A (2:58)

By the way, Brian, I don't mean to interrupt you, but that doesn't bode very well for me because back in my day, there was only the sat, and I was. It was not. It was not my strong suit. So, anyway, go ahead. So we're at Harvard in the 1930s. I'm. I'm. Yeah, taking your flow there, but I just.

B (3:15)

Not at all. Not at all. The. The goal was to help identify students that came from different pathways than, you know, what had previously gotten students into schools like Harvard, which is just direct feeders from prep schools.

A (3:29)

Right, right.

B (3:30)

It was to develop a test that could be given to the population to determine, like I said, sort of innate aptitude. Right. The SAT has classically set the bar, or, well, for most of its life anyway, set the bar relatively low in terms of content knowledge that a student would need to know to take the test. But then it would heavily focus on things like how well students read for detail or sequence information or use verbal and visual reasoning to solve problems. So in many ways, it was similar to an IQ test for much of its life. In recent years, it's undergone a couple of redesigns. In 2016, it had a pretty significant overhaul to move closer to Common Core standards and align better with content mastery that students would see in high school. Right. And then again, it was redesigned in 2024. Well, first of all, it went digital. And secondly, it adjusted the format of the test to create shorter questions. A shorter test, and reintroduced some of the sort of classic sat things like vocabulary questions and things like that. So, in any case, the construction of the SAT today, it's got four sections. Two of them are reading and writing, two of them are math, and the test is now all digital and adaptive. So a student will take a section of reading and writing questions, for instance, and depending on how well they perform on that first set of questions, they'll get tracked into a harder or easier second set of questions, which has a huge effect on their score. Typically, if a student's in the harder second module. Well, sorry, let me rewind for a second. I should talk about how they're scored here. The SAT, you know, two sections, the verbal and the math, each scored from 200 to 800. And then a student's overall SAT score is the sum of those two sections. So a student can score from 400 to 1600 on the SAT, which is the classic scale that most parents today would be familiar with. And the new addition is this adaptive model where, like I said, depending on how you perform early in the test, it tracks you into easier or harder. Second sets of questions is, is that.

A (5:57)

So they're able to do that because it's. Because it's digital. Right? They're able then to sort of adjust it as you go along. We didn't have that when we. Is that why. I feel like when we. When I was applying to college, which is, oh my gosh, 30. I don't know. However, I mean, I'm gonna pass out thinking about the number. But we didn't, you know, I feel like a 1300 was a great score. You know, a 1280 was a great score. Now it seems like for very, very competitive colleges, you have to get. And I know we'll probably talk about this in depth more later, but, you know, a 1500 or better. Is that because of this different formatting, this different scoring system? Is there, do you get more points like, are there, is there more weight added to the more difficult questions that you're put into? Or is it just the kids are smarter these days? What's. How does that.

B (6:49)

To a slight extent, some of the harder questions are weighted more than some of the easier questions, but that's a pretty slight effect. Overall, I think the broader and much more long standing trend is just the rise of the test prep industry. Top schools becoming drastically more selective than they were 30 years ago and more students applying to college. So all these factors increase the average scores at the most selective schools considerably relative to 30 years ago or 50 years ago.

A (7:22)

So when you're saying you said so, the SAT has those. The two reading, writing and the two math. What sort of specifically, like you mentioned vocabulary. Is there a vocab definition session section? I think there's a grammar section maybe. Can you break it down sort of. What are in those different. The reading, writing and the math?

B (7:45)

Sure, absolutely. So the reading and writing is perhaps to state the obvious, half reading and half writing. In the reading portion, there's the classic fill in the blank with a vocabulary word that fits questions.

A (7:55)

Okay.

B (7:56)

There are reading comprehension questions where students are asked to decipher a detail that the question flags or to describe the main point of a passage. Some of the sort of classic reading comprehension questions that have characterized standardized tests for years. The most recent addition to the reading section of the SAT is a suite of Sort of logical reasoning questions like which of the following pieces of evidence would strengthen the author's argument or provided a few pieces of evidence, what conclusion could the reader draw? These are almost similar to law school admissions test questions. They're sort of focused on how well a student can understand an argument and the reason with it. On the writing portion of the test, there's your classic grammar rules. How do we use the semicolons? How do we make subjects and verbs agree? Things like this. There's a new emphasis on choosing transitional words. So if you've got two sentences, should we use however or therefore in between?

A (8:54)

Right.

B (8:55)

Oh, interesting. Yeah. And then there's a set of questions where students are provided with some background notes, almost as if they'd done research for a paper, and then are asked to synthesize that information into a summary or some other description requested by the question.

A (9:12)

Is the math like algebra 1, 2, geometry? Sort of. How far do kids need to get in their. Well, with math, I don't think you could really necessarily do an aptitude. If someone hasn't covered that or hasn't learned that Right. They're not going to be able to answer the math question.

B (9:30)

Right. So there's definitely more content focus on the SAT than there was 20 years ago and prior. But it covers basically all math up through algebra 2. So definitely algebra, which includes, you know, probability and some statistics. There's algebra 1 and 2, geometry and trigonometry. But the. The real focus of the SAT math is on algebra skills. You know, core algebra, problem solving is, you know, makes up the bulk of the test.

A (10:01)

Okay, interesting. Okay, so that's the sat and then the act. What are the components of that?

B (10:09)

So the ACT has English math, reading, and the now optional science section on it. English is essentially fixing essays with problems. They provide a number of short essays with underlined portions, and students fix grammar mistakes. They're asked to make decisions about things like introducing paragraphs effectively decisions about whether to add a reference based on whether it's relevant or redundant. Things like that, I should say. The ACT as a whole was redesigned last year, but it's been a pretty minor change overall. So the change on the English section has been that there's more emphasis on these rhetorical skills than purely grammar. So you're looking at about 40% questions involving standard English conventions and about 60% that other set of sort of essay editing tasks that are not based on nuts and bolts grammar rules, but more based on, you know, conceptual editing of essays. The math section, pretty similar to SAT in Terms of its content, it's going to cover pre algebra all the way up through algebra 2. This new form of the test is starting to add some slightly more higher level math. We're seeing trigonometry that would be taught in an Algebra 2 curriculum or pre calculus curriculum, typically, and some minor elements of pre calculus. I would say the big difference here is that the ACT is more straightforward and concrete and sort of repetitive from one test to the next. So it's going to test more high level math and a wider range of math topics than the SAT does. But there's less novelty, less emphasis on solving problems that are unusual on the ACT than on the sat.

