Spring 2012 Guidance Newsletter

The SAT
Results for the Jan. 28th SAT should be available.  Visit the counselor if you’ve not seen your results.
The May 5th SAT at YIS is full. 
Registration for the May test is closed.
June is the last test available for this year.  If you must have an SAT for next fall, this is your last chance before October.

FAQ about the SAT:

Should I take the SAT even if I’m not going to go to an American University?
Yes! Many colleges and universities around the world, when they find you have an American Diploma, will ask for your SAT scores.

When should I take an SAT?
The answer depends upon when you need it. I believe that all of our students need practice in the SAT testing environment.  So, for practice, you need to take the test at least once well before you need to send your scores off to anyone.  For most of our students, that would be the end of 10th grade or the beginning of 11th grade.  You also want to take the SAT once, when you know as much as you are going to know before your deadline for admission.  For some of our students, that is the fall of 12th grade, for some it is the spring of 12th grade.

How do I know if I passed?
The SAT is used by many different organizations around the world to determine admission.  As a result, there is no clear cut pass/fail mark.  The average composite score on the SAT is 1500 (500 or so on each subtest).  A few schools around the world will tell you a minimum score for admission.  A few years ago I had a group of students (not from our school) who believed that breaking 1200 on the SAT would allow them admission to Universities in Egypt.  Many schools in the US and Canada will publish the average score for students admitted as freshmen (1350 to 1450).  A good many schools in the world publish no data on the SAT scores of admitted students.  This, to me, always says that the university is waiting for this year’s crop of applicants and will take a certain portion of what they receive.
If you’ve not had a look at the SAT site in a while, have a look now.  They are changing the way you send your scores.  You can now be selective.

The SAT 10
The SAT 10 (Stanford Achievement Test version 10) is a yearly test given in grades 2,4,6,8 and 10.  The SAT 10 lets us compare the performance of our students in reading, writing and math to students in the US.  We will be giving the SAT 10 in daily increments till the 25th of April.

Advanced Placement Exams
The first two weeks of May are the time for the AP’s.  We have students this year taking: Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Calculus.  We have a group of students who have been putting in extra study hours since October in hopes of doing well on this very demanding exam.

BYU Courses
We have the largest group ever taking courses online.  With each online course comes a paper and pencil exam.  Students need to make an appointment with the counselor to take their exams within thirty days of requesting that exam.

National Honor Society and National Junior Honor Society
As we continue to work towards preparing our ever larger group of High School students to attend colleges and universities YIS will be starting a chapter of the NHS and the NJHS.  These are service organizations with an academic focus.  There are minimum levels of achievement as well as standards of conduct required for admission to both.  They are nationally known for their high standards of admissions and are something that colleges and universities look for in an application.

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