S.A.T.& A.C.T. Instructions (courtesy of Dr. Haddy)
SAT/SAT Subject/ACT Overview
ACT
Oct 25th – Deadline: Sept 19th
Dec 13th – Deadline: Nov 7th(last chance to take the ACT)
SAT / SAT Subject
Nov 8th – Deadline: Oct 9th
Dec 6th – Deadline: Nov 6th (last chance to take the SAT or Subject test)
Couple of things to be aware of:
Score Reports
- The fee waivers for the college tests are mailed to schools sometime in mid-August. As soon as they come in, we want to get the you signed up for your tests.
- Colleges will accept scores from any test up through and including December.
ACT
- Students get 2 fee waivers total. Many students already used one in the spring. For those students who didn’t take the ACT at all in the spring, they can sign up for it twice in the fall if they want.
- 3 test dates in the Fall 2014:
Oct 25th – Deadline: Sept 19th
Dec 13th – Deadline: Nov 7th(last chance to take the ACT)
SAT / SAT Subject
- Students get 2 fee waivers for the SAT and 2 for the Subject test. Almost all students took the SAT in May, so they have 1 waiver for that in the fall. About half of the students took the Subject test in June, so that group will have 1 more waiver in the fall. For those who didn’t take the Subject test in June, they can take it twice in the fall.
- 3 test dates in the Fall 2014
Nov 8th – Deadline: Oct 9th
Dec 6th – Deadline: Nov 6th (last chance to take the SAT or Subject test)
Couple of things to be aware of:
- When students register for the Subject test, they need to select 3 subjects
- The UCs do not accept Math Level 1, so students shouldn’t take that one. (Math Level 2 goes up through Math Analysis – so students in Alg 2 shouldn’t take that one.)
- You can’t take 2 subjects from the same area (e.g., Chem and Physics)
- Our students score the highest on Spanish. Literature has the 2nd highest scores.
- If students are planning to choose Spanish for one of their subjects, they should sign up to take the test in Oct or Dec. The Spanish subject test in Nov is has a listening component… which isn’t hard, but requires students to bring in their own portable CD player. The Oct and Dec tests are pencil and paper only – so they don’t have to mess with the CD player.
- If students want to take Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or German, they have to take the Subject test in Nov. Those languages are not offered in Oct and Dec. Yes, there is a listening component to those tests, so the students would need to bring a CD player.
- Other than the issue with the CD player for the language subjects – it doesn’t matter when students take the tests, as long as they get them all done by December.
Score Reports
- Make sure that when you are registering for the SAT, the Subject Test, and/or the ACT that you list 4 colleges to receive your score reports. If you don’t list the 4 schools by the test day, you will lose those free reports.
- The CSUs don’t consider the Subject Scores, so students shouldn’t list them as one of the 4 schools.
- Community colleges don’t use any of these test scores, so sending reports to them is a waste of free reports.
- For the SAT, the code 3594 (CSU Mentor, Long Beach, CA) will send their scores to all of the CSUs and counts as only 1 score report.
- The score reports are cumulative. If you send a score report for their Oct test, it will include you scores from the May and June tests. So, you don’t have to send each school a report every time – as long as that school gets the last report, they’ll get all of the scores.
- Along with the 4 free score reports you get each time they register to test, you have 4 other ones to use. These 4 don’t expire. Save those until you are done applying to all of their colleges, then use them to send reports to colleges where you applied, but haven’t sent official score reports yet. Once all of the fee waivers are gone, you’ll need to pay about $10, per school, to send reports to any remaining schools.
- REMEMBER: If you don’t send an official score report to a school, your application is incomplete and you will be denied.