Fern's Tutoring. Denver SAT and ACT Test Prep

Students planning to take the June 14th ACT need to sign up by Friday (5/9).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-ending-essay-subject-tests/2021/01/19/ac82cdd8-574a-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

Well, yay! I've long recommended students only take the essay if necessary (such as if you are applying to highly selective colleges). Students who are now juniors, unfortunately, still have the option to take the essay this school year.

College Board is scrapping SAT’s optional essay and subject tests Officials say they want to ease demands on students. A revision of the SAT is also planned.

The makers of the SAT and ACT now have contingency plans, just in case schools remain shut in the fall. I guess the good news is that students have more time to prep. Hang in there, juniors.

Students Might Have to Take College Admissions Tests at Home This Fall The coronavirus is forcing the SAT and ACT to develop digital versions of the standardized tests in case schools remain closed. Critics fear that could deepen inequities.

The ACT just announced an option to retake specific sections of the ACT--as opposed to having to retake the entire test. The ACT will also report superscores (an average of your best score on each section), which many colleges already use It remains to be seen whether the remaining schools will accept your superscores. The catch-- and there's always a catch-- is that these new options go into effect in September of 2020.

New Options Give Students More Choices with the ACT Introducing: ACT Section Retesting, ACT Superscoring, and Faster Results with ACT Online Testing on National Test Dates Beginning with the September 2020 nat...

Quite a few of my past students have attended Colorado College and loved it. As numbers of in-state students have dropped, the college has come up with a plan to increase the number and economic diversity of Colorado students opting to stay closer to home.

At Colorado College, where tuition runs $71,000, many new in-state students will pay just a fraction — or nothing at all The Colorado Springs liberal arts school has launched the “Colorado Pledge,” an effort to attract more Colorado students and eliminate sticker shock that might prevent them from applying

Upon further reflection...When I posted in July that most colleges have stopped requiring the optional SAT and ACT essays, I assumed that was the end of the story. I have since talked with a couple of folks with more admissions experience than I and feel I should share what I learned. Yes, nearly all colleges have dropped the essay requirement for reasons I described in my July 2018 post. However, the most competitive students will still want to take the essay if possible. If the top students at your private or suburban high school have tended to take the essay when applying to highly selective colleges and universities, then you should opt to take the essay portion of the SAT and/or ACT.

Writing that college application essay can feel like a challenge--what to choose for your topic, what tone to adopt, what to say. This article gives you one more thing to consider.

Perspective | When applying to college, this character trait may mean more than grades Students who talk about moments of genuine kindness in their application essays reveal more authenticity than those who focus on other subjects.

I have always recommended students do the essay portion of the SAT and ACT only if they are applying to colleges that require the essay. I have great news! Unless you are applying to the dwindling number of colleges that still require the essay (primarily, the University of California schools), you can safely skip the essay. All the Ivy League schools have dropped the essay requirement.

One reason is that many students from low-income families take advantage of free SAT testing offered during the school day. This enables those who might encounter difficulties taking standardized tests on a Saturday — when the SAT and ACT are traditionally offered — to avoid challenges such as finding transportation, taking time off from work, or applying for a fee waiver. Although free school-day SATs are now offered at nearly 8,000 schools nationwide, they do not all include the essay portion of the SAT--which means students have needed to take the test again on a Saturday in order to write the essay.

Is the ACT getting harder? You bet, and the test makers are certainly not about to admit it. Compared with tests given 10 years ago, the difficulty level of the math and science sections has increased. (It's possible that the English and reading sections are also more challenging, but that's harder for me to notice). My guess is that students are answering increasing numbers of questions correctly, which is messing with the the ACT's bell curve. The test is still curved, and test takers are still being compared to others taking the test on that date. But when I read an article in the newspaper stating something along the lines of, "Only 50% of high school seniors are prepared to do college level work," I want to rewrite the piece. "No fair," you complain, and I completely agree.