The correct answer, of course, is “all of the above.” The SAT and other tests are stressful facts of life for the college-bound. Many schools use scores to sort through an increasing pool of applicants, and high schoolers are responding by taking more and more tests, hiring pricier tutors and trying to out strategize the test writers.
The SAT has been feeling the pressure, too. It’s long been criticized as culturally biased, replete with bad questions and not all that predictive of college success. And soon the test will be changing–though not in time for current juniors and seniors. Starting in the spring of 2005, what was once the Scholastic Aptitude Test will become the new, improved SAT I. Its most notable feature: a writing test that includes multiple-choice grammar questions and an essay. To get a perfect score, you’ll have to hit 2400, not the 1600 required today.
The new SAT will be more like the other big standardized test–the ACT Assessment, which aims more at mastery of curriculum than at reasoning. It tests English, math, reading and science, and will add an optional essay for students entering college in fall 2006. The ACT is most prevalent in the Midwest. In 2002, 1.1 million seniors took the ACT; 1.3 million took the SAT. The vast majority of colleges accept either.
And no matter what anyone says, test scores still count. A lot. Grades count more, but admissions committees need some method of judging a legitimate A from an inflated A, as well as comparing applicants from a range of high schools. Smaller and wealthier colleges are moving to what’s called a “holistic” admissions approach, in which they judge students individually. Large state schools, which are responsible for most college graduates, say they’re also moving toward that approach, but they nonetheless need test scores to help sift through huge stacks of applications. And while the prestige schools claim to be holistic–Yale says it rejected 100 applicants with perfect 1600s during 2002-03–their entering classes wind up consisting mostly –of students with SAT scores of at least 1350.
Every college requires different tests and weighs the scores differently, so check with the schools on your wish list before signing up for specific tests. Here’s a taxonomy of the most common tests, along with strategies for boosting scores:
SAT. This one remains the 800-pound gorilla. It’s a three-hour test with 138 questions, designed to test math and verbal ability. The sections are each scored on a scale of 200 to 800; in 2002, average scores nationally were 1020–516 for math and 504 for verbal, up 15 points and 4 points, respectively, from a decade earlier. The SAT costs $28.50 and is offered seven times a year by the College Board.
It is possible to game the test slightly. Within a few days of taking the exam (and long before getting the results), a student can cancel it out entirely–the exam won’t be scored and the fact of having taken it won’t be recorded. But thereafter, the scores are on your College Board record: once you send any SAT scores to a college, then all SAT scores get sent there; the only way to prevent a school from knowing about a bad score is to send no SAT scores. Still, you can pick and choose between which schools you send College Board results.
ACT. The ACT has 215 curriculum-based questions and is graded on a scale of 1 to 36. In 2002 the national average was 20.8; in SAT terms, that’s roughly a combined score of 940 to 970. (Many schools use their own equivalency tables to compare SAT and ACT scores.) The ACT costs $26.
Some students who may do better on the curriculum-focused ACT than the abilities-focused SAT play the two off each other. “Take both, especially if you don’t do well on your SAT,” says Pam Proctor, a private college-admissions counselor in Vero Beach, Fla. That’s because students can choose to send only their ACT or SAT scores to schools they select–so they can hide a lackluster SAT performance with a better ACT score. (Students can also pick which ACT scores to send, unlike the SAT.)
SAT II. These 22 College Board tests cover specific subjects, ranging from a separate writing test to American history to Japanese. Many prestigious schools, such as Columbia and Princeton, require that applicants submit two or three SAT IIs, but most schools do not. The SAT IIs are offered five times a year, typically on the same dates the SAT is offered, and each runs an hour. Students can (and often do) take three one-hour SAT IIs in a sitting. Tests cost between $8 to $16.
All these tests reward practice. The College Board and the ACT publish study guides, and public schools offer classes on how to get ready. Both Kaplan Test Prep and Princeton Review–the two national test-prep leaders–have full-service testing programs, tutors and study materials.
There’s one strategy for the truly test-averse: pin all your hopes on getting into Bates, Bowdoin or Mount Holyoke, the three brand-name colleges that make standardized testing optional. Then all your worries about testing will be over–until you start attending classes. None of those schools has become so enlightened that it’s abolished midterms and finals. Oh, well.
