New SAT exam date supports summer prep
The test, scheduled for Sept. 13, will provide an additional chance for students who utilize their summer break to prepare for the all-important exam.
Previously, students had only one summer option to take the SAT in late August; this year it's Aug. 23. It's an extremely popular date utilized by hundreds of thousands of high school students, and now they'll have another opportunity to maximize their scores with the addition of a September date. The final 2025 testing dates will be Oct. 4, Nov. 8 and Dec. 6.
Students can take the SAT as many times as they want, and colleges never know. When it comes time to submit SAT scores, in the fall of senior year as students file their college applications, they log into their College Board account and choose exactly which scores they want to share. In short, students get 'unlimited do-overs,' and often take advantage of that opportunity to maximize college acceptances and scholarship offers.
More: Private college advisor popularity surges | College Connection
Students are also motivated by the fact that many colleges are willing to 'super-score,' considering the highest Reading/Writing score from one test and the highest Math score from another. But students need to realize that they cannot send just one portion of an exam, so colleges will see both the Math and the Reading/Writing scores for all the tests submitted.
Recent years have seen skyrocketing SAT scores with many competitive colleges reporting the median SAT scores of accepted students at 1500 or above. According to statistics from U.S. News & World Report, these schools include Duke, Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, Princeton, Rice, and Stanford.
More: NJ high schools ranked by top SAT scores | College Connection
Also on this list are University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, Yale, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Northwestern, Amherst, Cornell, Harvey Mudd College, New York University, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Barnard, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Emory, Tufts, and Notre Dame.
With a bit of advanced planning and dedicated preparation for the very coachable SAT exam, students can put their best foot forward in the competitive college application process.
Susan Alaimo is the founder & director of Collegebound Review, offering PSAT/SAT® preparation & private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: New SAT exam date supports summer prep | Opinion
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Opinion: Parents Want to Support Their Kids. Behavioral Science Can Help Them Follow Through
For over 10 years, the Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab at the University of Chicago has been investigating how parents make decisions. A key insight from our research is that what parents do does not always align with what they intend to do. This 'intention-action gap' can reduce parents' engagement with their children, which in turn interferes with children's skill development. This gap is a common characteristic of decision-making. People plan to save for retirement or stick to diets, but often fall short of their goals. In parenting, the stakes are higher: Not reading a bedtime story or skipping a day of preschool may seem momentarily insignificant, but small gaps in learning time accumulate over time, making it increasingly difficult for children's skills to catch up. Why do well-intentioned parents sometimes struggle to follow through with engaging their children, and how can behavioral science help parents close the intention-action gap? Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The field of behavioral economics offers insights into what creates intention-action gaps and our research identifies practical ways to bridge the gap. Many of these approaches rely on the concept of 'nudges' — subtle changes in how choices or information are presented that make the desired action easier or more likely to occur. In parenting, nudges often come in the form of reminders, feedback, or other simple tools sent through digital technology. These nudges acknowledge that busy parents aren't failing to engage their children in learning activities that are key to the child's future because they lack love, knowledge, or good intentions; rather, daily life is full of friction and temptations. Our research has shown that 'present bias,' a manifestation of the intention-action gap, is central to parenting choices. Parents, like everyone, often prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. Raising a child requires long-term effort; while considerable research shows that reading books to a toddler boosts their language skills in the future, the benefits of today's actions can be long delayed. Meanwhile, daily distractions and fatigue demand immediate attention. Related This bias can cause parents to focus on the 'now' rather than the 'later,' even when they value activities like reading. In our Parents and Children Together (PACT) study, we tackled present bias by sending parents text-message prompts and goal-setting reminders to read to their children from a digital library that we provided to parents. These reminders were intended to 'bring the future to the present.' Parents who received these reminders read to their child over twice as much over six weeks compared to parents who received the digital library with no reminders. Notably, the parents who gained the most were those who exhibited present-biased preferences in assessments given before the experiment began. In other words, the parents most prone to procrastinate on reading were the ones who saw the greatest improvements when we helped them overcome present bias. Parents without present bias already read regularly, so the extra reminders had little impact for them. Tools to Help Parents Follow Through Another successful example of narrowing the intention-action gap from our research lab is the 'Show Up to Grow Up' study, a randomized controlled trial we conducted to increase attendance in Chicago's publicly funded