyear. University of Miami is one
that just comes to mind. And atthe same time, there are still
schools whose test optionalpolicy was set to expire this
(19:28):
year, and they decided to extendit or make it permanent. So this
is a changing landscape. And oneother thing that I really have
to mention is there's a wholelot going on at the Department
of Education right now, and oneof the things that happened in a
letter that the Department ofEducation sent this to the
colleges perhaps test optionalpolicies are illegal. Most
people in my industry arereceiving that with just like
(19:53):
complete disbelief like this isnot going to change, but remains
to be seen. And how that's goingto be playing out, and a lot of
that uncertainty is why I'mgoing to recommend to you that
everybody take a good look attheir testing plan and have a
backup plan in case some schoolthat they just love ends up
becoming test required. Okay,not to freak you out more.
(20:16):
Sorry, but have to say it, Ialso think it's important to
make sure you all understand therole of test scores in
admission. Now, the reasoncolleges say that they want to
see test scores is because itprovides this additional data
point on a student's academicpreparation or readiness,
ability to succeed in theircollege. A lot of research shows
that it doesn't really add thatmuch more information they can
(20:39):
get that information prettyreliably from looking at things
like the GPA, the rigor of thecoursework that students are
taking, things like that, butsome schools have just decided
they want that extra piece ofinformation. Now, even when the
test scores are required, theyare still never the top factor
in deciding whether somebodygets in or not, we've been
(21:01):
tracking, not me personally, butthe industry has been tracking
the factors in admission, ascolleges say, these are the
things we look at in anapplication, and this is sort of
how we think of them. In orderof importance, test scores have
never been the top factor.
Sometimes they're number threeor four, depending on the
(21:22):
school. And of course, sincethings have gone more test
optional, they're just droppingand dropping in importance, but
they're always considered incontext. And most colleges in
the United States use somethingcalled holistic admissions,
where they're looking at, youknow, the grades, the
recommendation, the leadership,the essays, all sorts of things
to form a picture of a student,and the test score is just like
(21:44):
one little point, right? And sowithout scores, colleges can
still make good decisions. Theylook for confirmation of
academic skill and preparation.
In other areas, they may pay alittle more attention to the
recommendations or an academicextracurricular or summer
program that the student did,sometimes they'll request a
graded paper with a teacher'scomments on it so they can
(22:06):
really understand the student'sabilities in you know, a
particular area. So be preparedto see that if, if your student
is looking at schools that aretest optional or decides not to
submit a score, because theseare areas you can use to really
demonstrate that academicreadiness. So giving you lots
and lots of context andbackground information, I'm sure
(22:27):
the thing you actually reallywant to know is like, Well, what
do I do? I have all thisknowledge now. How do I make the
choice? And so as I said, Ithink it's really important that
everybody has some sort ofbackup plan. Have a plan for
testing. So every student, Ibelieve, should take diagnostic
practice tests to assess theirbaseline performance. And I
(22:47):
usually recommend this at theend of 10th grade. It's not
really useful to do it before.
I'll talk about why in a moment,practice tests are freely
available on the ACT and the SATwebsite. I'm going to give you a
link at the end of this talkthat will point you to those
sites so that you can justdownload the tests, have your
student do it in a realisticsetting, and then you can talk
(23:11):
with the testing expert. That'smy second step here, who can
help you compare those results.
Now there is an officialconcordance between the two
tests so we understand, you knowwhat an SAT score of 1300 would
be on an ACT, and that canreally help us decide which test
is actually better for them,right? If they got a 1300 on the
ACT, we know that correlates.
