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SAT or ACT? Or Both?
Juniors in high school are busy students. Adding to their academic and extra-curricular burden is the prep for the SAT or ACT tests. Which test is best for me? Do I have to take both? Most college applications require SAT or ACT scores so students need to map out when they are going to take these tests before they send their applications in the Fall of their Senior year.
Most colleges that we encounter will accept either SAT or ACT scores. College advisors at area high schools often recommend that you take both. Many students also respond to the desire to do well on both tests. However, you only need an acceptable score on ONE test to be accepted.
We recommend that you take a free practice SAT test and ACT test. (Students usually have PSAT scores that we can use in place of a practice SAT test.) The SAT and ACT tests have different sections and different timing issues for the students.
Students who are better at math may gravitate to the SAT because the SAT score is 50% math. Whereas, students who are more talented in Reading/ English may prefer the ACT because it is only 25% math and the other 75%–reading, English, and science—relies on stronger reading skills.
Many of our students are studying to improve their SAT/ACT scores to earn scholarships to out of state schools, like Oklahoma State, University of Oklahoma, and U of Arkansas. Other students are trying to earn scholarships at private colleges–TCU, Baylor, SMU—or gain acceptance into the honors programs. It is common for students to earn $32-40,000 in scholarships by raising their scores.
Give us a call and set up a free 15-minute consultation to help you choose which test is best for you. Our program can help you prepare for both the SAT and ACT and we will guide you through your Junior/Senior years as you test and apply to college.
PSAT SCORES: 3 MYTHS ABOUT THE TEST
Before you add those test scores to your pile of papers on the kitchen counter, note how your student scored on the test and formulate a study plan for the SAT.
Myth 1: My student is smart or a good student and will do fine on the SAT.
Their SAT scores will mirror their PSAT scores and now that you have those PSAT scores, plan to increase those scores 100-200 points. If you study for tests at school, why would you not practice and learn the strategies to get YOUR top score.
Myth 2: The PSAT is not important.
It is your Junior year. The PSAT scores from the Junior year are used to identify National Merit Scholars. If your student is a high scoring student, increasing those scores can lead to an opportunity to be a National Merit Scholar. National Merit Scholars benefit from full ride scholarships to colleges across the country.
Myth 3: My PSAT scores will improve each year.
Not really, not that much. Students who do not study the PSAT/SAT will see little or no growth in their scores. Students often say they plan to take the SAT test again to improve. Statistically, they will not improve unless they practice.
Most students take the SAT their Junior year and many take it more than once. With our prep program, students return to classes free to continue to improve their scores. Some students return Senior year, to earn scholarships or admittance to the honors programs at their chosen colleges.
Getting Back the Joys of Learning
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…”
—Charles Dickens, Hard Times
In “Joy: A Subject Schools Lack” (The Atlantic; Jan 2015), Susan Engel – a mother, teacher, and developmental psychologist – points out the troubling truth that, for many schools, the last thing they’re concerned with nowadays is “what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right.” Thus, we now see many elementary and high schools (and even some colleges) focusing on the needs and wants of parents rather than students, pitching buzzwords and slogans about getting kids prepped for college and high-stakes careers rather than for adulthood, lifelong learning, and – I don’t know – their upcoming grade level. Or, as Engel puts it, “This may explain why so many schools that I visit seem more like something out of a Dickens novel than anything else.”
As a kid, my husband attended a private elementary school in Ft. Worth for his K-8 – a school that’s principal was often fond of telling parents, Third grade is the best preparation for fourth grade, fourth grade is the best preparation for fifth grade, and so on. In other words, a child’s education should really be just that: an education for children that takes one step at a time, not an education for future college students or CEOs that constantly leaps forward without regard to the here-and-now. What’s more, it seems to me that instilling and focusing on the joys of learning for students would be a tremendous means of also increasing and enhancing the joys of teaching.
As feminist philosopher and writer Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote in Women Who Run With the Wolves, people’s
“psyches and souls…have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place. When we are children … the instinctive nature notices all these phases and cycles. … Children are the wildish nature, and without being told to, they prepare for the coming of these times, greeting them, living with them, and keeping from those times recuerdos, mementos, for remembering ….” (pg 276-277)
What joys might we all better experience and live with now – not simply remember – if we’d allowed ourselves to learn and grow with these instinctive, wildish, soul-fulfilling cycles, rather than elbowing our way out of them in some abstract desire to one day be “successful”? How much more successful and joyful might we all be if we’d let ourselves continue to love and enjoy learning, if we’d been encouraged to experience and embrace feelings of awe and wonderment rather than to push constantly ahead, constantly faster, and to act “cool” and unimpressed with the world, ourselves, and each other?
