there's never too early to start preparing but when actually signing up for the essay to your a c t they recommend that you begin preparing for to six weeks in advance whether that be taking a class or preparing on your own however you might be starting perfectly ok awesome so when you start preparing what what resources do we have in the school that can help us prepare for our standardized tests in the school we offer an elective as a semester elective it's at the t prep class and students can sign up for that we also have everyone test for the p s a t which is obviously the practice test for the s a t and based off of those scores you can actually link khan academy and receive free individualize preparation through that website so those are pretty much the two ways through the school that we offer that safety prep ok is there anything outside the school that we can utilize as well to try to get ready for yeah you know and it just depends on the individual student you know depending on their financial status depending on what works best for them with studying whether it be individually or online those types of things you can actually go to the counseling web site appears to township high school web site and there's a whole list of different resources that are available outside of school different  through various bookstores and things like that that can help you prepare you know that's really good that the counseling web site kind of outlines everything yes yep so would you recommend for students to take the team preparation course in the high school to yes i mean if you can site up for is great i mean it's a free class that you can get here while you're at school during the school day so it's as if that's something that would work for that register through there after you've created an account and i believe there's a fee this is associated with that as well ok because when i was trying to figure that out i cannot i thought we did it through the school and i know i d s a but it's all online through the web site standard answers a year make sure you get enough sleep make sure you have a big breakfast those kind type of things you know nothing to sugary because then you're just gonna crash in the middle of the test just making sure that you're kind of prepared physically and mentally for the exam make sure that you've done enough prop beforehand that you feel confident going in also making sure that you're not forgetting anything i have students that come in that my forget their i d s they need their id the day of the test going into college now so one year is doing and you've got your test scores you've got all this now and you're not happy with your score how can you prove yourself or like change that is there any way that you can like mentally be like ok here's  do and how i'm going to fix this well are times you know for here for us we recommend they use take in the scene or your junior year spring of your junior year a lot of students will go in cold turkey the first time they take it just to kind of see where they're at and then a lot of times they do get those test scores back and they're not happy with them so that's really where you can kind of use khan academy and the different resources to use the test scores that you got back and kind of analyze the areas of weakness that you had and then just practice practice study study on the things and then retake again taking twice in the spring of your junior year is kind of the common trend that we see among students that's exactly what i did so i completely understand though while i was looking for my scores on college board i noticed the whole kind of cademy and you've also mentioned in a few times that came up during the middle of my testing what is qana cademy exactly so  a website that has various resources for students and teachers as well but they just partnered with college for so that they could have this linked together so it's my understanding obviously having gone in with myself with my own  scores that once the students get in there they can kind of link it and it will pull those areas of weakness like i said for you and then give you questions and repetitive questions and things like that so you can really practice and kind of up your game  and then that way when you're going to take it the next time you've really focused in on those individualized things that you need extra help on do you recommend taking both tests or to use recommend sticking to one test over another because i  took both tests and it up just offending with a score so i mean it just depends on the student i always recommend taking both practice tests beforehand and kind of seeing which one that you might do better on the e c t has the science component and the s a t does not so some students choose to take that when they're going into a major that might be more related to that and with submitting scores you know you always have the option to submit one or the other or both  when you're applying for colleges so if you've done well on both it's kind of just another data point for your college to look to look at and see that you've done well on so with the college board in general how go in there there should be of area where you are able to just set and submit your scores there's a fee associated with it a lot of colleges we used to be able to send them straight here from the school but a lot of colleges really want credential college or just sending it straight to them a c t scores same thing you know they kind of want it sent straight from the ac to organization but if a student requests that we send a c t s course we can do that we can't just send one so if you've taken multiple we the school have to send all the scores so if you do it yourself you can send just one score depending on the college that's going to be a common answer when you're coming across anything college related  some colleges want all your scores usually the upper tier colleges require to see every single score taken some colleges they'll say you can just set your highest score and then other saw colleges also let you super score and kind of  take maybe you did better on the math component one time you took it and then you did better on the written part the next time you took it so you can kind of combine those two together and set those off to those colleges so it depends when you're looking at the colleges you have to research and really see what senior or is there not really a limit i mean i had some seniors that took at the fall of their senior year but you really are kind of playing walking up to a fine line when you do it that way so it is better to kind of get yourself situated with  score that you feel comfortable with the end of your junior year to make sure that you are in a good position it's not too early to take it the fall of your senior year but again you're going to be struggling to kind of try to get everything back and get everything into the colleges especially  schools have an earlier acceptance whatever it's called yes yeah they have early decision deadlines so sometimes those might be in november and if you're not taking you know the s a t until october you're kind of weigh in on the can resubmit application with your better score or how does that work that's kind of just by basis again by college and how you are going to contact your college and reach out to them and see what would be available each college has an admission representative that kind of works with our specific area so going on the web say and finding which which person works for this area you can always reach out with an e mail and kind of explain situations and colleges will take those scores after you've already submitted all of your information whereas others might