The next SAT exam is right around the corner. 

Your goal is to set yourself up for success. Here are some recommendations:

WEEK BEFORE TEST

In my online course I recommend that students not take any full-length tests the week of the exam. You don't want to mess with your mental readiness by getting a score that's lower than your target, so focus any prep work on just small sections. You can grade to see how many you got right/wrong, but don't convert to a 1600-point scale.

This is also a good time for you to review your prep notes, make flash cards, and update your strategies for each section.

If you have not been to the testing center before, drive by so you know the location and identify where you will park and where you will walk to so that you are taking away as many unknowns as possible. You want the test day to run as smoothly as possible so you can bring your best game, and surprises about testing center location, how far you have to walk, etc can throw...

The 4 Keys to ACT and SAT Success

I’ve been working to help students prepare for the ACT and SAT for 14 years, and over that time I’ve determined there are four key factors to test prep success:

1. Content
2. Strategy
3. Practice
4. Review

All four of these elements MUST be in place for you to be successful! You could even consider these to all relate like a math equation:

CONTENT x STRATEGY (PRACTICE + REVIEW) = SUCCESS

OR

C S ( P + R ) = SUCCESS

For you to hit the target score you need for admission to your top choice schools AND to open doors for scholarships that make college affordable you need a plan for each of these four factors, so that’s what we’ll tackle in this post!

1. CONTENT

•  The first key to ACT/SAT success is CONTENT. There are some things you just need to know. Primarily this is centered around the English and Math tests.
• Remember that these are standardized exams. That means they don’t test everything, but rather have a limited...

Where Do I Start?

So first off when deciding whether to take the ACT or the SAT, it's important to note that since 2007 every college in the country accepts both the ACT and the SAT exam for admissions.

This means that students no longer have a college-motivated reason to take one exam over the other, but instead should take whichever exam they perform better on.

How do you determine that? Well we'll talk you through that, but first let's take a look at the basic structure of each test:

ACT Format

• LENGTH: 2 hours, 55 minutes (without essay), 3 hours, 40 minutes (with essay)
• SECTIONS: English, Math, Reading, Science Reasoning, Essay (Optional)
• MATH: 60 minutes, 25% of your composite score, heavier on geometry than SAT, more math concepts than SAT, requires memorization of formulas, can use calculator on all questions, all questions are multiple choice
• SCIENCE: Contains a Science Reasoning section
• TIME PER QUESTION: Less time per question on every section than...

College Board made a big announcement in January that they were going to be discontinuing the SAT Subject Tests, discontinuing the optional SAT essay, and also that they were going to continue working towards a digitally delivered version of the SAT. 

What does this mean?

Dropped Subject Tests

The SAT Subject Tests were exams over individual subject areas that were used to supplement the primary SAT in the application process. Unlike the AP or CLEP tests, the SAT Subject Tests did not offer the possibility of earning students college credit.

The reality is fewer colleges have been requiring/recommending the SAT Subject tests anyways, with the ones who have been using the tests primarily being top-tier schools. So for most schools, this part of the announcement will not matter. College Board made this as a business decision, reflecting the fact that the demand for these tests was no longer there (amplified all the more by the COVID challenges to testing availability).

If...