Engel inspired and started us off in this post, so I’ll let her end it as well:
“Before you brush this argument aside as sentimental fluff, or think of joy as an unaffordable luxury in a nation where there is dire poverty, low academic achievement, and high dropout rates, think again. The more dire the school circumstances, the more important pleasure is to achieving any educational success. … The more difficult a child’s life circumstances, the more important it is for that child to find joy in his or her classroom.”
Further Readings & Videos:
- Susan Engel, “Joy: A Subject Schools Lack,” The Atlantic
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves, A Ballantine Book, 1995
- Check out this clip of Oprah’s interview with Stephen Colbert wherein they discuss the value of “joy” over the fantasy of “happiness”
Say, What?
Considering the arguments of Kids Growth’s “Why Won’t My Child Talk To Me?”, the answer becomes deceptively simple: They’ll be thrilled talk and share with you, so long as you’re prepared to listen and share in return.
The difficult key here is being able to remain patient and respectful even when your child seems to be acting unreasonably, disrespectfully, or irrationally. As Kids Growth explains, “You can accept and respect your children’s feelings even when you don’t see things the same way. You also can accept their feelings without necessarily accepting how they handle them (for example, it’s okay to be angry, but not to hit).”
Kids Growth lists a number of useful suggestions on how to steer you and your family onto a path of clear and effective communication, but we’ve got a few more to add to their collection:
- Set aside time to talk — sometimes creating time for…
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An Added Bonus
First, thank you, Math Universe, for posting on this important topic of peer tutoring. Peer tutoring is an intensely interactive and often immensely effective means of learning and mastering new materials. I love especially that this post is coming from Math Universe, since many articles and posts often focus on writing-related opportunities for peer tutoring (not that these opportunities aren’t very important as well; my own tutoring experience is grounded primarily in the world of writing). Peer tutoring and classroom-organized study groups are terrific tools for helping students discover ways of both understanding the materials for themselves and from the perspectives of others.
It’s this diversity that I find especially appealing about in-class study group systems. Friends often study together or forge their own study groups outside of class. However, while this is great, it can also be beneficial to work with people you wouldn’t normally otherwise consult. In colleges, such systems are alive and well. Take Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX) for example. They’ve long been experimenting with the Paideia Program, where accepted applicants are grouped into diverse cohorts that will stick together, serve together, and learn together from their sophomore year to their senior year. This enables students from all departments and backgrounds to come together and benefit from each other’s unique perspectives. Of course, the program has changed dramatically since I was a student there (it’s now a requirement of all Southwestern students rather than a program for students to apply into), but the core purposes and goals remain the same: interdisciplinary collaboration, civic engagement, intercultural experience, and learning to apply one’s education beyond the classroom. (For more information on the Paideia Program specifically, visit: http://www.southwestern.edu/paideia/)
All of this is to say that peer tutoring and formalized study groups can be as diverse, challenging, and beneficial as you want to make them. Studying and mastering new skills is always difficult, but taking the time to work through these challenges with others not only fosters greater opportunities to learn, but greater opportunities to form lifelong friendships, leadership qualities, and collaboration skills.
Something that I really like about science classes is that during lab you get the opportunity to interact with classmates. In lecture only classes, it seems as though people just show up to class and then leave, but when you have lecture and then lab after a short break – or viseversa – there is that additional time to get to know each other.
The reason I bring this up is because sometimes it’s helpful to study with another person. Some more introverted students (such as myself) may have difficulty meeting friends in class. But when you are sitting in tables that seat four people and told to work with a partner, it’s like a built-in study buddy. Or it could be a horrible nightmare if your partner is completely incompetent, but even then that can have its positive side, as I will discuss later.
My Trigonometry teacher would always…
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Albert Einstein’s Reply to a Female Fan’s Confession Should Be in Every Science Textbook
“If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you’re on the right track. Wild Woman is close by. If you have never been called these things, there is yet time.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves
Thank you for this post, Central Oregon Coast NOW — this is a tremendous and succinct comment on the continued and pervasive problem of women and girls being culturally and socially discouraged from pursuing their interests in math and science.
As German artist, Käthe Kollwitz, once said, “I am in the world to change the world.” Women and girls need to know this in their bones. And women and girls need to remember that anyone who would suggest otherwise or suggest that women are somehow less valuable because of their gender is someone afraid of losing power, is someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and is someone attempting to break down and smother out the multitudinous nature of others.