(23:32):
I'm making this up. I don't knowthe number off the top of my
head. Let's say it correlates tolike a 29 on the A, C, T, but
when they did a Practice ACT,they actually got 31 that means
there's a relative strength onthe ACT, and that's probably the
test I would recommend. Butbeyond comparing those numbers,
which is a little morequantitative, we really also
want to understand, well, ifthey are going to do that test,
(23:55):
what do they need to work on,both in terms of the content
that they need to review, thetype of strategies that they
need to learn and practice, andthat can help us understand when
should they test, what do theyneed to do in the testing test
prep process. But there reallyis an entire ecosystem
quantitative and qualitativefactors to really build a
(24:15):
strategic plan. And you want toremember that this is not just
test prep for the sake of testprep, if you're going to do one
of these tests, it better play areally important role in your
college strategy. We're nottaking the SAT just to see how
high we can score and likethat's our only goal. It's
hopefully going to make usstronger college applicants for
(24:36):
the colleges that we're lookingat. And so you really do need to
keep your college list in mind,as you're also doing this. And
so here's my kind of map ofthose factors. The college list
is important not just because ofthe policies of those colleges,
but because of the averagescores that their admitted
(24:56):
students tend to have. So thenyou can understand already is
my. Score kind of where it needsto be in order to be competitive
at that school, studentengagement. I put that first
after the college list, becauseit really is a make or break
factor. If your kid is just notinto it, they've decided, No way
am I doing the ACT or SAT andthere's no change in their mind.
(25:20):
Doesn't matter what the strategyor plan is when a kid really
digs in their heels, you know,usually it's pretty hard to get
around that, though, I will saythe right tutor, the right
college counselor, the rightmentor, can really help them
move through that block and seehow it might open some doors for
(25:40):
them only if, in fact, it willopen doors. Right? We don't want
to waste our goodwill gettingthem to get on board with
testing only to find out, well,they're not going to use the
test score. So you know, that'swhy I said. It's an ecosystem.
It depends on a lot ofvariables. I also encourage
parents to really keep in mindthe mental health and stress
levels of their kids, moststudents will be practicing and
(26:01):
prepping during their junioryear, which is a really hard
year. It's the first timestudents are in a lot of high
level classes. They might havemore responsibility in their
extracurriculars. Maybe theyjust got their driver's license,
right? There's a lot going on inthat year, and so adding in
testing might not be good ifit's going to be a distraction
(26:24):
from their grades, which we knoware more important on the whole
in a college application than atest score, if it's going to
stress them out so much thatwe're going to lose sleep over
it. It's like gonna cause realproblems. It's not always worth
it. We also want to assess theirtest taking ability. And this
could be as simple as like, dothey remember their geometry
(26:46):
formulas, or do they know how touse a semi colon? It could also
be, are they, you know,confident in managing their
time? Do they understand how topace themselves? Are they adept
at avoiding careless errors? Oris that their biggest problem,
right? Because some of thoseproblems, like, they don't know
how to use a semi colon, wecould fix that in 30 seconds, if
(27:06):
they have, you know, real timemanagement problems, that's
going to take a couple of weeksto work on, right? And that
needs to be integrated into yourplan. And then, of course, the
timeline and availability, whenwould four to five minutes of
prep. And that doesn'tnecessarily mean they're doing a
course for five week or fivemonths or working with a tutor
for five months, but they aregoing to have to study and
(27:29):
practice and keep practice,testing and all of this stuff,
even as maybe they're learningactive learning has stopped.
They need to practice this. Andmost students do take the test
two or three times. So even ifthey're only prepping for three
months before the first test,they might need to take it
again, right? And so they'regoing to have to do something in
between. So we want to assesswhen would that fit into their
(27:51):
lives best? And I do recommendthat it's like all at once. If
you try to do a little bit ofprep, maybe over the summer, and
then you stop and you startagain next spring. Now they
would have lost a lot of theskill that they've developed, or
the, you know, memory of some ofthose formulas or whatever they
might need in that time inbetween. So you really do want
(28:13):
to find a consistent length oftime where they can be engaged
in learning what to do, studyingon their own and practicing on
their own. And then it's alsoimportant to think about like,
when do they need a score? Sowe'll talk a little bit about
the timeline for each grade. ButI do like to see juniors
finished with testing by thesummer after junior year.
(28:35):
Hopefully it doesn't even gointo the summer. Hopefully by
like, June at the end of theirjunior year, they're done, they
have the score they want, orthey have committed to going
test optional, and they're noteven thinking about it anymore.