A (12:02)

Another question, too. When did the ACT come into play? And how did that. Right. So we have the SAT being used in admissions to kind of, you know, understand people's aptitude or be a determinating factor for schools, I guess, and how they would perform the students when they got to those schools. But why do we need the ACT on top of that? Right. When did that, when did. Well, I guess it must have been the, you know, in the past, you know, 20 years or so or 30 years, or maybe it was around when. I. I don't know. I just remember. I only remember the SAT.

B (12:34)

Yeah. So the act was actually created in 1959 by a professor. Yeah, it's. It's a lot older than a lot of people think. SAT has been the dominant player for so much of the standardized test history. But ACT is over 60 years old at this point. It was created by a professor at the University of Iowa, sort of in direct opposition to the sat. This professor thought that tests of innate aptitude were not the best measure for students applying to college. And so the ACT was created explicitly to test achievement, content, mastery of material that students would be expected to see in high school. So over the life of these two tests, the, you know, the SAT was the dominant player until the. Around 2006. 7. There was a. There was a redesign to the SAT that made it longer and dropped average scores. I'm not getting too into the weeds here, but the actual. Much more popular about 20 years ago, to the point that, you know, over. Over the most recent 20 years, it's roughly 50, 50, with a slight preference. Slightly more sat takers than act takers, but they're both, you know, very popular tests. And historically, the SAT was dominant on the coasts, especially in the act, started to gain popularity in the Midwest and the South. So we see a lot of parents, depending on where they grew up, having a preference for One test or the other, because it was what they experienced when they really interesting.

A (14:11)

Very interesting. I never knew. And I. And so maybe were certain colleges preferring one test over the other, or has it always sort of been both of them have been acceptable for you to submit?

B (14:25)

There's definitely a preference at particular schools for one test or the other. Again, until about 20 years ago, five years ago, when things started to shake up. At this point, schools will take either test with no preference from the student perspective. You want to submit whichever score is going to be relatively higher. Right. But, you know, until around the year 2000, there was definite preference for, you know, one test of the other, depending on which school you're applying to. I grew up in Cincinnati and I applied to largely northeastern schools, a slate of Ivies and things like that. Even though the ACT was popular in the Midwest, I never actually took an ACT in high school. It was all SAT when I was. When I was a student because of the schools I was applying to and, you know, this perceived preference for the SAT. I graduated high school in 2004. I probably could have submitted SAT or ACT and had the same admissions outcomes. But even then, my college counselors were telling me, you should really focus on the sat.

A (15:32)

On the sat. Okay, so we've now gotten this kind of background on both of these. How do you know you're a parent who's listening or you're a student who's listening? How do you know which one is the test for you?

B (15:46)

Yeah, so this is definitely a complicated question with our students starting the process with us. There are a couple of things we look at. The first is you definitely want to take baseline tests for both. You want to see quantitatively how they compare. About half of students are going to score comparably on SAT and ACT on a first attempt. But, you know, if you're in that other half, about a quarter each will score better on ACT or satisfaction. And that could be a determining factor. I would say that if you're. If the scores are close, say within 3 ACT points or 100 SAT points, when you're sort of doing that crossover to see what SAT score compares to your ACT score, you know, that's not going to make the decision alone. The second piece would be sort of what your individual profile looks like. What are your strengths? On the satisfaction. In general profiles of students who succeed in the sat, they tend to have high level verbal skills, creative problem solving abilities, some level of comfort with novelty, and navigating sort of gray areas in testing. If a student is a big Reader, they're likely to have an advantage on the SAT versus students who don't read outside of class. The SAT is just less concrete and has more abstract reasoning. So thinking outside the box is rewarded on that test. But speed is at much less of a premium. So if you're kind of, you know, comfortable in those more ambiguous questions where you're going to have to ultimately make a gut decision, that's more of an SAT profile. The ACT is going to reward content mastery and fast processing speed. This is a really key piece of the act. If you've taken hard classes and gotten good grades and crucially can work quickly, you'll have an advantage in the ACT versus the sat. As I've been describing this, you probably thought that ACT sounds easier, right? Because the SAT can present harder questions at the high end, more difficult vocabulary, more difficult problem solving. But the ACT is much faster paced. It's a lot harder to finish the ACT on time. So that is a big factor here. I've been teaching these tests for 20 years and I've taken the ACT, I think, seven times as an adult now, and I still only finish, you know, the most time intensive sections of the ACT with a couple of minutes to spare. It's very fast paced. So that's kind of the trade off. More time to think about harder problems on the sat, wider range of content that you have to have under your belt and processing speed on the ACT and the.

A (18:41)

Is the ACT digital or paper?

B (18:44)

So the ACT is now both digital and paper.

A (18:48)

And do the questions get harder in the ACT the more that you answer correctly?

B (18:52)

Or do you mean like, is it adaptive like the sat? Yeah, the ACT is not adaptive. It is linear. So whether you take it on computer or paper, everybody gets the same test.

A (19:04)

Okay.

B (19:05)

And it's just a different delivery mechanism, essentially. Personally, having taken both, I think the paper and pencil version of the ACT is advantageous for students versus the digital version. Again, same questions. But, you know, on sections like reading and science, you're having to sort of scroll on a computer through a passage that's on the screen and hunt for information. You know, I think also that on the act, you know, the digital format certainly limits your ability to annotate passages, to write down your steps on math problems. And so I strongly prefer the paper and pencil version of the act. But yeah, it is linear and we'll see where they go with it. There's some speculation that, you know, the digital test will ultimately lead to something adaptive like the SAT is doing. But as of, as of now, The ACT doesn't have plans to introduce an adaptive version.

