Every spring semester, college admission testing rolls around, and every year, students stress over what that might mean for them. But what really matters when taking the SAT or ACT?
- You should never test just once
Expecting a perfect score the first time you take the SAT is, quite frankly, nonsense. Most people are just one-and-done when they take standardized tests, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you really want to score well, chances are you’re going to have to take the test more than once. And there’s no shame in doing so either, almost everyone with a 1600 success story has taken the SAT more than once. The score matters much more than how many times it takes to get it.
- One-and-done
Unless SAT testing is your thing, most of the time, you’ll just forget about it and move on. Coming from a senior who’s already been accepted into college, the SAT does not always matter. Truthfully, I stressed over the test for months, took it, and never thought about it again until college application season. And even then, I still didn’t worry about it because most colleges don’t need your standardized testing scores anyway. But even if they do, your essay and character are much more important than some standardized test. Colleges know that some people are just bad test takers (me, for example), and that’s totally okay. It’s not the end of the world, and forget that number the second you graduate.
- Standardized testing measures background
The original objective of standardized testing is to provide a general scope of a large group of individuals. But they don’t just measure intelligence; they measure socio-economic status and base questions on how wealthy you are. While this may give some an advantage, intelligence does not correlate with economic status.
- Consistency vs. overload
Studying for a test this big is a lot like working out. It’s better in the long run to be consistent than lift a bunch of heavy weights once and never do it again. Rather than cramming until two in the morning the day before, taking fifteen to thirty minutes a day to study is much more effective. No one can expect to be built like Sam Sulek after curling a couple of dumbbells, so why would you expect the same for studying?