preschool programs. Our intervention sent personalized text messages to parents over 18 weeks, indicating the number of days their child had been absent and highlighting the learning opportunities they missed while not in school. The messages reminded parents of their commitment to adopt good attendance habits and their goals to help their child develop kindergarten readiness skills. For children whose parents received these messages, preschool attendance increased by about 2.5 school days, and chronic absenteeism — a measure of missing 10% or more of the school days in a school year — decreased by 20% compared to the children of parents who did not receive the messages. The text nudges and reminders helped align parents' actions with their long-term goals. This type of light-touch program is inexpensive and easy to scale, making it a viable tool for education policymakers aiming to reduce early absenteeism. Technology offers a promising solution to close the intention-action gap. Our recent Children and Parents Engaged in Reading (CAPER) study provided families with a tablet preloaded with a digital library of over 200 high-quality children's books. The tablet had no apps or internet access beyond the library to reduce distractions. The goal was to remove the obstacle of finding new books and to make shared reading as easy and engaging as possible. Related The impact on children's language skills was notable. Over an 11-month trial, low-income children whose families received access to the digital library showed approximately 0.3 standard deviations more progress in language skills (equivalent to three months of language learning on the test we gave to children) than those who did not, moving from roughly the 41st to the 50th percentile nationally. Notably, the treatment impact was significantly larger – 0.50 standard deviation, equivalent to approximately five months of language learning on the test we gave to children – for parents who exhibited present-biased preferences in assessments administered before the experiment began (as in the PACT study). Sometimes the best way to narrow the intention-action gap is to reduce barriers to the intended action. From Research Insights to Early Childhood Policy These research insights go beyond academics: They offer a new toolkit for early childhood policy. Traditional parenting programs often assume that if parents are informed about the benefits of their decisions or provided with free resources, they will naturally act accordingly. However, information and resources alone don't always lead to behavior change, especially when cognitive biases interfere. Relatively low-cost, behaviorally informed interventions can directly address the intention-action gap. For example, text-message programs can be scaled through school districts, pediatric clinics, or social service agencies to encourage behaviors like daily reading, conversations, or preschool attendance. Digital tools, such as the library tablet in the CAPER study, could be integrated into public early education programs or library initiatives to ensure families have access to books and find them easy and enjoyable to use. Such approaches can promote equity by focusing on parents who face more cognitive biases or for whom these biases cause the most harm. Behavioral tools can help close early learning gaps before children reach kindergarten, which research shows is the most effective and cost-efficient time to empower parents as active partners in their children's development. Solve the daily Crossword
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
Ground Game: AI scammers deepfake Trump officials, golf diplomacy, Vance sells tax bill
This newsletter was originally sent out via email to our Ground Game subscribers on July 28. You can subscribe at any time at This newsletter was originally sent out via email to our Ground Game subscribers on July 28. You can subscribe at any time at
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Army ROTC cadet dies during training at Fort Knox
An Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) cadet died during a summer training camp at Fort Knox, Kentucky, officials announced on Saturday. Cadet Neil Edara, 22, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, passed away during training on the Land Navigation site at Fort Knox on July 24, U.S. Army Cadet Command said in a statement. Edara joined ROTC at Rutgers University in September 2021. He was attending Cadet Summer Training as part of 9th Regiment, Advanced Camp. "Edara became unresponsive while conducting Land Navigation Training. He received immediate medical attention and was medically evacuated by helicopter to the University of Louisville, where he was pronounced deceased by medical professionals," U.S. Army Cadet Command said. "At this time, the cause of death is under investigation." Lt. Col. Timothy Sorensen, professor of military science, Rutgers University, described Edara as "one of the most dedicated and promising young leaders I've had the privilege to know." "His calm collected demeanor and unwavering commitment to excellence left a lasting impact on everyone around him," Sorensen added in a statement. "His loss is deeply felt across the entire ROTC and Rutgers community. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time." U.S. Army Cadet Command said the safety of cadets and cadre remains its top priority as training continues and "cadets have access to religious affairs or spiritual counseling and support as required." Fort Knox houses the U.S. Bullion Depository, often simply called the "Gold Vault." Built in 1936, the vault is believed to hold a large portion of U.S. gold reserves. The last audit happened in 1976. President Donald Trump in February said he wanted to visit Fort Knox along with Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the time to verify the presence of gold. Fort Knox also hosts a wide range of military and training operations primarily focused on leadership and tactical readiness. Its land navigation sites feature varied terrain, including rolling woods, open fields and gravel roads.