A (20:08)

Yeah, I. At one point, I went to law school and took the lsat, but I thought about getting a joint jd, mba. So I took the gmat, and I would know that I was doing well on. On a section if the questions kept getting harder. It was real catch 22. I'm like, I must have gotten that one right, because this one is considerably harder than the other. So at least the kids who are taking the SAT get that feedback. But. So your recommendation would be, you know, obviously, you just give a great overview of both of these tests, but for the. For the student to maybe take a practice or two of both and then kind of see which. What tests they score higher on.

B (20:53)

Yeah. And which feels better. You know, some. I mean, we'll have some students that prefer one format versus the other, even if the scores are comparable. The. You know, the SAT is shorter than the act. There are no long passages on the sat. Every question is two to four sentences on that reading section.

A (21:15)

Okay.

B (21:16)

The act, you read a full page of information and then answer nine questions about it on reading. And these are matters of personal preference, but they can impact a student's attention and stamina throughout the test. They're ultimately, the student is the one doing the work to prepare for this test. And so there's definitely importance around, you know, which format feels more comfortable and which one they feel more confident on.

A (21:42)

Okay. All right. So you've now figured out which test you're going to take. You've taken a practice test or two of each. You've got your program. You're either an SAT kid or you're an ACT kid. Can we talk strategy a little bit? And I'm sure that there are different tips for each test, but a big one. I remember when I was taking the sat, you weren't supposed to leave a question blank. It'd be like, see, see, see. You would. Just because you wouldn't. So I guess my question to you is, how are they scored? Is it. You know, do you get. Sometimes you get points taken off for the ones you don't answer, I think. Or at least that was. I can't remember, was the LSAT or the GMAT that had that. And then others rewarded you for guessing what. What are their differences between the two and how do they. How does that work for both the SAT and the act?

B (22:33)

Yeah. So SAT has gone back and forth on this, but both SAT and ACT currently have no guessing penalty. So as the time starts to wind down, you want to make sure to guess something on every question before the time runs out. Ideally, if you're getting close to the end and still have a few questions to go, even doing some process of elimination or educated guessing is great. But yeah, if you've got 30 seconds left, fill in C on everything. Make sure you get on each one of them.

A (23:04)

Has anyone ever done any research? I don't know how they would do this. Of which letter is most, you know, is the answer to most of the questions, like, is it CCC or should we be doing bbb? Or is it just equally as likely that you would. It would be one letter over another?

B (23:27)

Yeah, you hear tons of theories about this. Every student comes in with something they've heard on, you know, on the Internet about which letter is best to guess. You know, the test makers control this broadly pretty carefully so that one letter is not more likely to be the answer in a. In a meaningful sense. Sense anyway. Across the course of eight guesses, you know, definitely one of them is going to show up more than the others. But there's, there's no, there's no secret strategy around which letter you should choose. I tell my students to, you know, pick their favorite one or make some kind of pattern in the answers, whatever, whatever they feel like doing.

A (24:05)

Okay. But it probably makes sense statistically, and I guess this is not my strength, that I didn't do very well mathematicsat either. But to probably just pick the one right than not to guess different letters. Unless you're doing a process of elimination. Right. Because you're more likely to hit it, I think, if it's the same letter all the way down than if you're just sort of haphazardly picking different letters.

B (24:29)

I don't think it ultimately matters because on any given then you're going to have the same probability that it is right or wrong. Okay, so pick whichever guessing strategy you want in. Go nuts.

A (24:40)

Okay. All right, Sounds good. Sounds good. All right. So when should a child start to prepare for the test and how long typically is it is. I'm sure it varies, obviously, based on the student and what they've covered, but is there sort of a typical timeline for how long kids usually prepare and. Or a typical grade that they start preparing or should start preparing in?

B (25:07)

Yeah, so I think the most common time that students take their first tests is typically in the spring of junior year, you know, with. With some students getting to the game later and starting to think about this, you know, over the summer after junior year and taking tests in the fall just before applying to college. But I. I really prefer having students start the summer after their sophomore year. Our ideal timeline would be as soon as exams are done for sophomore year. Get started with test prep, because you can take advantage of that window where you don't have, you know, the rigors of the academic year to add SAT or ACT prep on top of. So we like to have students prepare a bit more intensely during the summer between sophomore and junior year, with a plan to start taking tests in the fall. Now, of course, we want to make sure they're ready for that first test before they take it, but. But our students will typically do weekly meetings through the summer and then pick one week during that summer where they do daily meetings and homework with a tutor. Sort of jumpstart the process. And this sets us up to take tests as early as August for the SAT or September for the act. That's, you know, that's the ambitious timeline. Many of those students who start over the summer will take tests in October or December as their first official one. But taking the test multiple times is really important. Our students see improvement from one test to the next. They get better at taking the test through the process of taking the actual test, as obvious as that may sound, you get more used to the nerves of test day. You get important feedback from the test results from the real tests, and can decide where to focus your efforts.

A (26:54)

So I was actually very surprised at that. Our son took. He was now a sophomore, took the psat, and it was such a great breakdown of how he did in each section, what his strengths were, what he needs to work on. I thought it was really incredibly thorough. And then our daughter, who did not, you know, when she was applying test, most schools were test optional, and that wasn't. She wasn't really willing to put the time in, let's put it that way, to do the prep. But I remember there was sat, There was flashcards of vocab words that are like, these are the most common. So just to get people thinking about why that sophomore summer, grammar, vocab, those kinds of things, or math gaps, I guess, or things you could really iron out to get in gear for that junior year summer. Or maybe you'll be ready to go by the fall of your junior year.

B (27:48)

Yeah, all of the above. I mean, there are, you know, there are two sections on the sat, but within the verbal section, there are two distinct portions. Right. And on the act, there are three portions of, you know, the core test. With the optional science, there's just a lot to cover. And just like anything that you're learning before you can really progress to mastery. You have to master the fundamentals, right? So getting familiar with the format and the strategies that you're going to apply frequently across the test, it just takes time to internalize these things. And then you can just keep, you know, ratcheting it up and working on harder materials, making your strategies and approaches more nuanced. It just takes time to set in. And additionally, I think that these tests are hard to cram for. They, you know, students are going to retain information and become better at strategies with some time for that information to sink in between practice sessions, between tutoring sessions. And finally, the tests are not offered every day, right? So if you take the ACT in October, the next opportunity is December and then the next one after that is February. So if we're planning to take the test three times or more, which I strongly recommend, you're looking at a span of typically at least four months between that first and third test to begin with.

