HISD juniors will be sharpening their No. 2 pencils to take the SAT college admission test during SAT School Day on their own campuses April 16, with the district picking up the registration cost. Students registered for the test with their high school counselors, who provided a voucher to waive the $51 fee.
If you are registered to take the test at your high school, here are some tips to prepare for test day:
All HISD juniors are being enrolled for free to take the SAT college entrance exam during the school day on their campuses on April 16 – and they also qualify for two prep courses at no cost. But time is tight to take advantage of the chance to take practice tests and customized instruction to help boost their scores.
Although HISD will not receive SAT results from the College Board until later this year, individual seniors who retook the SAT in October after attending the EMERGE SAT Boot Camp in July are getting their scores and seeing significant improvement – more than 300 out of 2,400 possible points in some cases.
“We are very pleased with the results,” said Assistant Superintendent for College Readiness Richard Cruz, who launched EMERGE in 2011 and continues to oversee it. “We are about to expand the program from 100 to 300 students.” EMERGE is a districtwide initiative aimed at getting high-achieving HISD students in underserved communities into Ivy League and other Tier 1 schools.
It doesn’t matter if your child is 4 or 14, it’s never too early to start planning for college.
That’s the message Houston Independent School District College Readiness Manager Yolanda Norman is spreading this October as the district celebrates College Readiness Month.
College Readiness Month is designed to get students thinking about college and prepare them to not just gain admission, but complete a degree and graduate. The goal, Norman said is to get students thinking critically about their future and long-term plans.
HISD students at three high schools say they are more confident and prepared to take the SAT thanks to a summer boot camp that raised their practice test scores by double digits.
“At first I found it really difficult,” said Sharpstown sophomore Giovanna Deleon. “Now, after taking the practice tests and seeing my score increase week after week, I am very proud and optimistic.”
District to offer free SAT exam to all juniors during class on Wednesday
For the third consecutive year, the Houston Independent School District will be offering the SAT free of charge to all juniors during class on Wednesday, February 27 in an effort to eliminate barriers, such as work obligations or transportation limitations, which have historically excluded some students from taking this important step toward college readiness.
The number of Houston ISD students earning college credit on Advanced Placement Exams and posting top scores on the SAT has never been higher, Superintendent Terry Grier announced today.
In the 2010-2011 school year, HISD high school students scored a 3 or better – the score most colleges require to grant course credit – on 6,657 college-level AP exams, a 35 percent increase from 2009. The number of AP Scholars – students who passed three or more AP exams before graduation – reached 1,070 last year, more than triple the number of AP Scholars in 2010.
At the same time, the number of HISD students scoring 500 or higher on each of the three subjects tested on the SAT college entrance exam is up significantly from the previous year – 18 percent in math, 13 percent in reading, and 10 percent in writing. The 500-point threshold is important because research shows that students who achieve this score are more likely to succeed in that subject in college.