We've moved on to working oncollege essays and the rest of
that stuff, because you don'twant the college application to
take over the fall of senioryear, because when school
(28:55):
starts, it gets crazy again. Gota lot of things to manage.
Starting a little bit earlierwill help you. So if you are a
junior or parent of a junior, itis time to get a move on on this
testing plan. If you haven'talready built your college list,
and maybe you're stillformulating some of it, and
there's some chance that youmight need a score, or you just
(29:15):
want to know, like, hey, like,where am I on the testing kind
of spectrum here, and would ascore be helpful for me, even if
none of my schools require it, Irecommend you get the
diagnostics done as soon aspossible and then talk to
someone like me or one of mycolleagues to figure out what
you should do, because youreally want to make sure you
(29:37):
leave time for prep time for asecond test and then try to be
done before the end of theschool year, which means right
now is the time to start andagain. You want to lock in that
score before 12th grade starts.
There are opportunities toretake the test in 12th grade if
you absolutely need to. But justknow that that adds another
thing on top of actuallyapplying to the colleges and.
(29:58):
And maintaining your grades andextracurriculars in 12th grade,
it's a lot to deal with. Now, ifyou are the parent of a 10th
grader, you have a little moretime. I recommend taking the
practice tests right afterschool is out. Or if your
student is really curious aboutthis stuff, some of them want to
do it over spring break. That'sfine, too, but wait towards the
end of 10th grade, and then gothrough that process of, you
(30:22):
know, analyzing the results,looking at your college list,
and build a really intentionalplan. I do work with a lot of
10th graders who want to prepover the summer between 10th and
11th grade. I highly recommendthat if it fits in with your
students schedule, because itcan be really nice to either
just take the test at the end ofthe summer and be done with it,
(30:43):
or be ready to tackle the testin the fall of junior year,
before things get really, reallyintense at school, or before
you're bumping up against theseother kinds of deadlines in the
spring. And then, if you have aninth grader or lower, you have
a lot of time, and as Imentioned earlier, the space is
always changing, so it's reallynot worth locking in a plan just
(31:06):
yet. Colleges also prefer to seescores from later in high
school, in junior or senioryear. So even if they could take
the test in freshman year andget a really good score, I
usually recommend against it,because you might want to submit
a more recent score with yourapplications. I also recognize
there are a lot of families whoare like, Oh, I think my kid
(31:28):
might be one of those whodoesn't like tests or doesn't
perform their best on tests, andwe want to get an early start on
the prep to make sure that bythe time they need a score, they
are really comfortable. And Itotally understand that. But the
thing we want to balance thatconcern with is not burning out
the kid. If you're gonna embarkon like a two year test prep
(31:50):
plan, your students gonna getover it really fast. You might
run out of good practicematerials. And again, that
question of goodwill you mightbe focusing their attention on
something that they may notneed, they may not reap the
benefit from, they may have todo again later. And then, of
(32:10):
course, the all thisuncertainty. So there are ways
to help your students becomebetter students and test takers
in their school classes that istotally separate from the SAT or
the ACT, right? Actually, I liketo share that when I'm working
with student on test prep, Itell them, I say, Look me in the
(32:30):
eye. I want to make sure you'rehearing me. What I'm teaching
you to do on the ACT I neverwant you to do in school, right?
There are, you know, shortcuts.
There are ways to speed throughreading content and things like
that that will actually hurtthem in their English classes or
(32:52):
wherever else they they mightwant to try to apply it. And so
school academic performance isvery separate from performance
on an SAT or an ACT, right? Soif you're concerned about your
students general test takingability, or if they get anxious
about tests in school, Iwouldn't say SAT ACT prep is the
(33:13):
place to start them. I would sayan executive function coach,
sort of confidence coach, maybeeven a subject tutor for
whatever classes they're feelingthis way in is the way to go,
right? Somebody who can helpthem with study skills and test
taking skills, not necessarilySAT ACT skills. Alright? I
harped on that point a lotbecause I get that question a
(33:33):
lot from families. So my companyonly does one on one prep, but
we know a lot of people in thisspace that do courses or group
sessions. You know, one of thethings that sometimes we'll do
with like really precociousstudents, is set up a study plan
for them and just check in withthem once every three weeks,
instead of our normal weeklymeeting. So there are a lot of
(33:54):
different ways to approach this,and it all depends on how your
student does on one of thesepractice tests. It's really,
it's really key to building agood study plan.
