So you got your SAT score, now what?

So you just got your SAT score back, now what?

Hi!  My name is Lydia, and I’m the designer of the Cognitive Agency Approach to test prep.  I have helped hundreds of students get the SAT score they deserve over the past 10 years.  Arguably the 2nd most stressful day for an SAT test taker is score release day (the first being the actual test day).

Here are some of the most common questions I hear on score release day.

Q1.  I haven’t gotten my score yet, is that bad?

It could be, but most likely it isn’t.

I tell my clients that releasing scores is a high priority to College Board, but it’s not their highest priority.  They care more about being fair than releasing a score.  So, if there is a discrepancy or a concern, they will hold back a score release until that concern is addressed.  A concern could simply be that another student in the room may have had a cell phone out and they are running a statistical analysis on that student’s scores to determine the likelihood that they cheated.  There may not have been actual cheating.   When my son took the SAT, this happened to him.  Someone in his classroom had just not put away their phone properly.  There was no evidence the student was using the phone to cheat.

That being said, they aren’t going to hold back other scores just because they are concerned with the scores in that room.  It certainly feels bad when other students get their score before you get your score, but if you consider the other side, you’d be upset if your score was held up because College Board was investigating an incident in another state.

You can try to reach out to the College Board, but they are most likely not going to be explaining any investigation they are conducting.  This happens often so I wouldn’t necessarily worry unless there is another reason to worry.  If College Board is investigating you, you will likely know.  Even then, unless there was malicious intent, the worst thing that would happen is that you need to take the test again.  That can be very inconvenient, but it’s not going to impact your future necessarily. 

Q2.  I got this score, is that good?

Most parents and students look at the SAT in a very narrow way.  College Board and Universities view scores as predictors of college readiness.  You can think of college readiness as an indication of how high your grades will be and how much of a chance you have to graduate.

So “Good” is a relative consideration.  The benefits of a college degree are difficult to overstate.  College degree holders, on average, have lower unemployment rates, lower incarceration rates, longer life expectancies, higher levels of income, etc.  If your score is not what you wanted it to be, but it does predict that you will graduate from college, that’s good.  It’s more important to get a degree than to attend a “reach” university.

If your report did not predict college readiness, that is hard to hear.  However, I would rather know this before I spent money on an expensive college.  If you still want a college degree, you can still get one!  The report should give a breakdown on what needs to be addressed.  Hiring a tutor or using Khan Academy to remedy those low scores will not only help the SAT score, but also your life in general!  Junior college and then transferring to a 4-year university is also a viable option.  Not only will that help address the readiness deficiencies, it’s far more economical than immediately attending a 4-year university.

There are absolutely smart people who were bad test takers. I know many!  When people hear that I am an SAT tutor, they will tell me "oh man, I had a terrible SAT score!" These people are often huge successes. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, in an interview, tells the story about how he didn't get a "good" SAT score, but he was still asked by the SAT to include one of his articles in their reading comprehension section.

If Neil DeGrasse Tyson didn't get a "good" SAT score, and he reached his dreams SO CAN YOU!

Remember, an SAT score is just a score that attempts to predict a student's readiness. It's not a determination of fact nor is it an accurate forecast, it's just a prediction. Sometimes competent people don't do well in a test situation, and that's ok because in the real world you have the time you need to finish a job and you can look everything up. Sometimes people just aren't ready 17 but will be ready at 21. Sometimes the SAT got it wrong.

I am not saying a good SAT is not important; it is. One of the reason I am so passionate about "Cognitive Agency" is because I think the SAT is sometimes TOO important and I want to help as many kids work through the system that I can. But just because the SAT has more power than it probably should, doesn't mean students should give it more power than they need to in their own lives.

Q3.  Should I submit this score even if the university is “test optional”?

Generally, yes.  The research I mentioned did find that SAT scores correlated with freshman grades and graduation rates.  It ALSO compared students that did submit, even if the scores were relatively low for that school, with students who didn’t submit at all.  They found that students who submitted relatively low scores still had higher graduation rates!

But, I think there is another question beyond this. Let's change the question to "should I try to improve my SAT score, even if I can apply test optional?"

Yes.

Because SAT scores predict college readiness, SAT prep develops college readiness. What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example. A "good student / bad test taker" client of mine had straight A's. He had recently won first place in a digits of pi memorization contest. I asked him "ok, so what is the circumference divided by the diameter of a circle?" He said "well, I can't know that until you tell me what the circumference and the diameter are, obviously."

Huh. He knew pi was 3.14159265359... but he didn't know that the circumference divided by the diameter was 3.14159265359. This is actually a VERY common occurrence. Keep in mind, I work with some of the best and brightest kids all over the country, and a very large portion of them don't know how to derive pi. Many of them don't even realize that reason we say "square" when we take something to the second power is because the area of a square is the side squared. AP Calc BC students with straight A's don't know this!

