by Dr. Aimee Weinstein
Taking any standardized test, especially one designed for college admissions is a nerve-wracking proposition. The head of the College Board, the company that administers the new SAT, understands that all too well. “I’m in the anxiety field,” David Coleman acknowledged this week in an interview with The Washington Post. What Coleman forgets is that it’s not just the test that stresses students to the max. Beyond testing, there are grades, social concerns, and even family time included in the busy schedule of a high school junior or senior. These kids need a toolbox for managing all the stress in their lives, particularly the testing, where concrete methods for success actually do exist.
(more…)
Maybe to call it “bait and switch” is extreme, but we are pretty annoyed. Last fall College Board introduced the redesigned PSAT and SAT, and released the scores in January 2016. At the time, it seemed as if all of the juniors we talked to were doing better on the new test, but we work with small numbers of students and figured that the new (and radically different) test was just better-suited to these individuals. This was also the perception of counselors we spoke to at various schools. Many of these same students also took an ACT in the fall with Inspiring Test Prep and in some cases, based on a comparison of 2015 PSAT scores and percentiles to the ACT diagnostic, we recommended they take the SAT, instead of the ACT.