As students make their way through Junior year, they must keep in mind the college entrance exam looming over them. The SAT or ACT are major factors in determining college admissions, and a poor performance can single-handedly bar someone from entering a good college.
While students prepare for their test at the end of Junior year, they must simultaneously endure what is considered to be the hardest year of high school. I set out to discover whether or not the workload of Junior year impacts the ability of TABC students to study for the SAT and ACT, and if this ability varies by academic track.
Assuming the honors track has the most work, I interviewed students in those classes first, thinking that more schoolwork would mean less time studying for the SAT. This proved not always to be the case.
Honors students said they did not have to learn as much new material specifically for the test, since higher tracks tend to cover more complicated topics.
Junior Boaz Kapitanker said that he spends around 3 hours a week on SAT prep and around double that on schoolwork. He said that he would “probably receive a slight boost in his SAT score” if he didn’t have as much schoolwork to complete.
Kapitanker said that he still has to learn a few more theorems and grammar rules for the SAT, but most of his study for test consists of relearning material.
Another Honors student, Junior David Rabbani, said he had high levels of schoolwork, up to 15 hours a week during the more intense weeks. He said that “being in AP classes means you need to spend more time on schoolwork than SAT prep.”
Rabbani and Kapitanger agreed that they would have more time to study for the SAT if their workload at school were reduced, although they noted not all honors students would necessarily spend the time studying.
Despite being such an important part of college admission, it seems that no teacher specifically teaches SAT prep. No student interviewed had no new information to learn. Both Kapitanker and Rabbani had some new material to go over, while other parts were mostly review. Even students in the highest track had information to learn.
I moved on to the other tracks to see if there was a trend in the time spent on schoolwork versus SAT prep.
In the Accelerated track, I first interviewed Junior Binyamin Davis, who said he had around 4 hours of schoolwork each week and spent another 4 studying for the SAT. Davis thinks his amount of work is unreasonable, as he wants to spend even more time studying for the SAT.
Junior A.J. Zimbalist reported having 5 hours per week in schoolwork and studying 2 hours per week for the SAT. Like most others interviewed in the honors and accelerated tracks, he thought he had too much work and that he’d like a reduction in his workload so he could specifically study for the SAT.
Most of those accelerated students who were interviewed wanted more time for SAT prep and less schoolwork. However, all three accelerated students surveyed thought they had a good balance of schoolwork and SAT prep, while only 1 out of 4 honors students felt this way.
I then asked Regular and Grade Level track students what they thought about their SAT/schoolwork balance. Junior Jake Resnick is in Regular for all classes except English; he says he has up to 7 hours of schoolwork per week and he studies for the SAT 3 hours per week. He says he feels comfortable with the balance but expects his workload to increase as the year progresses.
Out of the three Regular/General track students I interviewed, only Junior Yonatan Goldstein felt he has too much work. However, Goldstein may feel this way because he takes English on an Honors level. This helps contribute to an above-average workload for his track: around 5 hours per week.
Most of those in the lower tracks felt comfortable with their current levels of SAT prep.
The overall balance of SAT and schoolwork seemed to be even over the tracks, (when not accounting for extracurriculars). Higher tracks had more work but less new information to learn, and lower tracks have less work but more new information to learn
It seems that all students from all tracks want less schoolwork, but this isn’t surprising information.
Something that may help with those students who do feel overstressed by the SAT or ACT would be classes that are specifically tailored to those tests. As it stands, no teacher teaches specifically ACT or SAT Math and English. Yet many students have a great need to learn new material to do well on these exams. This is especially apparent in lower tracks.
Tailoring classes to address SAT or ACT Prep would help alleviate some of the stress of students who are studying on their own with practice tests or textbooks. SAT tutors cost 70 dollars per hour on average, so covering this material in school it would also help with students whose families would prefer not to spend exorbitant sums of money.