say you know your stuff is here we don't need anything additional so ok so the lot of this stuff is found on the web site from one hard but a lot of the requirements for actually taking the test like what type of calculator you need to use if you're permitted to use mechanical pencils or not because you can get to test out and help it like you know you can't use a mechanical pencil what like how do you find all of that information and what to bring to the actual test  website or does it come with the actual i like the admission ticket some of that stuff is listed on the admission ticket i do believe that they have written on there something about number two pencils only  pretty much all that information is on the college board web site it can be a little overwhelming because there's so much information on there but i do know that they have a test day checklist even like what you were saying they have one pre formed already on there and you can kind of print that out and go through the steps of making sure you have an approved calculator you have the correct number of pencils you have all the materials that you need to get there on the test for the actual test i mean you know i bickered with my family and my friends about taking the essay what are the benefits of taking the essay when you're going into your s a t s and i feel like i keep repeating this but it again it's all based on college so there's actually a spot on the college board web site where you can type in the college that you're interested in and they'll let you know whether or not that college requires it the written part the essay part and whether or not you know they kind of want you to go that route so it just depends on the school and whether they want you to have the written  part some schools might also ask you to take the subject test which is another part of the essay to you that might have specific subjects that they break it down into so that's why it's really important when you're looking at the different colleges that you're looking into that you kind of check out those things to make sure that they're not requiring something additional or specific when it comes to the s a t s definitely pertains to the individual to because i know writing is one of my strong suits and math so it kind of bumped up my a c p score when i was looking for that know that i didn't take mine until the very end of the junior year but as i was not looking forward to college definitely i think that you know really kind of a debt of trying with the student that it's going to make it a lot less stressful if you kind of break down piece by piece and starting early you know with your as a team with building a resume with searching for colleges starting those things earlier in your junior can kind of take that weight off when you get to senior year and you know you're kind of stressing out and running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to find make sure you have everything in for your application through the counseling center we schedule our post secondary meetings with the families in the eleventh grade year so really making sure that you know your family comes in and kind of scheduling that meeting can really help because you can kind of go through all those things and i know when i have my meetings now and kids are coming in that's one of the first things i ask is have you taken in have you signed up yet make sure you're doing this now so that we're not running last minute to get all these things done so you spoke of families getting involved what can parents do to help their kids with the s a t s and a c t is can they help them prep at all from i mean it always helps to have you know somebody else in there holding you accountable i think sometimes it can be you know a lot of the students here have a lot on their course load already a lot of tests and things to study for eddie so the s a t can kind of fall in the wayside i think and so having the parent there to kind of hold them accountable for making sure that they're studying can be helpful you know even if they can run some things with them if you're doing the book if you're doing the app of those types of things practicing with them that's i mean of course that's helpful  for the student so like going along with sending your teen as ace he scores your transcript how did those get send because that's the thing i wasn't sure if my transcripts were sent to how can we make sure that they're getting sent to the schools that we applied to so everything that you do most everything you do senior year goes through family connection so that's another thing that we kind of go through during the post secondary meeting that you have in your eleventh grade year is how to go on and apply for and get those transcripts ready to go so when time comes that you're ready to apply you'll go into your family connection account you'll add your school and you add that to the schools i'm applying to list and once you do that that automatically triggers us to send you a transcript so you know that if ashley were to go in and out of school tomorrow i would get a notification saying to let me know to add her to send her transcript out and you can also track down monitor it there's an area that i believe says office status that lets you know that your things have been sent so you can kind of give us a little bit less anxiety being able to see that and know that everything's been submitted for you  definitely i know that on the economy they have a area that says ok we got everything with downloaded it and it's for the peace of mind like they've got it they're making their decision and that's very beneficial to both party is right the  right so for students as peters township we have a lot of after school activities and sports for those students that have such a busy schedule how do you reckon what do you recommend to them to study from these things when they can't find time to do their homework as it is i mean it's just about time management which is what that comes down to i mean it can be overwhelming when you have a lot of things going on but kind of looking at your schedule  putting it out on paper in front of you and seeing where you have holes in time and then scheduling that essay to prop in their i mean if you have even from ten to eleven every saturday you're not doing anything just right in your calendar that's what i'm doing then and it's almost like it's another course that you're taking during the week but he put a plan in on the weekend so making sure that you set that time aside ahead of time and planning for it can really help when you're going through your day  aren't an oval or some place like that and we don't have any specific books that we recommend just because it's based on individual learners and what works best for them but i do know that there are plenty available have been around for a long time so they must be doing something right so just kind of going in looking in previewing and you know you can always look up book reviews to see what's been most helpful for other students ok so you have your score sensitive and transcripts everything how do you know how your essay to or anything to the score lines up with other students who got a minit so that again is going to depend on school a lot of times the websites of the schools will list what they're kind of hoping that you shoot for and what they would like the average score is for students to get admitted there you also can go on to your family connection and if you're under your super match and you look up the school under the emissions tab there's or scatter plot that actually shows all the students of applied from peter's township what their s a t s score what their g p a was and if they got into