A (29:16)

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B (31:44)

Yeah. So the school's admissions websites, almost across the board, explicitly state their preference for what scores they want to see. But actually, I have good news on this front. Georgetown is really the only prominent school that wants to see your entire history. Some schools recommend that you send, you know, more than just your best score or your super score, but for both SAT and act, students have to elect to send those scores. The schools can't compel submission of your entire testing history. So especially if the common app is involved, which the vast majority of schools are on you, you just fill in your scores. You can fill in for act, your best, your super score, and your best individual composite. And you don't have to send those earlier ones. So I think there are definitely reasons to wait until you're at least feeling confident for that first test. We don't want to have a number that is discouraging or, you know, strikes a long term blow to your confidence on these tests. But I don't think you have to be, with the exception of Georgetown, in a position of feeling that you are fully finished prepping to take that first test. In fact, I'd argue the opposite, that once we are feeling comfortable with the test, have covered all the sections and know what to expect and have taken a few practice tests, then I would encourage students to get in there and take that first test and get the experience, because it is going to. No matter how much you simulate practice tests, your nerves are going to be going on that first real one. And it gets more manageable as you get more used to the exercise, certainly.

A (33:27)

So we talked about. You mentioned a little bit about, you know, your preference of having the ACT be, you know, having. Taking it on paper. Because there's benefit, right, to being able to, you know, write down notes in paper and pencil and to calculate your math there and not have to scroll right. As you're going through the digital test. So how does this affect your strategy in preparing for their testing? Like if you're prepping somebody on the SAT versus the act.

B (33:57)

Yeah. So on the satisfaction, it is only digital.

A (34:00)

Right.

B (34:00)

So the things that we focus on in the sat, we kind of lean into the specific tools that the platform provides. For one thing, there is a highlighting feature on the reading section, and there's a note taking feature on the reading section. We work with students a lot on literally writing notes as they read these more difficult logical reasoning questions, especially sort of translating it to themselves, writing a little shorthand in the notes feature so that they're doing something more active to process the information in front of them. On the math section, there are two things I would say. The first is you have scratch paper. You should absolutely be writing down your steps as much as you can. I think one of the nearly universal effects of the digital test is that kids stop writing steps down. They do a lot more on the calculator that's built in. They do a lot more in their head. And so we really encourage and try to, you know, sort of enforce in homework. We want to. We want to see what students work looks like after they've taken a test so that we can make sure they're writing down steps. It just has a direct translation to your accuracy and your algebra steps and, you know, just your executive functions to be writing down those steps.

A (35:13)

One question you mentioned, calculator. Do both tests allow you to use a calculator?

B (35:18)

Both tests allow calculator. And this is a really important point that I'd love to talk a little bit more about. There is a free online graphing calculator, sort of the household name in this space, called Desmos. And it is built into both digital versions, the SAT and the act. And it is just incredibly powerful. It will solve more than half the questions on the SAT math section if you know how to use it. It's got tons of capabilities. It will take averages, do percents. It will tell you what values solve systems of equations. It will, of course, graph. But the number one thing on the SAT math section that I would encourage students to devote time to is getting as familiar with the decimals calculator as possible. You want to know everything that it does. You want to honestly at every problem on the SAT math. I'm asking myself, is there a DESMOS pathway to solve this question.

A (36:15)

Interesting. So DESMOS is not a brand of calculator. It's a online calculator that's offered by SAT and act, and they want you to know how to use it.

B (36:27)

Yes. And so it has been built into the SAT since the test went digital in 2024 in the US ACT just added Desmos for the December test in 2025. So it's brand new. This is the one potential advantage to the digital ACT is that on the paper and pencil act, no decimals, but on the digital act, you can use the decimals calculator. This is a really interesting thing that we honestly don't have the answer for yet, strategically, for a couple reasons, I think that overall, I still recommend the paper test for the act. There are even components of the math section that are easier to do on paper, as I mentioned. But it is an intriguing possibility for students who've maybe already locked in strong English and reading scores to consider whether they might take a digital ACT specifically for the math section so that they can use DESMOS on it. And a whole other host of questions arise. Currently, our understanding is that the actual test questions are identical between the digital and paper math sections on the act. But it stands to reason that over time, the availability of DESMOS might alter the construction of the ACT math section, because, like I said, it will solve equations for you. It will do a great many things that are currently tested on the actual because students are expected to be able to do them on their own.

A (38:01)

And there's no graphing calculator that you could buy that would have the same functionality as the decimals.

B (38:09)

Sorry if I think I left that point out. You can certainly use a handheld graphing calculator on both tests that, you know, the ti.

A (38:19)

It sounds like DESMOS goes like, above and beyond or takes an extra step. But I just didn't know if there was a graphing calculator that had the same functionality. I don't. Maybe it's not because it's not a computer. Right. So DESMOS kind of has. Yeah, okay.

B (38:32)

DESMOS is drastically more effective than the handheld graphing calculators. There are some particular things that the handheld graphing calculators can do. We're talking really niche things like solving matrix operations. The graphing calculator can do that and DESMOS can't. But for the vast majority of problem solving tasks that you would want to do on the SAT or ACT math section, Desmos is just much more effective.

A (39:01)

Wow. It sounds like. It sounds like a. Like a mar. Like a Marvel character. Like somebody that's, you know, like going after the. What is the Guardians of the Galaxy? I mean, it's a really. So. Okay, so that's very interesting to know. Very interesting to know, particularly because I think our son, who's a sophomore, is more of an ACT guy, and math is not as strong as reading, so that'll be interesting to see whether he opts to try to pursue a digital or paper and pencil. So while we're on the subject of the act, they have a science section and a writing section, which used to be, I think, required, but now it's optional. What is your perspective about that? Should students take those sections and how do those sections affect their scores?

