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SAT's for Middle Schooler?

Written by Sally Rubenstone | Jan. 7, 2018

Question: Dear Dean, Thank you for reading my question. My daughter is in Middle School and is in a talent program through a well known University. In order to qualify for another program, they request that she take the SAT. I am concerned that taking it too early and perhaps doing great on one part and doing poorly on another will "stick" with her through high school. Can you shed some light on how Colleges/Universities view SAT scores sent prior to high school or if they will show up on her SAT record given the time lapse. I've heard some schools require ALL SAT scores. Thanks so much!!

If your daughter is in 8^th grade or younger and takes the SAT, her scores do NOT become part of her permanent unless she submits a request to the College Board to have the scores saved. This request must be received before August of the year in which she tested, otherwise the scores go up in smoke even before she starts high school.

So colleges, including “ALL-SCORE” institutions, will never see her middle-school test results unless she specifically adds them to her cumulative report, which some (but not most) middle-schoolers elect to do. Even the universities that request these scores for their programs (e.g., Duke, Johns Hopkins) won’t receive them down the road, when your daughter is ready to be a freshman applicant, unless she does decide to keep them in her permanent record.

If you are worried that low ... or skewed ... scores from tests taken now might frustrate your daughter and thus have a negative impact on her self-image (“I TOLD you I suck at math!!”), you just have to assure her that the tests were designed for high school juniors, and that—while younger students may do well on them—they’re not expected to, and that uneven results are especially common at her age, when students may be ahead of their grade in math but are more limited in their verbal abilities, or vice versa. Although most parents of bright adolescents are terrified by tales of girls and boys who achieve near-perfect scores on the SAT while they’re still too young for Kotex or Clearasil, in reality the median SAT score (verbal and math combined) submitted to Duke’s TIP program is under 1,000, which is far less daunting.

So if your daughter is up for the challenge of the SAT ... and for the enrichment program that it may lead to ... there’s really no down side to it. But if she’s unhappy about this “opportunity” to do school work when she doesn’t have to, keep in mind that parents often view programs like Duke’s TIP and Johns Hopkins’ CTY as an express lane to the Ivy League and other "elite" colleges later on. However, although such programs are indeed well regarded, there are so many students these days who are involved in accelerated academic undertakings that they really don't help college applicants stand out in a hyper-competitive crowd, and you should only urge your daughter to take part if she herself is gung-ho.

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.