On Wednesday, Oct. 9, McLean High School will hold the SAT and PSAT for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The SAT is a standardized test that colleges often use as consideration in their application processes. The Preliminary SAT (PSAT), when taken by juniors, is used for determining which students will receive a National Merit Scholarship, a nationwide scholarship competition.
“All tenth and eleventh graders are automatically enrolled in the PSAT,” said Elly Donlen, McLean’s assessment coach.
However, students may opt out of taking the SAT or PSAT if they desire.
“Those that aren’t [taking these tests] are staying home,” Donlen said. “They have been encouraged to work on college applications, do community service hours and catch up on upcoming assignments.”
While some colleges are beginning to require the submission of standardized testing scores again, these scores are only one aspect of a student’s profile.
“From what I understand [test scores are] just a part of a student’s application, because students can choose [whether or not] to submit their scores,” Donlen said.
Students often will often take standardized tests such as the SAT and PSAT multiple times. In doing so, they can create a “super score”.
“They take your best score on your math section and your reading section and [combine] them, which makes the super score,” Donlen said.
Before these tests, students have many resources at hand to prepare. These include online resources such as Khan Academy as well as the resources that FCPS offers directly.
“Fairfax County pays for Varsity Tutors,” Donlen said. “If students feel like they need to work on geometry for the SAT or longer reading passages, they can just hop on Varsity Tutors through Schoology and get tutored for free.”
While this test is often considered to be extremely important for a student’s scholastic futures, the SAT is not a definitive measure of a student.
“The biggest thing is the test does not define you. It’s not something we want students to feel stressed out about,” Donlen said. “Just take deep breaths, do your best, and if you don’t get the score you were hoping for, it’s okay. There’s only room to grow.”
