204: What You Need to Know About Standardized Tests and Mistakes to Avoid

Ethan Sawyer  0:00  
Music.


Hi all, Ethan, saw your College Essay. Guy here, doing my very best to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. I sounded stressed when I said that. I don't know why. I don't feel stressed, particularly on this podcast, as on the other episodes, it's my job to interview brilliant minds in the college admissions world, analyze their genius and break it down for you into a series of practical, actionable steps that you can take, whether you're applying to college yourself or helping somebody else apply. This episode's the third and final part in this little mini series on standardized tests that I've been doing. So in case you missed it, hashtag, I see why am I? Part one was on test optional schools and the test optional movement. Part Two was on how to reduce testing anxiety. And this episode, the one you're about to hear is basically on everything else standardized test related. My guest, who's Adam Ingersoll has spent more than 25 years working in s, a T and a c t prep, working with more than, I mean, indirectly, through his company, more than 100,000 students. And he's seen it all, and he knows he knows his stuff. You'll see that really soon in this episode, you'll hear his take on what is a good score, putting good in quotes, how much do S A T and ACT scores matter. Do students even need standardized tests? When should you take the test? What's the difference between the s, a T and a C, T? Briefly, do students need the optional essay? A few words on the P, S, a T, and some important notes for students with learning differences. Then we wrap up. He says something really interesting on how students should define success in college admissions testing all that more in a breezy 45 minutes. Let's get to it. Hi friends and welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Adam Ingersoll. He's the co founder of Compass Education Group, which is a test prep company that works with 1000s of students all over the world. He's recognized in the college admissions community as an expert on testing definitely, and he's invited to give keynote presentations at about 75 schools and conferences each year. He started teaching SAT prep in 1993 while he was a freshman at the University of Southern California, about 20 minutes from my house, where he was also on the basketball team, which I didn't know. I want to ask you about that in a second. He worked in the admissions office and graduated magna cum laude. No big deal after 25 years leading sat and a CT prep for more than 100,000 students, Adam has pretty much seen it all. So thank you, Adam, for being with us on the podcast. Thanks for having me Good to be here. So I don't know if you know this book, but I'm a huge college basketball fan, and so when I saw that you played it, I want to know about that talking about playing ball at


Adam Ingersoll  2:45  
USC, I didn't know you were about. You were a basketball junkie. You know, it's a little bit of an overstatement. I was a walk on, okay? And for those who don't know what a walk on is, it means you weren't invited to come to school and paid in the form of a scholarship to be on the team. It means you had tended to try out. And what this what this really meant at USC in the mid 90s, the basketball program was not exactly high flying. And my friends across town at UCLA used to tell me that I was on the worst but they said I was the worst player on the worst team in the pack 10, which was harsh but fair. And you know, the other jokes included that, you know, I was, I was only picked because I was a nerd who would boost the team GPA. And, quite frankly, I'm sure I'm sharing you, I'm sharing with you only some of the nicer things that were said.


Ethan Sawyer  3:31  
Well, that's not a, I mean, that's not the worst thing, right? Because you're, you're kind of a, you know, I don't know if you'd call yourself, would you have called yourself a jock back then?


Adam Ingersoll  3:40  
No, no. I mean, I was, I was, I was a gym rat. Absolutely love to play basketball. Yeah, and played enough that, you know, I could kind of keep up. But no, nobody saw me walking across campus and thought, you know, there's goes, a three, three sport athlete, you know,


Ethan Sawyer  3:58  
now, how did you so, I don't know what, how long before, but you're not that old. How did you end up getting the test prep from USC, the test prep?


