High school juniors worried about getting into super-selective schools are also worried about picking the right college entry exam to help them get in- as there are more options for their class than ever.
High school students this year can opt to take the current version of the SAT, the new version of the SAT that will debut in March, the ACT or a combination of the three.
As a result, some students are taking them all to ensure that they might get denied admission to their desired college over a wrong choice.
For today's high school juniors, they can take the old SAT up until January before the new SAT will be make its debut in March. Juniors will have a good idea of what the new SAT will be like because this month's roll-out of the PSAT will give a good indication of the new format and style.
The new version of the SAT is said by its owner, the College Board, to be a more-up-to-date means of testing students on what they've learned in the classroom.
The College Board has updated the SAT by removing penalty for guessing, demoting the previously-required essay portion to optional, and updating its math section to include more algebra than geometry. It has also done away with requiring knowledge of fancy out-dated vocabulary words in lieu of being capable of analytical reasoning, The Washington Post said.
According to The Post, "[i]n some ways, the revision to the SAT makes it more similar to the ACT. But differences remain. The ACT has a science section; the SAT doesn’t. The ACT will have more geometry than the revised SAT. It is also a bit shorter; not counting breaks, total testing time for the ACT with the essay option is 3 hours and 35 minutes. The revised SAT, including the essay, takes 3 hours and 50 minutes.
These objective facts don't make it much easier for students to decide what option will be their best bet for being admitted into the school of their choice, however.
One concerned student, Sindhu Iyer told The Post that "the timing of the rollout of the new SAT creates extra challenges for high school juniors who want to take their preferred admission test more than once to ensure the best possible score. 'It’s kind of unfair for them to just throw this at us,' she said."
10/16/2015