Was it a college program or your school district that did the inviting? The SAT’s don’t get averaged so there’s no danger there.
School districts often invite their students who test better to take the SAT’s early and often. It brings up their overall average score for the district. Ethically, I find it a questionable practice on the part of the schools, but almost every district does it. (That can afford to foot the bill anyways.)
As far as your daughter taking it, that’s up to you. When my classmates and I took it early our scores were much lower than we expected. It did cause a day or so of panic for many students. When the same group took it again as Juniors our scores were much more in line with our expectations. I teach now and this still happens.
The SAT is also a more “accurate” test than the PSAT since the PSAT tests new questions and the scoring can vary test to test. I have absolutely no love for ETS so I’m biased as hell but the PSAT is a rip-off that makes people pay to test the test. Buying a test prep book is more useful.
I nearly bought the domain etscankissmyass.com (which is still available, btw.)
I took the SAT in the seventh grade as invited by, um, Duke and Johns Hopkins and all that - I never did a Johns Hopkins program but they still send me their CTY newsletter. I did go to the Duke Summer Residential Program for four years and it was undoubtedly the best experience of my young life. I’d never really known other kids like myself until then - the experience of being in a much bigger pond was also invaluable, I believe. Highly reccommended for gifted children.
I took the SAT in 5th grade as part of some sort of gifted experiment. I don’t think it could’ve been this Duke thing becasue it was 1977 (I think). It was interesting and I liked taking those types of tests so I enjoyed it. Don’t remember what I made tho’. Anyway, like the above posters have said, if your daughter wants to take it, I can’t think of a reason not to…
I took the SATs as part of Northwestern’s Talent Search (I think they called it the Midwest Talent Search). Not a bad experience, and I don’t think they average the scores. On the other hand, I found myself taking a few classes on effective test-taking strategy, which can’t hurt her at all later in life.
(For the record, I think I got about an 1100, though I don’t remember it very well. My mom thinks it’s higher, but she’s biased.)
I would tell her to take it if she wants to, if only to have some idea of her aptitude for standardized tests. IIRC, 7th grade (possibly 8th grade) is the last year you can take the test and it won’t “count”; i.e., it won’t appear on your official SAT score reports sent to college. I took the SAT in 7th grade, five years ago. I got invitations to participate in the Hopkins CTY program because of my score (1340 ), though I didn’t end up doing the program. I’ve known people who have done CTY, however, and enjoyed it greatly, going back for a number of years. The only other thing that came out of it was receiving a mail survey last year, apparently addressed to that Hopkins CTY mailing list. So I helped a grad student out with her research, by responding to the survey.
What the heck; it’s not expensive, and it’s sort of a fun thing to do, especially since the score doesn’t “matter” at this point.
I took the ACT (because I’m midwestern, I suppose) in the 7th grade for the same program, TIP. They looked at the scores from our previous standardized tests (around here it’s the MMAT or Iowa Basic) and decided who could take the ACT.
The way it worked for us was if your score was particularly high in any one area (math or reading or whatever) you were invited to Duke for a week for enrichment and such. If you had
I got above average scores in every subject and a very good average (36 is like a 1600 and I got a 27), and so didn’t get invited.
No, I’m not bitter, why do you ask?
I always felt I was being punished for being well rounded. My friends (who all went because they had very high scores in one area, one got a perfect score in the math section) brought me stuff from Duke, which was very nice, but I should have gotten to go too. pout.
So, I would caution you to look into exactly what the deal is now… if it works like it did when I was in school or if it’s a different program.
I took it also for some talent search thing in 6th grade. Unfortunately, they lost my scores, so I had the joy of taking it again. As I turned in my test, I looked over whatever was on the proctor’s desk, and right there were my scores from the first test! :smack:
We moved about three months after the test, so I never got to do any of the summer programs, but I got some award for being the highest 6th grade female scorer. (I was a little budding feminist – I didn’t want any award unless I was the highest 6th grader overall. )
It also never got reported to any colleges I applied to later on; in fact, I couldn’t even have found the scores by then.
I took the ACT in 7th grade through the Duke program. It was great. I choked on the math section (mainly because I wasn’t familiar with the terms being used), but I kicked butt on the science section. It was a low-pressure experience because I knew that if I choked, it had no effect on me. And besides, I wasn’t supposed to have learned that stuff yet anyway. If I did well (which I did, overall), I could feel all happy and proud of myself.
At the time I didn’t want to do it, but now I’m glad I did.
I took the SAT either in 7th or 8th grade for UC Berkeley’s summer program. I got a 1040, but my folks couldn’t afford the classes. It was kind of neat messing with my friends brains come 11th grade (I got a better score than that in Jr. High!).
My stepson was invited to take it in the 7th grade as part of either Duke or Stanford’s study ( I forget which). He scored as high in the 7th grade as the average graduating senior from the Houston Independant School District.
Of course, shortly after that, he discovered pot. He’s now 21 and has not gotten out of the 10th grade yet. If he were to take the SAT now, I think he’d set a new record for low score.
This site talks about the new changes being made to the test. It sounds pretty big, so I don’t know how beneficial it’ll be if you’re having your daughter take it to gain additional cracks at the SAT format. Talent search and so on, I don’t know much about that, but that sounds like it would be a real help.
), though I didn’t end up doing the program. I’ve known people who have done CTY, however, and enjoyed it greatly, going back for a number of years. The only other thing that came out of it was receiving a mail survey last year, apparently addressed to that Hopkins CTY mailing list. So I helped a grad student out with her research, by responding to the survey.
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