Guest 1 (34:05):
I have a question so kind of sounds like maybe,
unless your kid is reallyshooting for a top tier, very
competitive school, the factthat all these schools are test
optional, it doesn't hurt yourkid to just forego this
altogether. Is that kind of areasonable interpretation?
Sheila Akbar (34:26):
That is absolutely a reasonable interpretation with
a couple of caveats. The firstI'll say is the policies are
changing and could still changethis year for people who are
applying in the fall. So youdon't want to be caught flat
footed on that, right? If theyhave built a college list, and
they will feel really good aboutit, all of a sudden, two of the
(34:47):
schools on their list decidethey're going to require
testing. Are you comfortabledropping those schools, or
should we just try a test?
Right? So that's why I sayeverybody should do the
diagnostic and create a plan.
You may end up not needing it,but. But at least you have the
information if you do need to goforward with testing. The second
caveat I will share with you isthat you can see on a college's
(35:10):
common data set, you just Googlelike the name of the college,
and then the words common dataset, you can see how many
students enrolled, so it's nothow many applied or how many
were admitted, but how manystudents ended up enrolling had
an SAT or an ACT score. And youcan actually see how many of
them had SAT and how many ofthem had ACT I don't want you to
(35:32):
think that differences in thosenumbers mean that, oh, this
school really likes the SAT morebecause 40% had SAT scores and
only 20% had ACT scores, but youwill be shocked at how many
students apply test optional andget in. Some schools, it's like
15% submit test scores. Otherschools, you're going to see
(35:53):
it's more like 60 or 70% so itreally behooves you, as you're
building your colleges, to takea look at that information and
make sure you're understanding.
Do most of the students who gothere? Do they submit scores, or
do they not before you decidesort of a blanket we're not
going to do it.
Guest 1 (36:13):
Yeah, that second part is definitely really helpful to
know. So thank you.
Sheila Akbar (36:16):
Good. Yeah, great question. Okay, we had a couple
of other questions - Would it bebetter to take the ACT in June
versus April? I think it reallydepends on your student, how
close are they to their targetscore, the score that they
eventually want to get, becauseif they're further from it, then
June would probably be better.
There's no difference in, like,the difficulty of the test on
the different months. That'slike, kind of an urban legend
(36:40):
that has persisted for a longtime, but it's not the case. And
so that is really not going tofactor in. But the other thing
to think about is like, what isyour student got going on? Are
they going to be studying for APexams right before the June ACT?
And that might be a distractionfrom studying for the June ACT,
and then in that case, maybe theApril one is better. There are a
lot of kind of factors to thinkabout there. There are some good
(37:02):
questions coming in. Do we havea recommended resource to
understand what is happeningwith testing changes over time?
Having a freshman, it soundslike we may need to watch for
changes. Absolutely Watch thisspace, the best resource. So I
was talking to a gentleman namedBob who popped in at the
beginning. He had to leave, buthe runs a group called fair
test, and they are a testingwatchdog that maintains a list
(37:26):
of test optional schools.
They're the people that I ampaying attention to to find out
when some school has, likeannounced a change to their
policy. They do a lot ofresearch and advocacy in this
space. So that's definitely theone of the easiest places to go
to. If you're not alreadyfollowing me on LinkedIn, you
(37:47):
know, you'll always hear aboutit from me as well. You know,
whether it's on my mailing listor just on LinkedIn. So there
are a couple of places that thatyou can look for that. Okay, we
got another question. This is agood one. A lot of people ask
this question, if my child's GPAis weak, would taking the test
help improve her chances takingthe test, I don't know, having a
(38:09):
really strong test score, yes.
