Akil admissions, Admissions Tests, college admissions

Should You Take the SAT/ACT in 2025?

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Four years ago, I first answered this question, but since 2021 might as well be the Age of the Pharaohs an update is due. This question still looms large and seems particularly confusing given that more than 85% of colleges remain test optional but news outlets obsessed with certain highly rejective colleges, test prep companies with revenue goals, economists at Dartmouth trying to justify their president’s wishes, and far too many educational consultants keep screaming that “testing is coming back.” So let me step once more into the void and venture to give some guidance on whether (and when) to prepare for and take the SAT or ACT.

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests, college admissions

The P in PSAT doesn’t stand for practice

Recently almost 4 million students around the country received their scores back from the PSAT. I have a child in 11th grade and I tutor the SAT (which is the same as the PSAT for all intensive purposes ) and other bubble tests, so I talk to students and parents almost daily about testing and what it means. So I’ve been talking to a lot of parents in the past few weeks about the PSAT. Thus this blog. . .

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests, college admissions

Merit: Myths and Money

Many people believe that merit aid means aid awarded for students who are the smartest and most accomplished, but that’s not true. I just spent months reviewing state-funded “merit” scholarship policies and school-funded “merit” scholarships rules at flagship universities and what I found WILL SHOCK YOU!

All dramatics aside, my report found a few important, and somewhat surprising to me, things:

1. Metrics not merit.
Merit means nothing. There is no formal definition of merit. There is no formal determiner of who is meritorious and who isn’t. So getting a “merit” scholarship just means you met whatever criteria was set.

Many “merit” scholarships are given on the basis of random criteria, for example this one:

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests

#HateRead: Admissions, testing and the media

Back in 2016 I wrote about the media coverage of college admissions and testing issue. I’d taken to fisking articles on Twitter under the hashtag #hateread and thought I needed to provide a bit more explanation of that and nuance. I’m updating it now because, with all that’s going on (waves vaguely at the world), finding good information is getting harder. So here goes . . .

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests

Ben Simmons and Educational Testing

In a recent interview with Dr. Rawls-Dill, he mentioned Ben Simmons and an example of how what’s measured and who’s evaluating matters in determining success and quality. This really resonated with me and fine-tuned a sports analogy I’ve been making for years. Ben Simmons’s saga is the perfect example of how we’ve let standardized testing define students ability/aptitude/potential. 

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests, college admissions

Should You Take the SAT/ACT or Not?

For parents of 10th, 11th and 12th graders, the question of testing looms large (especially this fall as the test optional movement has really taken hold), so let me try to help you out and give you the lowdown to help you make decisions. I’m not going to do a detailed discussion of testing policy, overuse, misuse, or the like (that’s my day job and this is my side gig), rather I want parents to come away with the tools to make the 3 binary testing decisions on the road to college application:

  1. to prep for tests or not to prep
  2. to test or not to test
  3. to submit scores or not to submit

Also I might update this post like I do my College Admissions Resources post, so check back periodically.

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Akil admissions, Admissions Tests, college admissions

College Admissions Resources

I’ve recently been talking to a lot of friends about how to help their children in 9th – 11th get ready for college. I keep inefficiently sharing the same resources over and over again, so I finally wised up and am going to post my current favorite college admissions resources here. I’m listing mostly informational resources. If I list a blog that doesn’t mean I endorse or recommend the company’s services. 

This post will evolve over time (I’ve edited and added to it 6 times in the last 2 days) so feel free to check back periodically and see if there is anything new added.

——

There is a lot to the college process so I’ll break this resource list into a few general categories:

1. Academic preparation

2. Financial planning

3. College Research

4. Admissions strategizing

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Akil Admissions Tests, college admissions

Standardized Testing: The Temporal Scan of Education

  • covid 19 coronavirus, hand holding infrared thermometer to measure body temperature, woman check with high temperature vector illustration design
    covid 19 coronavirus, hand holding infrared thermometer to measure body temperature, woman check with high temperature vector illustration design

As the pandemic rages and the issue of testing is discussed in a medical context, I’ve found myself increasingly noticing the parallels between the the ways in which America has discussed and politicized Covid testing and the way in which America has politicized and discussed educational testing. These parallels between medical and educational testing have me wondering if it’s a human or American failing that leads to the being so easily seduced by as Alfred Binet, father of IQ testing, put it “a simple, brutal number, which can have only a deceptive precision.“

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Akil Admissions Tests

Don’t Believe the Hype

Brigham tried to warn you in 1936. PE tried to warn you in 1988. Bigham tried to warn you repeatedly since 1990.

But, unfortunately, since the marketing machine of the testing agencies got their grips into the Stanvard Universities the narrative of the SAT providing access has taken root in the American psyche and far too many have bought into the hype about what standardized testing does and doesn’t do. Specifically about what it does and doesn’t do for Black and Hispanic people as a group.

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