You see, many students have memorized a bit of academic information without understanding its significance or even how to use it. This is partly because many teachers also don't understand the significance of what they teach or they think the significance is so obvious it doesn't need to be explained. When I tell teachers about these experiences, some of them will say "oh, I also didn't realize that about pi or about squaring something;" some will say "what, doesn't everyone know that? That shouldn't need to be explained!" Some, of course, will say "I know... I try so hard to teach the why's and I feel alone in doing that."

Were you ever told to not add or subtract with your fingers when you were 6 or 7? Research has shown that when kids were allowed to do that, they developed better math sense because they have ten fingers and our number system is in base ten! This research has been out for years and teachers are STILL teaching kids to memorize addition and subtraction instead of understanding it!

It's no wonder so many smart kids don't respond well to school and so many straight A students struggle in the real world!

(I am not against teachers. My mom, grandfather, aunt, and uncle are all math teachers. My uncle even wrote a Geometry textbook. The reason I named my company Ampersand Prep is because I believe praxis learning is a compliment to rote learning. It's a "yes... and" situation. I am not against memorizing. I just believe that if you understand why what you memorized is important, you will have more cognitive agency!)

After going through the Cognitive Agency course, my champion of pi memorizing contests not only knew why pi was important and how to use it, but he also had this practical knowledge about many other things. He told me when we did our exit interview that he was understanding calculus better and he understood how calculus is applicable to his life. I asked him if he had a higher grade. He said no, he always got A's no matter what, it's just that he understood why the class he got an A in mattered. SAT test prep showed him where the gaps in conceptual understanding were and Cognitive Agency empowered him to fill those gaps. He recently emailed me that he was graduating early from Northwestern and he thanked me for helping him shift his mindset.

But I believe what you are asking is what score range should you submit if a school is test optional? Most of the time the right answer is to submit. Most test optional schools can't actually hold SAT scores against you which means if your score is too low, they can't consider that as a means to rule you out. What they do know is that you are ambitious and you work hard. If the school says they will not hold your decision to submit your SAT scores against you, that means that a student with a 4.0 GPA and a 1300 SAT score is ranked the same as a 4.0 GPA and a 1500 SAT score.  That is actually a bigger benefit, therefore, for the 1300 scorer than the 1500 scorer!

My recommendation is to try to figure out what the score range was BEFORE the school went test optional.  You might need to use the way back machine for this, but most of the time, you can figure this out with just a few Google searches or phone calls.  If your score is close to the bottom of that range, I would submit because the school knows that students with that score can handle the rigor.

A score of 1300 or higher will generally indicate that a student can handle any level of rigor.  I say that because many of my students who end up at Ivy+ schools started with a 1300.

A score of a 1000 will generally indicate a student will get C’s in a typical college class and since C's get degrees, that might be just fine for your situation.

If the school is test optional but doesn’t promise not to hold your decision to submit your score or not against you, they very well may assume the worst if you don't submit an SAT score: that the score you got was very low.

The truth is, the reason a lot of schools have test optional policies is so they can get in students who wouldn't qualify normally. The biggest beneficiaries of test optional policies are rich students and athletes. Remember, universities are businesses and they want to accept those students even if they may not graduate because they make the school money. Many people feel angry about this, but don't worry about it. Because of the way higher education is funded in American society, this is often how universities get paid for. Let the rich kids pay for you.

In summary, if you aren't submitting a score, you want to either be an athlete who will make the school money, have rich parents who can afford to pay your tuition which means it doesn't matter if you don't graduate and therefore can't pay it back, or include a post graduate plan in your essay. Make sure you let them know in some way what you plan to DO with the education you are asking them to give you, and make sure it sounds like you will make money.

Q4. I need a higher score than I received.  How do I raise it?

This isn’t an easy question to answer because each situation is individual.  I do a free assessment to help determine this.  Of course, I am a tutor and want students to enroll with me, but in all honesty, the Cognitive Agency Approach isn’t for everyone.  That being said, I still want all students to reach their goals which is why I still do free assessments.  Go ahead and pick a time where both you and your parent(s) can attend and let’s talk!

Essentially there are 3 reasons you miss questions.  In order to figure out how to improve, you have to know why you are missing.

1.  You are missing “Academic Content.”
2.  You made a mistake.
3.  The question was counterintuitive and you lacked insight.

Academic Content is the stuff you learn in school.  This is usually the reason students miss up to 1100.  You need to learn or remember some things.  This includes formulas, grammar rules, and vocabulary words.  Most tutoring programs help with this, and it's the main benefit of Khan Academy.  You should focus on things you don’t know, which is why you need to know why you are missing!