B (39:52)

Sure. So, first of all, I'm kind of sad that the science is optional because I really like it, but it is effectively not. How to say this? It is not nearly as important as it was even a year ago. The science section, one year ago, before the ACT was redesigned and rolled out completely in its new format, your overall ACT score, the composite score, it's called, was made by averaging the four individual sections. English, math, reading, and science. Fast forward to today. Your composite score is made up of only English, math and reading. So if you take science, let's say you go in and you are great at science and love the section, you get a 36 in the science section. It does not affect your overall score. It will say your ACT score is 30 and your science score is 36. Sort of like a sub score or an add on. And in terms of what schools want to see, the vast majority do not require the science section. The most notable exceptions are, of course, Georgetown, because they march to the beat of their own drum. And Boston University wants to see the science section. I'd have to check on the service academies, but I think some of the military academies might want to see science as well. It's important to note that we have not even seen a full admissions, a full admission cycle with this, you know, new set of policies around the. The ACT kids who applied in the fall of 2025, we had a number of them. We tried to accelerate their process and get them finished when science still counted and was part of the overall score next fall, I was going to say everyone, but nearly everyone. 99% of people who submit ACT scores will have this science section optional. Right. And it is nearly impossible for us to quantify what role science will have in admissions. My general sense is that. Well, what we recommend to our students is that if they are scoring 30 or higher on their composite score, we typically recommend doing science just because their peers and other applicants to the highly selective schools they're going to apply to are more likely to take science than students scoring lower than that. But again, this is a personal decision. It's going to take extra time and effort and perhaps additional tests to prepare for that science section. And I can't sit here and tell you that it's going to have a significant role in that admissions decision. So if a student's a STEM major, you know, it stands to reason that we might want to submit a good science score. If we think we can do really well on it, then that's another argument for it. But without a doubt, the science section should. Should be lower priority than the English, math and reading. You should lock in those first three scores first. And then if taking the science might have a benefit for you, then you can think about it.

A (43:01)

Okay?

B (43:03)

And don't take writing. There's no point there.

A (43:07)

Are you listening, listeners? Do not take writing. There is no point on the writing section. Well, that's. I love. I love that. I love that, you know, who wants to add an extra.

B (43:16)

Yeah.

A (43:17)

Thing to have to work on if it's not, you know, if they're not going to. Required it to be scored? Right, right.

B (43:23)

In fact, not only do they not require it, the. The SAT discontinued its writing section, I think, in 2021. And there was a bunch of press that came out afterwards with top admissions officers saying, we never really paid attention to this anyway. And so, you know, there are a number of schools that used to sort of recommend writing, and now nobody requires it. And it seems, based on what admissions officers say, that they won't even really pay attention to it if you submit it. So I would just skip it.

A (44:00)

Okay, you touched on this a little bit earlier. Super scoring. Can you explain what. What it is, how it works? And if all schools. I know we just talked about Georgetown being its own. Its own island in the admissions process, but do all schools except Georgetown generally accept super scores?

B (44:21)

So first, let's start with what super scoring is. That is essentially, or. Super scoring is a practice where if you take multiple tests, you can Combine your best individual performances on sections from across your testing to assemble, you know, your best overall result. So, for example, if you took the SAT in March and got a 700 on the reading and writing section and a 500 on the math section, that would give you a total of 1200. Right? If you took the test again in May and let's say those just completely switched and you got a 500 on reading and writing and a 700 on math, your super score would be the 700 on reading and writing from March and the 700 on math from May. And so your Superscore would be 1400. That's in a nutshell how it works. The act's process is the same, right? You're combining your best individual English, math and reading sections and combining them as far as which schools accept them. There's unfortunately not really a trend by size, region, selectivity. Each school is going to have its own individual policy. You know, it's been, the industry has been moving towards more or so I should say, wider acceptance of super scoring and, and I believe more schools accept superscores than don't. But you really gotta look at the particulars of each school. It's certainly been moving in that direction. As you mentioned, Georgetown, no super scoring, but, you know, every, every school is different, I would say.

A (45:55)

Okay, so you, so you sort of have a, a list of schools in mind, or you're thinking you might want to just look at their website and see whether, you know, kind of get a sense of what their testing requirements are while we're on that subject. Generally, for people that are really not as familiar about what scores are kind of expected or common at some of these highly selective schools. Could you. And maybe we do like IV or IV equivalent just to give sort of the top, top of the pops on what these numbers are, what kind of scores generally are expected on the SAT and on the ACT for Ivy League or Ivy League equivalent schools.

B (46:33)

So Ivy League and those other, you know, extremely selective schools in the, you know, top 25 US World News Report rankings and so on, we're talking about 1500 plus on the SAT, but really 1540 plus would be better for ivies. 34 plus, but really 35 plus would be better for ACT, you know, and, and that's, that's the Ivies that schools like, you know, Williams, Stanford, all these schools that are, it's important to note, just outrageously selective. Their, their acceptance rates are below 5%. Right. And that's of people who decided it was a good idea to apply to Harvard in the first place.

A (47:22)

Right, right. You're already in that tough pool, so to speak. Wow. So let's. Okay, those are the numbers. And obviously I'm sure there's some nuance to that. Right. If you're a athletic recruit or, you know, maybe getting a 32 or 33 would pass. Right. But generally that's sort of, if you're in the academic road, those are the numbers that you're looking at. If you are, you take your prep test, right. And you get a score on it, maybe your first or second prep test, you say, okay, this is kind of where I'm starting before I start actually studying for the test or, you know, learning some of the strategies. What kind of improvement should someone. And obviously I'm sure it's very dependent on the student, but proving could they expect to see, you know, how many points could you reasonably go up after being prepared?

B (48:16)

Sure. So just to really quickly touch on the previous plan, in case anybody was shocked by the numbers we talked about for Ivy League schools a moment ago, keep in mind that there are a huge number of fantastic schools that are not in the Ivy League. You don't have to score 34 on the ACT to be. To have a good chance of getting into a huge range of fantastic colleges. Right. So remember that those scores are, you know, 98, 99th percentile nationally. Right. And that's, don't despair. If your ACT score is not 35, you're still going to have fantastic options. Right. On the improvement point, there are a number of factors that go into this. I think the biggest question I would ask first is what is your starting score? Students who start lower have much more room to grow than students who start higher. Right. If you scored a 20 on the ACT, you know, a three point gain would be much easier to achieve than if you started at 30 on the ACT. Right. They're just bigger targets, more material that you could tackle relatively more easily than getting those hardest questions in the test.