Don’t ever let yourself be broken down, and don’t forget these wise words from Albert Einstein to a young female scientist:
“I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind.”
Summer Tutoring is Just Around the Corner!!!
The time is approaching! Summer tutoring begins NEXT WEEK!
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Reading and Writing Across the Disciplines
—Ellen Goldberger, “Everyone Should Teach Writing,” Inside Higher Ed, 2014
More and more, colleges are beginning to move the Teaching of Writing from strictly the English Department’s territory to school-wide efforts—efforts that necessitate contributions and collaboration with professors from every department and every level. Writing skills have always been of the utmost importance, and yet only now and only begrudgingly are some of our brightest teachers dedicating any significant time to ensuring that their students are able to well communicate thoughts and ideas through writing.
According to Goldberger’s “Everyone Should Teach Writing,” “Conventional wisdom and practical experience tell us that students’ ability to secure jobs and advance in their careers depends, to a great extent, on their communication skills, including polished, professional writing,” and what’s more, “writing is not separate from content in our courses, but can be used as a practical tool to apply and reinforce learning.” These are things we can all agree on whether we’re parents, students, employers, grade school teachers, high school teachers, or college professors. The stickiness comes in, however, with the notion that the teachers and professors themselves should have to make the time and extra effort necessary to better embed this most foundational and complex of skill sets within their own syllabi as opposed to someone else’s.
And while I stand behind this concept of better spreading and reinforcing the teaching and learning of writing across all disciplines, I must say that the most compelling component of Goldberger’s argument for me was her concerns regarding student responsibility and reading habits. As she argues, “students do read, but what they spend their time reading is not helpful”—if not outright detrimental—“in learning how to write” and learning how to communicate in a variety of subtle, professional, personal, and academic styles.
As Goldberger explains,
The key, as always, is to not simply stand around hoping that you land the best teacher or boss every time you enter a new class with new demands or a new job with new coworkers. The key is to take things into your own hands and expose yourself to as many different types of writing and writers as you possibly can. But more than simple exposure, more than simply enjoying your beach reads, you must be willing to take things a step further; you must be willing to spend time analyzing even the breeziest of novels all the way up to the most obscure and difficult. You must be willing to think critically about works you’d never given much thought to before, voice opinions and ideas to others regarding new works and interpretations, start book clubs, engage in book-related forums, and experiment with new styles of writing and new kinds of reading materials.
We must be willing to invest time in ourselves to reap the benefits of reading and writing. We must be willing to sit still a while apart from distractions and allow ourselves to become absorbed into another’s world before we can reap the benefits of improved communication skills, artistic expression, professionalism, progress, empathy, and socialization.
Whether you’re preparing for the SATs, a job interview, fiction writing, improved vocabulary, or any other number of possibilities, there’s one clear-cut road to take: Reading.
Read diversely. Read often. Read.
Further Reading:
- Frank Bruni’s “Read, Kids, Read,” The New York Times
- Tutoring 101’s “Student Voices: Reading, Writing, and the Digital World“
- John Coleman’s “For Those Who Want to Lead, Read,” Harvard Business Review
- Neil Gaiman, “Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming,” The Guardian
Student Voices: Reading, Writing, and the Digital World
I recently came across Mission Viejo Library’s blog, Teen Voice, and was struck with a tutor’s inspiration!
But first, a bit on just what exactly MVL Teen Voice is:
“Mission Viejo Library Teen Voice exists to promote teen literacy. When visiting this blog, you can expect to find book reviews, book lists, author interviews, book trailers, and event reports for author talks and other related events.” – Written by and for teens, under the guidance of MVL’s Teen Services Librarian, Allison Tran
In other words, MVL’s blog is a place where teens not only get to actively create content, practice a variety of writing styles and essays for a wide audience, conduct research, and discuss what they’re reading with others, but they also get to read and engage with the work and writing of their peers—illustrating just how valid, adult, and important teen writing, reading, and research skills can be.
However, though the value of a teenager’s reading and writing skills is well and widely understood by teachers and parents today, this understanding does not always extend to the teen in question nor, unfortunately, always to the actual practices of said teachers and parents. This failing is tragically evident in the state of the U.S.’s adult reader population. As Megan Rogers explains in her article (Oct. 2013) “Troubling Stats on Adult Literacy” for Inside Higher Ed,
“The Survey of Adult Skills by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that despite having higher than average levels of educational attainment, adults in the United States have below-average basic literacy and numeracy skills.
The U.S. ranked 16th out of 23 countries in literacy proficiency, 21st in numeracy proficiency, and 14th in problem solving in technology-rich environments, according to the OECD survey.”
