SAT Practice Testing

I should begin by saying that I do not believe in tests. Not one bit. They are a convoluted way of pigeon holing people into statistics. It is a poor practice adopted by colleges to make the process of admittance easier on them, not better. Thank goodness it is not the only criteria used by colleges and universities. But, for the home schooled child, it becomes more important than it should be due to the lack of a formally recognized high school diploma. Thus, 'When in Rome do as the Romans do' becomes a bit of a troublesome adage. What is a home educated student to do if they want to a) attend a good university and b) get scholarships to help pay for their education?

Yet, home schoolers go against the "norm" and do not follow the customs of those around them...so why do we suddenly switch when it comes to college?

When in Rome...
Nayna took her practice SAT online the other day and the results are in! She did well in Reading, and middle of the road for Math and Essay. She has had no formal SAT prep before the practice test was taken. This is simply based on her reading classics and following the Leadership Education philosophy. We were expecting to see some need for improvement in the Math and Essay sections of the test since she has not finished Algebra II yet. She has read at a college level since she was 13, so I never felt she needed any extra help there.

According to BYU entrance criteria, to enroll in ENG101 Writing and Reasoning she needs an SAT score of 390+ in Reading. To enroll in MAT108 Math for the Real World she needs an SAT score of 430+ in Math. She scored high enough to enroll in both of these college level classes.

We decided to use the online practice test directly from http://sat.collegeboard.org/. This is the organization who formulates the test, so we figured it would be the best choice for practice. It is very nice to see exactly which questions she missed and the correct answers are explained.

Math Preparation

We are getting the Official SAT Study Guide from our local library for free and Kahn Academy SAT Preparation video explanations for each Math question to further study the math sections. With the book and the videos together she should be able to work out the problems she struggles with. Math was never been her strong suit, but she is an excellent student and studies hard.

Essay Preparation
I have been debating which essay prep course would be best. I am leaning towards the Excellence in Writing products, either High School Essay Intensive or the Elegant Essay. I feel she has good basic ideas and grammatical skills, she just needs prep on formal essay development. If you have used either of these, I would love to hear about your experience.

We plan on having her take the SAT officially on December 1st. This will give her a semester to delve into practicing for the tests.

So, I have answered my own question. We switch because it is one of our only options to send our children to a good university and get scholarships.


Your thoughts?