Senior Testing Timeline Thoughts

Seniors, I loved talking to you during schedule pick up day and hearing where you are with the college process.  I got a lot of questions about testing timing. (In all honesty - I got questions from juniors and seniors - so today I will talk about seniors and tomorrow I will address juniors so that it doesn't get confusing.)

If you are not feeling confident about your ACT or SAT tests, then you still have some options...

August SAT: If you haven't already signed up for the test on the 24th, you'd have to pay a late registration fee, but it is still a viable option that you could take

September ACT: This is probably going to be the most popular test date for seniors

October SAT: This test date is the last one that will allow students to get results in time for most college's early action deadline

After those tests the rest will be after any early action deadlines.  Sometimes this will be really stressful to students and the reality is that sometimes it should be, but many times it is pressure you don't need to add to your plate.  Allow me to explain...

Taking the October or December ACT or the November or December SAT are all testing dates that will be after the early action deadline, but before the regular decision deadlines.  So, if you are in need of the those additional testing opportunities to achieve a score that you want and will help you to be admitted, then I would suggest that you don't discount the option of applying at the regular deadline.

There are several reasons why students want to apply early - the two primary reasons are to get an answer back earlier and to meet the scholarship application deadline (which is often the same as the early application deadlines).  Wanting an answer back earlier make sense, but if you could wait and have a better chance of being accepted and that answer being a "yes" instead of a "no" then allowing yourself the freedom and less pressure to be able to test on one of the later test dates could be worth considering.  And regarding scholarships, here is the thing... getting scholarships are very competitive (especially if we are talking about public colleges) and if your grades and test scores are borderline then you are not likely to be able to get money.  And, if we take it a step further, if your scores are not strong enough to for sure get accepted, well, then you're not going to get any money from them so focus instead on making sure you have the scores you need to be accepted.

Now, I have to stop those of you who are my master procrastinators... this is NOT permission to put off taking the test and applying as soon as you are ready and able.  So, I am asking you to please, do what you need to do to work on your applications and to take the next upcoming admissions tests and then, if you need to have more options to retest we can figure that out as we go.