A (49:32)

Right.

B (49:33)

So that's, that's a big piece. I believe the SAT says on, you know, in their research that the average test taker goes up 40 points from one Test to the next. Act is one point from one Test to the next. That is the entire national sample. So that doesn't take into account what kind of preparation you're doing. For us, the things that we notice are duration of prep and level of effort and intention that students put into prep. You know, if you're showing up to take the test and then showing up two months later to take the test, you're probably not going to see much improvement, but if you're working on it, you will. I think Khan Academy and College Board, if I'm not mistaken. A number that stands out to me is that with 20 hours of focused prep on their sort of joint publicly available materials, students see an average increase of 115 points on the SAT

A (50:32)

for. Say that again, Brian. Sorry. So with 20 hours of prep, you're seeing 115 point jump?

B (50:38)

On average. Yes, on average.

A (50:40)

That's great. And that's what I sort of, you know, I. With our daughter, who'll probably kill me if she listens to this podcast, but I. She was not. And by the way, the apple doesn't fall far. I didn't either. Like, I, you know, I would just sort of like. And at those days, I was like in a Princeton Review class, and I wasn't. You really have to put the time in and do all the homework in between these, These sessions. Right. Of meeting with your test prep group or your tutor or working on it online. You really have to put the time in.

B (51:11)

Yeah, that. That is unquestionable. There's a certain sweat equity. You've got to work on it in order to improve the scores, that's for sure. You know, we. When you look across the landscape of available options, a lot of classroom courses have guarantees, typically in the 3 act point range, maybe 100 to 150 sat point range. A lot of private tutoring operations have guarantees as well that might be slightly higher than that. While my committee doesn't offer particular guarantees, our data suggests that, well, like I said, we pin it to a student's starting score as the most effective way to measure it. Our kids are getting about halfway from their starting point to the perfect score on Sat and about 2/3 of the way from their starting point to the perfect score in the ACT. So, for instance, a student who has an 1100 baseline after working with us for typically six to nine months is going to, on average, see a final SAT score of 1350. And on ACT, if a student started at 24, you know, after a full course of prep, we're typically seeing students on average finish around 32. And I think the big difference there is that that is a long time spent prepping, many hours of practice, for sure, and multiple rounds of the test. So whether you are studying on your own, whether you're taking a class, whether you are working with a private tutor, there's no substitute for effort and intention.

A (52:49)

Okay. And when you, when you say six to nine Months of prep is a typical length. How many hours per week is that? One private tutoring session a week, and then X number of hours of doing your, your homework, your practice tests. What. How much effort is. Is put into that, those weeks, or how much time? I guess.

B (53:10)

Yeah, great question. So our typical cadence is one meeting of 90 minutes per week and roughly two to three hours of homework, which is going to be a blend of practice sections and then more targeted work on specific content or strategies that we were working on that week in session. And then as we get closer to the real tests, we'll take full practice tests, you know, simulated like the real thing. And that is sort of the baseline. That's the general commitment that we would encourage students to do. But of course, we adjust it depending on what sports season student is in or, you know, what their personal appetite is for. For prep, it's important not to burn out. If we did 10 hours of work a week, students could not sustain that for six months on the top of, or, you know, on top of what is surely their most rigorous academic year yet as juniors. So it's important, you know, what, we talked about this earlier, that this can take time to, to sink in. I think it is difficult to try to cram for this. It is important to make a plan that is going to span a number of months for how we're going to tackle this. It's a big, It's a large curriculum. There's a lot of material to master, and you want to plan to give yourself time to do that.

A (54:35)

Okay, and then how many times is there any sort of. When do you know that you've taken it enough times? And I guess when do you know you're ready to take it? I guess there were two questions there, and I guess maybe the answer how many times is when you're, maybe you're seeing similar scores come out or that you don't, you're not seeing improvement. Is there any kind of formula to that or recommendations that you have?

B (54:58)

Yeah, absolutely. There are a few things to consider. One factor would be if you have a very specific goal, if you, if you're a recruited athlete who needs to hit number X in order to get an offer, or if you really want to apply to a certain school where you need to get above a certain threshold, if you hit that, you can confidently be right.

A (55:18)

It's like the blind side. Remember Michael or the tutor? They kept going until he got the one that he needed. Or maybe it was the GPA that he. I can't recall.

B (55:25)

But yeah, for sure. So that's. That's one factor. The other thing that I would look at is performance on practice tests versus the real thing. So if you have gotten the same real test score twice or three times in a row, and I'm assuming that in that case it's disappointing because you've continued to take the test and not see more improvement, but your practice test scores have been noticeably higher than that, I would say keep going because there's that potential upside that we could do better than we have on the real test.

A (56:00)

Right. Are you scored against the other kids that are taking the test that day?

B (56:05)

To. To an extent. The. On the sat, the scores are more heavily normed against the population taking that particular test. The ACT is to a lesser extent. The scoring scales in the ACT are largely formed before the test is administered, and then they tweak it very slightly so that it fits a bell curve with reliable percentiles. The idea is that a 30 on the ACT is supposed to mean the same thing every test administration, so that schools can use it in their admissions and know what that. What information that can be. But the SAT has historically essentially determined the scales more fluidly, depending on how students performed on that individual test date. The SAT scoring today is a bit more of a black box since it went digital or the College Board has not released tests that they've administered in the sense that they used to. It used to be that you could pay extra and they would send you your test booklet. You could see what you got right and wrong and sort of use that to guide future study in its new adaptive format. The College Board doesn't do that. You can't see what questions you've gotten right and wrong. They don't release a scale so that you can see two more questions right would have led to the following score. And they use an adaptive testing mechanism called item response theory. Imagine that every individual question had its own bell curve. So if you get a really hard question right, a question that most of the population misses, that might even be worth slightly more than getting a question right that the entire population is also getting right. And the reverse is true as well. Missing a question that most people get right is going to ding you a bit more than missing a question that most people miss. So the SAT is murkier these days in terms of how many questions right and wrong is going to translate to a particular score. It actually matters which questions you get right and wrong. Anyway, I can go into this in a bit more detail.