the school or not so i always recommend students use that because you can kind of go in there and see what other kids from here had and then that gives you kind of something to shoot for so if you see that a student had a you know four point one g p a and a fourteen hundred on their s a t then you know and they got in then you know ok well i know i would be safe if i had this so that can kind of be a nice tool to be able to gauge kind of what to look for when you're trying to shoot for your i c t but again they're going to have the average on the individua websites two for you to look at it all varies kind of by the student and by the school ok yeah so in your opinion what do you think the importance of a good essay t score how can that it's how can that kind of hold you back or get you in the front line for admission i mean it definitely they definitely take it into weight you know just as much as they would g p a i would say so if you don't really have to score they're looking for but you have a higher g p a and a lot of extracurriculars you know it might it might weigh it a little bit it just really depends on what the full profile is of the student that is applying  but obviously it is very important they do look at it quite a bit ok so i don't know if you know this but this question has been racking my mind for ages like this is just like a general question of asked like all of my  instructors why can't we use mechanical pencils on the s a t you know i have absolutely no idea you some me as well i have almost every single center i like no you can't use this and i'm just sitting here like it's the same exact thing it's just wrapped in plastic and it really bothers a lot of so you know that's a good question for college board maybe i heard some people could cheat with it like they could write like their answers and i mean i've always used it on the essay portion of it but that that soon is caught cheating or maybe if they've somehow violated anything in the testing session their scores usually are thrown out and the person is dismissed from the testing site so i don't know if there's further up or questions that go along to that but i do know that they taking all the excess yes but i mean you get what you pay for but so they are a part of s a t s is the preparation and the practice do you recommend students getting together and trying to practice together s or krupa if they all have similar styles of studying or do you think that's a distraction i mean if you have similar styles of studying and you know if you're a person in the functions while groups and you know having somebody maybe read flash cards to you and then you're answering that type of thing i mean there's nothing wrong with studying as a group it really just depends on you know if you're that person that needs to how the book in front of you and be making notes and kind of be on your own or if you're that person that really needs that interaction piece to be able to absorb the information gotcha because i know that i study better alone but i couldn't get myself to focus long enough on the actual practice that an there any way that you could recommend some things to help you focus while you're studying because i know that i have the attention span of a goldfish i mean making sure you're taking breaks for sure any time that you're doing something for too long it's your mind's going to start to wander so make sure you're taking breaks within that studying period and then just using the study skills that you normally would use you know for tests here throughout the day whether that be flashcards whether that be reading aloud while you're reading whatever it is whether that be making notes and going through it over and over whatever study tab it has worked the best for you applying that to your essay to study so i've had this fear for my s a t s that's never happened thank god but you're in the middle of the test and all of your pencils have lakefront all and i know that you can't get up from your seat what do you recommend have like you do like this i mean i have had this fear and i just i feel like it would be better if we just addressed it the proctors in your room should have extra pencils just raising your hand and asking them to bring one over they should be able to do that for you i'm actually the person that coordinates all the s a t s here peter so i can tell you that they usually have two boxes of pencils and to each of them so you'll never be in that situation where you hear a lot of i don't like i've gone into certain schools and they're just like oh we don't have extra pencil so this wake up well what do i it what do i do if this happened so i was like getting up to sharpen my pencil after every single break see if it breaks but do you know what the certain actual times are for each section of the s a t it may vary depending on you know if you're taking the t if you're taking the s a t with essay if you my student has accommodations and then you might have a different test as well so the test times in the breaks they all kind of vary depending on the different tests i see so i know that you can't during the s a t s for obvious reasons but you do recommend bringing something to eat in the middle of your breaks and such i mean it's definitely good for you to keep your energy up and if you're sitting there with the empty stomach and that's all you're focusing on then it's going to be really tough for you so it is good to bring some then and there along the very long test so it can be hard even if you do eat a big breakfast you might end up you know halfway through with the grumbling stomach so in the middle of the test the fall silent and then your belly or the boys i remember i didn't really get out of my test centers until like twelve o'clock after getting there at like eight or seven there in i am sitting here like i am dying i need some food so i would like grab something on the way home but it was really beneficial to have something to bury me like put me i didn't know like just tide me over and they get through the rest of the test but i asked for the actual test there are probably going to be distractions that happen because you have people tapping stuff is there any like you have any tips on how to confront that because if you like you can't really confront it they're just go like how do you handle that because you can't talk i mean it's this is one of those situations of your own mental capacity and kind of keeping that willpower hopefully if the student is being distracting enough you're proctor would kind of step in and and have something to say to them but otherwise it's really just going to be about you turn your main focus kids that have accommodations for the s a t s they might be in a smaller group which might be more helpful for them but for the rest of us that are kind of open in that general population it's really just going to be about trying to find your focus and the tests things yep seen them yeah i was supposed to have accommodation to ras eighty and then i ended up not getting them but i surprised either way so if you don't end up of accommodations i can say first hand that you you survived for a while still be ok and all those are applied for through college board as well so yes so how do you know like if by giant like yes or no but unless those sorts of like like what is a criteria to get accommodations for those sort of things so usually you submit to college board that you would like the accommodations and then they obviously come back with an answer i don't know their exact process in determining whether or not that you're going to get them or not but i recently have heard that it has become a little bit i wanted to call in though a little bit easier actually