We all make mistakes.  As you practice the SAT and review your missed questions, you will naturally make fewer mistakes as you go.  Make sure you employ best practices when you need to.  For example, when I make a mistake it’s usually because I flipped a negative/positive sign.  So, if I see that I am working with absolute values, subtracting a polynomial in a bracket, or taking a negative number to a higher power, I show my work.  Nobody needs to explain to me why subtracting a negative is the same as addition; I know the academic content!  That being said, I rarely make mistakes in trigonometry, so I will do as much of it in my head as I can.  It is a timed test after all.  You may be different, which is why it’s important to know the kinds of mistakes you make!

Many of the questions are counterintuitive.  A question may ask you what a feminist has in common with someone who thinks women should stay home with children.  You may want to answer “nothing,” but the right answer will be “they both believe women have a role in society.”  Or you might have a system of linear equations that has no solution, and you might want to solve it because that’s what you usually do with a system of equations.  However, you need the insight to realize lines that have no solution are parallel and so you just need to find the slope.  Again, there are no academics you lacked, you just didn’t have insight.  In order to develop insight and not fall victim to counterintuitive questions, you need to know why the wrong answer is wrong more than you need to know why the right answer is right. You need to know why you chose the wrong answer.

To learn more of what you SHOULDN’T do , check out my article Top 5 mistakes students make when preparing for the SAT (and what to do instead).

Q5. My score actually went down! What do I do?

So, if your score has decreased, you are likely experiencing test day anxiety. Addressing anxiety is something that is typically out of the wheelhouse of most tutors, teachers, and parents. They usually can help to an extent by preparing you, developing your skills, and building confidence. Some even can act as a trusted adult who listens and cares, which is often all a student needs. Sadly, many trusted adults can make anxiety worse by building pressure, threatening, guilting and shaming, etc.

If you are experiencing high levels of anxiety and you know it's coming from external expectations from your parents, it might be a good idea to talk to someone about that: a school counselor, a teacher, a therapist. Sometimes an intervention can be made. Truth is, kids don't come with instruction manuals and sometimes parents think they are doing what is right, but they miss the mark. As a former child, I know my parents affected me in ways they didn't intend to, and as a parent, I know I have affected my son in ways I didn't intend to.

Sometimes that just isn't possible, and I understand that. You can't control your parents, you can only control yourself. I've had many students who were pushed into tutoring by their parents, and there was nothing that could be done about it. In these cases, I focus on what the student wants. Too often when a teenager lacks self-determination due to overbearing parents, they rebel. Helping a student decide what they want can help them see a path beyond "I just don't want to do what my parents want." Once I know what the student wants, I will try to help them with a plan to reach it. I have yet to have a student tell me they want to quit tutoring when I ask them what they want.

If you are experiencing high levels of parental pressure, take some time to yourself to think about what you want. Don't feel ashamed if it's exactly the same as what your parents want for you. On the other hand, don't feel ashamed if it's completely different from what your parents want. I remember changing the course of my life when I was about 24. At first I wanted to do everything the opposite of what I was taught to do, but once I could breath the air of agency, I realized a lot of what was expected of me, I wanted for myself. Not everything was the same, but more was the same than was different. Rebelling completely against expectations is usually just as much a lack of agency as following every expectation.

It's important to keep in mind that anxiety is usually natural; it just becomes a problem when it is moving beyond its useful function. This can happen with a lot of emotional or cognitive processes we experience. It's good to be defensive against bad things; it's not so good to be defensive against new things that will help us. It's usually good to see patterns in things, but sometimes patterns can make us prejudge or misjudge. You should feel a little shame if you make a mistake so you correct it and don't make it again, but you shouldn't feel ashamed for who you are.

Anxiety only becomes a problem when it no longer helps you. If your score is going down, then it is likely not helping you.

Firstly, research has shown that the most effective anxiety reducing techniques are physical, not cognitive, in nature. These are things like touching something solid, tapping, taking a deep breath, etc. Think about physical things you do that reduce anxiety or google some common effective ones. For me, it's touching my hair. For you it might be taking a deep breath, tapping something, holding something, etc.

Pick 1 that works for you BEFORE test day. Therapists will often give only two options to a person experiencing an anxiety attack, such as "do you want water or do you want to go on a walk?" so as to not overwhelm them while still giving them the agency of choice. By the same logic, if you consider several choices and then decide on one beforehand, you will have the agency that comes with deciding something for yourself without stressing about a decision.

The day before the test, write about positive experiences that you associate with positive emotions. This has also been shown to reduce test anxiety when compared to just keeping a journal of your daily activities.

Other than that, make sure you tell yourself whatever it is you need to tell yourself to improve your mood. Of course you want to do your best, but if it helps you to think "oh, I can always take the test again" then tell yourself that. If it helps you to think "oh, I can apply test optional" then think that. If your parents are telling you things that you could perceive as a threat, tell yourself "oh, they just want the best for me." Choose thoughts that reduce stress.