A (58:08)

No, that's really. I mean, that is a very detailed. Which is incredibly interesting and I think might have people thinking about it in a different way about whether or not one test might appeal more than another. So for students that have learning differences, is there one test that is more commonly recommended? And then can you apply for additional time if you. Or. Or accommodations, you know, whatever those accommodations may be, if you do have a learning difference.

B (58:49)

So I would, I would stop short of saying that particular learning differences would automatically track you into more success on one test or the other. It. It's like.

A (59:02)

Right. Maybe. Or the.

B (59:04)

Yeah. And, you know, let's say you have attention deficit. That doesn't guarantee how well you read for detail or how well you sequence information or solve novel problems. There are, there are so many factors that go into the decision for which test might be a better fit for your profile. So I would stop short of saying that. But in terms of applying for accommodations, the most important thing to keep in mind is that both SAT and ACT give accommodations to students that line up with their accommodations in school. That's the, the surest way to get accommodations is that if you have a learning plan in place at school, SAT and ACT are both likely to get on board with that. Now, there are, There are some differences there. It has classically been easier to get accommodations approved on the satisfaction than on the act. And the big reason for this is that accommodations on the SAT don't automatically boost scores. You may have more time or a smaller group that's less. A smaller group testing environment that's less distracting. But having more time to answer SAT questions doesn't undercut the difficulty of the hardest questions. Right. You still, additional time might not get you those questions right. You might just think about them longer. Right. On the act, since processing speed is at such a premium, getting an accommodation that involves one and a half times or two or double time or triple time or something like that does typically allow students to answer more questions, which does typically boost the score. So ACT often has a higher threshold for approving accommodations. You know, what we've heard anecdotally and not confirmed to us by act, but they want to see a history of accommodations in school, typically at least four months right now, we've seen exceptions to this. We've seen students approve right away. It has definitely happened. But for the majority of students, they want to see a learning plan in place. And interestingly, you know, we have heard again, unconfirmed by act. But you know, having a 504 plan or IEP in place at a public school, you can usually get approved for accommodations after four months. After roughly four months of that plan being in place at private schools. Typically ACT wants to see a longer history of a learning plan being in place because it's just a bit easier to get a learning plan in place at a private school than it is at a public school that has stricter guidelines for getting a 504 or IEP in place. So if a parent is listening to this and has a student who's a freshman or sophomore and they're wondering about whether something might be going on in terms of a learning difference, investigating that early would behoove them. Because if you can get that learning plan in place and see a track record in school, this is the key, that it's sanctioned by school. Not just that a psychological test has demonstrated some learning difference. If the school puts accommodations in place for a student, you know, it's drastically more likely to get approved by SAT and, or I should say college board and by act we've. The accommodations process nearly always goes through the school. There will be a counselor or a testing coordinator at school who submits the application. They'll send typically a copy of the school's learning plan and the underlying educational site testing that led to that learning plan. And again, if it's a long standing situation, if it's, if it's a longstanding learning plan, I should say it's typically a rubber stamp, it gets approved right away. The cases that cause more scrutiny are the. Are the sort of late diagnoses, the learning plans to get implemented during junior year. The, the tests are more skeptical of these because of the. Because frankly, some parents will try to game the system and go get extra time to boost the score. Right. Look at a later diagnosis with more scrutiny, Even if it's completely legitimate and something wasn't uncovered until a student junior year, for instance.

A (63:29)

And so if you get denied, are you able to appeal there? I guess also how long do you need to. What is the typical turnaround time? Do you know of when, once you've submitted your request for accommodations and them getting back to you? Is it like a month, six months, or. I'm sure it varies, but is there any. Like, how soon should you start thinking about having that submitted? Before the test?

B (63:50)

So it's typically about three weeks for a decision. And when should you start thinking about it? I would say as early as possible. Again, with assuming that some kind of learning plan has been in place, you'd want to apply early so that you can appeal. If you get denied, there is an appeals process. Certainly. What I would say is there are two pathways for College Board member. The College Board and ACT are two separate organizations. Right. So getting approved for one test does not give you accommodations for the other. They're separate application processes. You can apply to the College Board for accommodations at any point. If you're a freshman, you can apply. If you're in the middle of junior year, you can apply. And if you get approved for accommodations, that applies to the psat, the sat, all of the AP tests, these are all run by College Board.

A (64:43)

Okay.

B (64:44)

On the act, you must sign up for a test and then you can apply for accommodations. So if you are thinking about getting this process started, you know, what we'll often have parents do is sign their student up for a test that we don't even plan to take, just to start the accommodations process. So students are in June. We're going to sign up for the September act so that we can get that appeal. Not, excuse me, not appeals process, so that we can get the accommodations request in place. This gives us time to appeal if it's denied. Now, if your request is denied, they'll send a letter explaining the denial. And typically, it's a lot of boilerplate language. There are a number of reasons that a request could be denied, but they will essentially tell you, here's what we need to hear more about, or here are the reasons this request was not compelling to us. And then you can address them with further information, which could be a range of things, but the most important thing here is to read the letter closely and give them what they're asking for.

A (65:49)

Right?

B (65:50)

Right. If I've seen requests denied because the school had put something informal in place, but didn't have formal educational psych testing driving that. Right. And so maybe we need to go get evaluated by a psychologist and submit that to act. Another thing that I've seen a couple of times, we had. We had one student who was denied for accommodations because my paraphrase here, but it was something along the lines of, you seem to have been progressing well through school to this point, essentially, why are you asking for this extra time now? And this student got a late diagnosis, you know, during his sophomore year of dyslexia and attention deficit. And in practice, what had happened was this student was behind the scenes spending considerable time, doing much more work than his peers to get the straight A's that he was getting in class. But as the rigor of his courses stepped up in sophomore year and ultimately in junior year, it began to be too much to Handle. Right. And so they got evaluated. It turned out that he had, you know, been masking dyslexia and attention deficit with hard work, and his performance on the outside looked like there was nothing going on. And so in this case, this student was denied and then filed an appeal and was denied on the appeal. And we appealed a second time. And the students wrote a letter essentially outlining. Well, the. The ACT had asked, tell us more about how your condition affects your daily life and your schoolwork. And so this student wrote a letter essentially explaining, no one would have known what was going on. But I have been doing homework for six to eight hours at night. I've been getting mounting anxiety as I worry about whether I'll be able to finish this. My writing relationships with my parents have been deteriorating. And, you know, it sort of provides the. The why for.