In other words, despite how much lip-service we pay to the wonders and importance of strong reading and writing skills in the U.S., we’re doing a pretty terrible job of putting those words into action. Scholastic’s Ginny Wiehardt further elaborates on the vast importance and challenges of getting teens to read in the 2011 article, “Realistic Ideas to Get Teens Reading”:
“The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that students who said they read for fun almost every day had higher average reading scores in 2004 than those who said that they never or hardly ever read for fun.
Junior high school and high school students who [don’t spend time each day reading for fun] could face significant setbacks in later life. Even those who don’t plan to attend college will need strong vocabulary and comprehension skills. In fact, one school administrator consulting with Scholastic recently indicated that a mechanic’s manual requires better reading skills than a standard college text. And throughout adult life, they will likely need to decode complex information such as healthcare forms and insurance documents.”
So, we know it’s important for teens to be exercising their reading and writing skills regularly, but how can we help encourage these practices, especially given how busy our young students tend to be (or at least think themselves to be) these days? Well, this is where that “tutor’s inspiration” I mentioned before comes into play.
While there are many options and many avenues for getting teens more interested and involved in extracurricular/fun reading and writing, learning from MVL Teen Voice’s example isn’t a bad place to start.
Thanks to digital tools like blogs, students are now able to interact with written texts in a wide variety of new ways, such as in the creation, collaboration, and reading of works by and with their peers. According to the Pew Research Center, 96% of AP and NWP teachers surveyed “agree (including 52% who strongly agree) that digital technologies ‘allow students to share their work with a wider and more varied audience’”; “79% agree (23% strongly agree) that these tools ‘encourage greater collaboration among students’”; and “78% agree (26% strongly agree) that digital technologies ‘encourage student creativity and personal expression.’”
In other words, students given the opportunity (using digital technologies) to write for, read, and interact with the written works of their peers are those most likely to see improvements in their ability to collaborate with others as well as in their exercise of creativity and personal expression—all of which make for stronger readers with stronger reading comprehension skills. Speaking from personal experience, as one who once kept blogs as a part of college courses and who has also been published in larger academic conversations, I can certainly say that when one knows that their audience is composed of their friends, classmates, and the incredible vastness of anyone surfing around the internet, it has a way of making you think more carefully about your words, style, arguments, and opinions. It has a way of better personally investing young writers in their research and audience. And when you start writing with one eye toward the integrity of your research and one toward your audience, you likewise become a better, more empathetic, more critical, and more analytic reader.
What’s more, and perhaps what lends these collaborative/digital writing and reading opportunities their greatest advantage, is the simple fact that if you have access to a computer or public (or school) library, then keeping a blog or other online writing forum is typically free of charge and easy to set up for immediate use. Computers, however, are by no means a necessity to making these kinds of collaborative, peer-oriented writing and reading opportunities available to students. Many schools and local libraries also host various writing clubs, extracurricular groups, elective courses, and much more that can help make these experiences and opportunities more available to students, computer or no computer.
Want more? Just take a look at some of these other examples of student writing, reading, and collaboration:
- Beyond the school yearbook, McKinney North High School (McKinney, TX) also offers its students extracurricular opportunities in Journalism as well as in a more generalized Writing Club (for both writers and visual artists!)
- Lovejoy High School (Lucas, TX) has its own student-oriented, student-driven, and award-winning! news source in The Red Ledger
- Allen High School (Allen, TX) also offers student-oriented writing, reading, and collaborative opportunities through their school newspaper (The Eagle Angle) and their Poetry Society
- And, as Emerson College has so generously shown here, there are a slew of student-driven literary magazines across the country with every type of focus, style, and submission/editorial policies imaginable
Bottom line? Get reading, get writing, and get moving!
Also, just for fun, here are a few of the awards Lovejoy’s The Red Ledger has won so far…
- Gold Star in the Interscholastic League Press Conference contest – 2014
- Best Website in the High School Journalism Day & Competition for the Dallas Morning News – 2014
- Best Series or Project for 14 Days of Love in the High School Journalism Day & Competition for the Dallas Morning News – 2014
- Gold Medalist in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association News Digital Critique – December 2013
- First Class with two Marks of Distinction in the NSPA Publication Website Critique Service – 2012
- Gold medal certificate from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association – 2008, 2009
- Best of Show Award from the National Scholastic Press Association -2007
- Many neighborhoods have neighborhood newsletters (some more formal and exclusive (insofar as the creation of material is concerned) than others), and there’s no reason why any one student, family, or club couldn’t band together to create and locally promote their own such newsletter
Tutoring 101 