So if they have a, you know,some weakness in their GPA, a
strong test score is not goingto make up for that, by any
means, but it could indicate,you know, some of these academic
skills, that, for whateverreason, they're just better at
showing on a standardized testthan they are in school. Now, I
will say, if you have a choiceof you know, where should we
(38:31):
invest our energy? Is it findinga way to bring up her GPA, or
putting all these resources intoprep and hoping that she gets a
test score that reallyoutperforms with the GPA, would
suggest, I would say, invest instrengthening her academic
skills so you can bring up theGPA colleges do love to see a
grade trend, right? It's okay ifninth grade or maybe 10th grade,
(38:53):
there are a couple of weakspots, but by the time that
they're hitting, you know, endof 10th grade, beginning of 11th
grade, we really hope thatthey've hit their stride there.
They figured out high school,they've figured out their you
know, their study skills and howto keep themselves organized,
and then their grades are reallyimproving. You can tell that
story in a college application.
(39:16):
Just slapping a high test scoreon top of mediocre GPA might
actually raise more questionsthan you know, make them feel
confident. Oh, the student canhandle it, right? And so you
have to remember all thesethings are interacting with each
other, but certainly a strongtest score typically helps a
(39:36):
student. All right. What otherquestions do we have?
Guest 2 (39:41):
Sheila, Hi, it's Amy.
Can you say one more time whatthe common data set is telling
us? It's telling us how manykids enrolled and which tests
they took. Is that right?
Sheila Akbar (39:53):
Yes, yes. So the common data set actually has
just a wealth of information. Soas you build your college list,
that is a. Resource. I encourageyou to go to often if you're
working with someone like me oranyone on my team like that's
where we're going for our truth,right? How many men applied? How
many women applied? Were theyout of state? Were they in
state? Who had ACT scores? Whatis the score distribution like?
(40:15):
What's at the 90th percentile?
What's at the 80th percentile?
Right? It's how we advise onwhether you should submit the
score you have or retake thetest or whatever, right? So you
will see lots of information onthe common data set, but you are
correct. They tell you thepercentage of enrolled students
that submitted an ACT score oran SAT score.
Guest 2 (40:37):
But it tells you a lot.
It sounds like it tells you alot of a lot of other stuff.
Pick a school, go learn how toread it, understand the data.
Okay, awesome.
Sheila Akbar (40:44):
Yeah, it's a really great resource. Well, I'm
going to tell you about what weare doing next month. We are
doing a session. The ideas formy sessions always come from
conversations I have withparents, and the conversation I
seem to be having this year is,oh, my God, how do I get through
high school with this teenageboy? So if that's you, that is
(41:06):
the session we are doing nextmonth. We've got a panel of
experts who are going to talkabout what parents can do. How
can parents structure theirconversations so that their
student is a little more willingto listen to them? Why are boys
so unwilling to accept help.
We're gonna have two of myacademic skills coaches join us,
who typically work with most ofour boys that come to us, and
(41:27):
we'll hear some success storiesfrom them too. So you know, it
is possible to get through it.
Things can really change. Allright, so you heard me mention
the session that we're about todo on surviving high school with
a teenage boy at the end of thatreplay, turns out that session
(41:48):
is today, March 27 so maybe notsoon enough for any of you to
get it, but you can access thatrecording on our website, at
Signet education.com/events, Youcan access recordings of any of
these sessions there, and we'llhave a replay of that session on
the podcast in the coming weeksas well. So stay tuned. If that
(42:10):
sounds like something that wouldbe really useful for you. We're
also continuing with our livecoaching and Q and A sessions,
and I'm excited next episode tohave signets account manager
Emmeline cook join me for aconversation, so you won't just
hear me drone on and on. I'llhave a co host to banter with,
and we'll be tackling some ofthe questions that she hears day
(42:33):
in and day out from the clientswho call us all right, I hope
you all taking care ofyourselves and each other, and
we'll see you next time. Thanks.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.