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I swear these aren't for my SPN/HP story that I'm not writing because I have dozens of other things I should be writing.
*looks shifty*
So:
What age do you (approximately):-
- sit your SATs
- Apply for college
- Get accepted for college
- Are a senior in high school
I'm not really sure because in Australia people can be a year older/younger depending on when they started school and I also started thinking that maybe you guys get all your college stuff before you finish your senior year unlike us who apply after we get our results and then apply to Uni. I was always a little confused because it seemed like people had their college acceptances and were still going to classes?
ETA: Wow - you are all very awesome. I'm going to mem this as a reference for US school stuff because there is a *LOT* of info here.
*looks shifty*
So:
What age do you (approximately):-
- sit your SATs
- Apply for college
- Get accepted for college
- Are a senior in high school
I'm not really sure because in Australia people can be a year older/younger depending on when they started school and I also started thinking that maybe you guys get all your college stuff before you finish your senior year unlike us who apply after we get our results and then apply to Uni. I was always a little confused because it seemed like people had their college acceptances and were still going to classes?
ETA: Wow - you are all very awesome. I'm going to mem this as a reference for US school stuff because there is a *LOT* of info here.
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Apply - 17-18.
Accepted - 17 or 18.
SATS, I'm not sure. Probably 17.
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Applying for college can span junior and senior year, but typically fall of senior year (16/17). Acceptance can come within a few weeks, but typically early spring of senior year (17/18). Some schools have early admission programs for spring semester sophomores, but it's much less common (and usually only for the super-bright/super program-focused kids).
Senior in high school is usually ages 17/18, depending on when your b'day falls.
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But yeah, you generally send in your applications during the first half of your senior year of high school and hear from colleges in the late winter to early spring.
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Oh, but I was in a gifted program, so I first took the SATs in 7th grade, and then I kept taking them for the next four years, and my score went up about 70 points each time. cf Johns Hopkins Talent Search
Note that there are two standardized tests for getting into college with a geographic divide. On the east coast, north takes the SATs and south takes the ACTs, but I'm not sure how it splits in the central and western parts of the country.
Senior in high school: 17-18 with standard progression, but people could be one (or occasionally 2) years younger and a few years older. My school district had a policy that would not let you be held back grades more times than would make you 3 years older than the other people in the grade. I don't know whether that would mean you were automatically promoted beyond your ability or if you were required to withdraw from regular school - I suspect that both happened, depending on the kid.
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But, hey - fun meeting someone else.
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Basically, the ETS (Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ) is out to screw everyone in the country over with their expensive standardized testing.
Also, Jensen and Jared, if you are going by the actors' calendar birthdates, are different generations for the SAT. Between the times each one would have taken the test, there was a major revamp and formatting change. Let me know if this matters to the story, and I can try to dredge up actual detail from my memory.
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From:
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But yeah, you generally send in your applications during the first half of your senior year of high school and hear from colleges in the late winter to early spring.
I applied early decision to college, so I had my acceptance by the third month of my senior year, at which time I was 17. I had a fairly late birthday (May 6), so I turned 18 only a month before I graduated.
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I took the SATs as a junior and again as a senior. Note that most people on the coasts take the SATs; most people in the middle take the ACTs. It tests more areas than the SATs do.
Scores for SATs and PSATs get sent out to colleges unless you tell them not to, so as soon as you take them you start getting a bazillion brochures from various colleges and universities if you get anything like a decent score. I would get five or ten a day, sometimes. And they all look the same--glossy brochures with success statistics, heart-warming blurbs about the institution's history and student life, and the pictures all looked about the same, too. (Two students walking down a tree-lined path in autumn, three students sitting around a table in a library, a professor in front of a class, etc.)
The summer between my junior and senior years, my family took a road trip to look at colleges so I could check out the ones I was interested in (I had a short list of about five by that point.)
I applied for colleges at the beginning of my senior year and (with early acceptance) knew where I was going by Christmas. I promptly dropped my Honors Physics class because it didn't matter any more. By the middle of second semester I'd sent off my housing form and gotten assigned a room and roommates.
I was 17 as a senior in high school all the way through the year; my birthday is July 30. There were a lot of kids who were seventeen, but also a lot who were eighteen. It depends somewhat on how you developed as a young child. Most kids, the parents have a bit of leeway on when they go to school; it's not uncommon for kids with birthdays in the right part of the year to send their kid to school a year earlier than he/she technically should (if he/she is very smart) or keep them out for a year longer than he/she technically should (if he/she needs time for social development before facing a classroom).
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The absolute latest time you can take your SATs and still go to college right after high school is the January test.
The test isn't an entrance exam, rather it is a standardize way of comparing the students in all high schools. It tests you on how well you can take the SAT and nothing else. It's taken by students who want to go to college in coastal States or Ivy League Universities. Most inland schools ask applicants to take the ACT. The ACT is a more curriculum based test that contains a science section. You take it in the spring of your junior year or the fall of your senior year, just like the SAT. I often recommend the ACT to my students who are better at logic and not as great with vocabulary (as it does not have sentence completions and has significantly fewer word problems).