A (68:03)

Right.

B (68:03)

The request coming late. And ultimately, this student was approved for accommodations. This is a really key point. You do not write a letter to ACT or SAT saying, I need accommodations so I can show the full extent of my ability or my score would be higher if I had more time on this test. ACT and SAT are in agreement that if a student has a diagnosed learning disability or medical condition or something that warrants an accommodation, that they ought to get the accommodation on the tests as well. So what we're looking to demonstrate is not, I would do better on this test with accommodations. It's. I have the following learning difference. It affects me in the following ways, and I receive accommodations in school and in other areas of my life. Why would the ACT be any different?

A (68:59)

Right.

B (68:59)

That's the message. Do not tell them you need to do better on the act and so you need accommodations.

A (69:05)

You know, I might. Personally, I had never done well on standardized tests. I was never able to finish them. Like, I. Out of. I don't know if there's 12 questions on the SSAT or something. I'd finished, like, seven or eight in the time allotted. So when I was studying to take the lsat, I was working with a private tutor for the first time. And they said, you know, your accuracy when you're untimed is like the 98th percentile. When you're timed, it's like the 30th percentile. Have you ever been tested? I. You know, just. I. I'm wondering if there's something going on here. And I. And I did. And it turns out my reading speed was in the second percentile, so it was just taking me. I was just reading so slowly. So anyway, and we applied. I never had accommodations in college, but we did apply and they, and, but because my testing supported that. But so there are these kind of one offs and I think maybe now people might, more people are aware of learning differences and more people might be getting tested. So they might have to sort of sift through, you know, whether they think someone's just applying to have a, an advantage or something. But it is, it is interesting. I somehow sometimes going through the prep process like reveals some things that you might not have and that I was sort of like the kid you're describing, just kind of taking longer to do my homework or like taking longer to write the paper or whatever and just was able to. But I always had that, that problem with tests. Like I, whether it was standardized or not, I'd be, oh gosh, I couldn't finish those last three math problems or whatever. All right, I am. Brian, you and I could go on like a SAT ACT retreat. I have recommendations for people. You know, obviously, if you can find a private tutor link company and you're. Which tend to be, you know, not inexpensive, some are very expensive. What kind of questions should they ask or what should they be looking for and if they want to go that route and if they are not in a position to be spending those kinds of resources on preparation. What alternatives would you recommend for people for students to be able to prepare?

B (71:08)

Sure. So when looking for a private tutor, I think there are a couple things that are really important. First, I would just want to get a sense of the tutor's educational philosophy. What is the overarching plan here? How are we going to attack this test? As I mentioned, I think for me the most important thing is understanding a student's cognitive profile and how they're going to solve problems. What math questions they know will come out in practice tests and we will review that content accordingly. But really understanding how they are going to approach teaching the test strategically is important. I think also communication is really important. And rapport with the student is arguably the most important thing. Right. You want a tutor who's going to get along well with your student and understand them and be invested in their success. So those are things I would look for in a private tutor. In terms of other options. Classroom courses are widely available. They're a great foundational step. They're much, much, much more affordable, certainly. And they'll provide a great basis of sort of core strategies that students would need to use on the test. They'll give a structured environment where homework assignments or practice tests are, you know, given to the student. I Think that anybody who has to just tackle this with no guidance at all is going to have a harder time setting that up. Right. So a classroom course can do that as well. Additionally, there are free resources that are really effective. I should say SAT's free resources are much more abundant and high quality than ACTS free resources. So College Board has released thousands of practice questions. It has eight authentic practice tests, and it's got a partnership with Khan Academy that will sort of provide answer feedback and a scaffolded approach to studying. So if you're doing sat, those resources are all great. ACT has more limited free materials. They've got a few practice tests on their website. They've got a partnership with Kaplan, which again is more limited. But there are free practice materials available on act. I would also look at the proliferation of AI study tools in this space because while they won't focus as much on strategy, a student who's really driven and organized and structured can get a huge volume of practice questions that are targeted to the sorts of things that they're missing through really inexpensive AI tools. Right. You buy a subscription to something, take a practice test, and then it will say these five question types you should practice more of and then put hundreds of those questions in front of you. So that's a more brute force method, certainly, but it can be surprisingly effective in terms of how tailored it is. And certainly the volume of questions is huge.

A (74:04)

Well, just AI maybe for the questions that you miss, being able to show you the reasoning behind what you missed, why you missed it. And then what about this desmo? It's desmos.

B (74:15)

Yeah.

A (74:17)

So are there tutorials on how to use that?

B (74:20)

Definitely, there are a variety of tutorials. I'm trying to remember the one that I saw recently that's most effective. But I mean, essentially Google sat, desmos tricks or tutorial and you're going to find dozens of hits for this. We tend to walk our students through this one on one, so we're less likely to send them to a website to look at it. But there are dozens of them for sure.

A (74:48)

Okay, Brian, this is like, you know, as I, as you know, I have my, my 10th grader who's about to embark on this process and I just feel so much better leaning into it being so, like incredibly informed by you. So thank you so much for coming on the POD and sharing all of your expertise with us. I think it's going to really be impactful for so many that are listening. So thank you so much.

B (75:12)

My pleasure. I hope it helps. It was great fun talking to you about it.

A (75:17)

So great. Thank you so much Brian. That brings us to the end of this episode of Duolog. A huge thank you to Brian Bibler for joining. I hope you learned as much from this conversation as I did and as always, thank you all so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate or review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you get your podcasts and and if you're interested in this topic, please don't forget to subscribe to our substack so that you will be invited to our very special happy hour conversation with college counselor Naria Rubert which is happening tomorrow, Thursday, April 2nd at 6pm there's more information about how to subscribe on our website duologpod.com and also on Instagram in the notes in the caption. So I hope you can join us tomorrow night and we'll have a new episode releasing next Wednesday. So until then this is Leslie and thanks for listening to Duolog.