Adam Ingersoll  4:07  
You know, nobody does it intentionally. You know, nobody goes to college thinking that the tests that got them in will then become their life's work. But in my case, you know, I was a kid. I grew up in in the Midwest, a big family. We certainly were not affluent, and I took the PSAT and did well, and that sort of opened up opportunities for college that got me to USC, but there was certainly a gap between my scholarship and what it actually cost to to to go to USC. So fall a freshman year, looking for part time work and answered an ad in the student newspaper for SCT tutors for $15 an hour. Boom. Now this is 1990 1993 It sounds amazing. So it was, you know, at the time, it was good, paying and interesting and challenging work. And I think the things about that appeal to me, on the one hand, it is. You know, if you'll, if you'll, give cut me the slack. It is education. You are working with kids on academic material. And it is teaching, maybe in a mercenary way, for something evil, but it is teaching, and it was competitive and and the thing about, about these, these tests, is, you know, I think in our culture, for the most part, we like score keeping and ranking and you know, and for better or worse, one thing that these tests do is they give you kind of black and white feedback. You you achieve a score increase or you didn't, and you get a number. So from a competitive perspective, I think that appealed to me, and it was one of the ways I always connected with with students is, you know, how can we approach this like a competition and just help you get to your potential, whatever that may be, right? And try to have some fun doing it. Well,


Ethan Sawyer  5:53  
two things that you're saying are making me laugh and making me curious. So one is, first of all, we have a kind of a similar path where, after college, I and I went to a Big 10 school, but after Northwestern, I came to LA and I was like, Ooh, test prep that pays pretty well. Let me get into that. But I also had some positive affirmation, you know, when I was applying to Northwestern, and they said that the essays were big part of what got me in and but, and I'm like you in the sense of, like, this is not what I plan to do, but have found, you know, a lot of room, and it found out to be a lot of fun. You use the word evil to describe or half jokingly, to talk about test prep. And it's funny, because when I interviewed Bob Schaffer for this podcast, I asked him, are standardized tests evil? And if you, if you're curious who Bob Schaffer is, you can go and listen to that one. But what's your take? I want to just ask you off the, you off the you know, sort of off the top, are standardized test evil. What do you think I


Adam Ingersoll  6:44  
am? A tortured soul on this question? I'm deeply conflicted. I'm going to be Bob Schaefer, somebody I know. Well, I'm going to be speaking at conferences in a few months with John Beck instead, who's head of his enrollment financial aid at De Paul. He's another real powerful voice in this on these, questions, Ethan, I don't know, I go back and forth on whether the SAT is sort of a necessary, or at least inevitable evil, or is it just simply evil and it should go away? And I think I'm too close to it. I can argue both sides, but I think you could easily make an argument that these tests if they simply didn't exist, students would be better off in many ways. What I worry about is the vacuum that that might create, and what would fill it, right? And I'm not sure that we would. We would, you know that the system would tolerate not having an alternative. And I'm not sure that where all of that anxiety and energy would flow wouldn't go to something that'd be, you know, equally or more problematic in a different way. So I just, I just did not give you a straight


Ethan Sawyer  7:52  
answer that's okay. Well, no, what I'm appreciating is like the candor and the the sort of, the sort of, let's, let's pause a moment, and let's consider the larger thing, the philosophical implications, and then I want to shift it to, you know, for the purposes of this podcast, I want to for folks who are listening, and that's parents or students or counselors, I want to answer, because you have been doing this for so long, I want to answer some of the, you know, the questions that come up for folks because I haven't really covered just prep. I've done some short, you know, really practical ones, but we haven't really covered sort of the big picture thing. So I want to ask you some of the questions that I get asked a lot, and hear you right here. You riff on them. Cool. Great. So absolutely. So the one of the big ones that comes up a lot of students want to know what's a quote, unquote good score, or what's a good score for a particular school, and so I'm interested in this on two levels. On one well, just you know, what is that? How do you answer that question When students ask you that? But also, how can counselors help students figure this out? Figure out an answer for that question.