You can get more info on the SAT here and more on the ACT here
From:
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From:
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(parenthesis are standard ages - people sometimes vary a little)
Took PSAT's Sophomore year (15/16)
SATs and ACTs Spring of Junior year (16/17)
SAT II's Spring of junior year / fall of senior year (17/18)
College applications are usually do Fall of senior year. I did some "early application" which was due October 15th or November 15th and the rest were due January 15th.
Acceptances could arrive as early as January/December if you apply early, but most of the regular ones arrived early April of senior year. It all depended. If you didn't hear by high school graduation, you probably didn't get in.
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I think the Sophomore year fall test was the PLAN (which...meant something?) and the PSAT for National Merit was fall of Junior year. Though even that seems crazy since I don't think I learned I was a National Merit finalist until the summer after. Maybe. It's all a bit hazy now.
(as for ACT vs. SAT. I went to high school in the Midwest - outside Chicago - and pretty much everyone took both tests. I applied to two colleges in California, two in Pennsylvania, one in Chicago, and one in Ohio and the ones on the coast only took SATs (I think) and the ones in the Midwest would take either. Since I was applying to more selective schools, they generally all required SAT II's which were more in depth subject tests. I had to take Math II and Writing and a third of my choice (they had physics and chemistry and biology and history and literature and maybe some others - since I was going to science programs I was supposed to take a science one, but I took the history for "fun")
And sometimes the early applications are binding (if you get in you have to go to that school) and sometimes not. It's...all rather complicated.
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SATs: either the spring of one's junior year of high school (grade 11) or the early fall of one's senior year (grade 12) -- sometimes people will take the SAT once in their junior year for practice and then again in their senior year; most schools will take the better of the two scores. (Also, one doesn't "sit" the SATs, one "takes" them.)
apply for college: generally, the application deadline is sometime around the middle of one's senior year -- early decision deadlines are usually in mid-autumn, and regular decision sometime in early January. After that, it's nail-biting time until the envelopes start coming back, which can be before Christmas for early decision acceptances/rejections, or March or April for regular decision. Generally speaking, thin envelopes=bad news, but thick envelopes (containing all sorts of necessary forms and information)=good.
The age of a particular student while all this is going on varies. Different states have different rules for what age children can or must start first grade -- I was 16 when I began my senior year in high school and 17 when I started college, because the state of Florida, where I started out, said at the time that in order to begin first grade a student had to be 6 years old before the end of December of that year, and my birthday is the 30th of November. On the other hand, in states where the requirement is that the student be 6 years old before the beginning of the school year, a student with a 6th birthday just after that date is going to end up being 18 for almost all of their senior year and 19 during their first year in college.
So there's a window there, and more than a little wiggle room depending upon birthdays and place of residence at the beginning.
(And you don't even want to get into the madness that is the financial aid application process.)
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Apply for college - Fall of Senior Year. So, you'd likely be 17.
Accepted - Late fall, winter, up to spring of senior year. Still 17, maybe 18.
Senior in high school - 17 - 18.
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I took the SAT & ACT the summer before my junior year (16 years old). That left the option to retake the summer before senior year if I didn't like my scores.
I was one of the oldest kids in my grade, so I turned 18 in October of senior year. My friend was (I think) the youngest in our class, and she turned 17 in September of that year.
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And here I am, 26, wondering where the Hell my time has gone!!
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But yea, personally:
I took the SAT's Junior and Senior year (16-18 age range). We also have the PSAT's that prep you the year before. The schools tend to pay for the first SAT, but if you're not satisfied, you have two more tries to improve your score, and it's at your own expense:/
I applied for college Fall semester of my senior year, and got my reply in Spring of my senior year.
Yea-generally, you know if you get accepted to a college a few months before you graduate:)
<3
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just to add a bit that i don't think anyone else has mentioned, community college (junior college) doesn't typically require an application until early-mid summer before the fall semester you wish to start. i'm pretty sure they still look at SAT scores, but it's usually easier to get into a community college.
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PSATs: It's becoming more common for students to take the PSATs in 10th grade, as a practice. The important PSAT year is October of 11th grade because of NMSQT which someone else talked about. I will just throw in that the NMSQT qualifying score changes depending on state and whether you go to public or private school.
You sit SATs either 11th or 12 grade. Most students take them once, in early 12th grade, but it depends; a school or student that puts a lot of emphasis on getting into college will probably take May of 11th grade, and then again in 12th grade fall to try and increase their score. A gifted student is usually encouraged to take it first in 7th grade, up through.
You apply to college fall of senior year. Prep schools will start in winter/spring year previous, at other schools you may not start until senior fall. Deadlines are usually January, with November for Early decision. Acceptances start coming as soon as you apply, depending on the school and how you applied. The majority are in by about March, which is where Senioritis comes in; after March, why do you still care about High School? But yeah, you are still taking classes when you get in; the important year for college applications is your 11th grade. Even Senior fall term isn't very important comparatively, because some people apply before those grades are in. Colleges will often ask that all grades be forwarded to them when they do come in, but they mean less.
Average ages for High School are:
Senior: 17-18
11th grade: 16-17
10th: 15-16
9th: 14-15
But it really depends. Many kids skip the really early stuff, while a lot of others are held back at the beginning. It especially gets twitchy around the cut-off dates for ages; a child who is at the cut-off date and not excelling may be dropped back, while at a very small school a child who is at the cut-off date and totally wiping out his class mates may be pulled up.
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