Before we became business partners at Collegewise, Paul Kanarek spent 30 years with The Princeton Review teaching students, parents, and counselors about standardized tests. His overarching message is always the same—test scores do not define a student, but with smart planning and a little perspective, anyone can become a better standardized test-taker. As part of that mission, Paul wrote the first version of this piece over 20 years ago that teaches which standardized tests to take and when to take them.
It’s a good idea to share your testing plans with your counselor to get her advice, too. But the recommended schedule here has worked very well for our Collegewise students.
The current version does not address the upcoming significant changes to the SAT, but that new version isn’t debuting until spring 2016 (the PSAT will also be changing). If you won’t be taking the SAT until then, you can learn about the upcoming changes here.