Adam Ingersoll  8:53  
It's always the first question, and it's a question. There's all kinds of anxiety wrapped around it, and it is really the wrong question. So what we try to do is provide a, you know, satisfying, or at least informative answer and a starting point, but then that really should be a springboard into more meaningful question. So first, sometimes we simply need to educate families that a a good score. If you're thinking that means like, what is the minimum, or what's the cutoff? That it really doesn't work that way. Or I should say there's very, you know, at most places, especially highly selective colleges, where admission is claimed to be very holistic. That's not the way it works. In some contexts, there are university systems where there are effectively cut offs or minimums, but generally speaking, it's this kind of like it's spectrum where the answer is, well, the higher, the better. And and what we do is to start out, see when I'm when I'm asked these questions by by my families, who really are seeking answers and need guides, need context. I really try to get a straight, crisp answer first, you know, because then I. Like I can go on and say what I really want to say, and I have their attention. So on this question, we go to great length to develop this resource. We call the compass 360 that takes that question and connected ones for about 360 now approaching foreign colleges and says, Here are the staff. So at this at this college, here is the middle 50th percentile test scores for admitted students. Now you know that just tells you what ballpark you might want to be in to feel like you're you are competitive, right? It doesn't mean that scores below that students never get in. Doesn't mean that scores above that you want math you get in. But, but here's a ballpark, and usually the context for this is, I'm a 10th grade parent. I just got my kids first PSAT score. It's the first time I've seen a score like this in years. Where do we stand? What kind of ballpark are we in? Right? And that's perfectly good to look at it that way. And you can scan our list and see, okay, so here's the ballpark we're in, but here's here's what I dread, is the family who is thinking that you know, the way to approach testing in general is to gun for a certain score, and below that is failure, above that is success, and that will, you know, determine everything that is the wrong mindset, and we aggressively try to knock that down. But like I say, you need to, you need to give you know, you need to give good, data driven answers before you then have somebody willing to hear kind of the broader philosophical piece.


Ethan Sawyer  11:27  
Great, yeah, usually it comes up, like, I got a 1350 can I get into USC and, like, what does a kid do with that? What I'm hearing you say is, like, well, go to, you know, find out from USC. Like, what is the range of, you know, scores that they're acceptable, and also, yeah, there's another part of it, right? This is just one piece the puzzle. You know, one of the other questions a lot is, is, how much do these scores matter? What do you what do you say when folks ask that?


Adam Ingersoll  11:53  
How much they matter depends tremendously on the institution and what you're prepared to bring to it. I always go back to USC as a context good friends who run admissions there, who are great people, you know they I love, I love this. This quote from them. They said, One, we don't use these scores with the precision that students and parents think we do, because they're not designed that way, and because to do so would be unfair, full stop. So I thought that was great. Another just kind of off the cuff comment they made, I thought was wonderful, they said. And sometimes, although we require the scores, sometimes we hold our nose as we use them. And that was their way of saying, we know we are human. We know all the ways in which these tests and what they do to kids is really problematic and flawed, that we get it. But here's our context, you know, USC, 55,000 applications from more than 140 countries, and this is the kicker to me, more than 10,000 high schools. So as much as USC, you know, they run a great admissions team, really big staff. They try to learn every applicants unique context and understand the school and what a particular High School's transcript means. You know, for them, it's still useful to have a independent, separate measure that is standardized, that gives some context to everything else in the application, and particularly to the the transcript and grades. You know, test scores are modestly helpful


Ethan Sawyer  13:24  
do so let's go the other way. I want to swing the pendulum all the way out and ask, Do students even need the tests? And talk to you a little bit about test optional. We've there's a whole podcast for those who are interested on test optional. But yeah, what's your what's your thought on that


Adam Ingersoll  13:39  
test? The test optional movement has been surging in the last decade, and I think it's this wonderfully progressive, positive movement within college admission. So what you have, you know, you can look at it this way, first kind of, kind of look at the landscape. So depending on how you define what's the college or university, which there's actually, you could put it different ways, there's several 1000. Fully 1000 of those are tests optional, meaning that they do not require test scores for all or a substantial number of their applicants. Now, if you parse that list, and we have in our we have a resource that does this, you find that there aren't that many colleges that are terribly selective in the first place that are also on that list. So many, many, many of us test optional colleges that are saying we don't require scores. They never really use scores much in their process anyway. But if you look at the list, let's take let's liberal arts colleges. So Wesleyan, okay, Pomona, liberal arts colleges, if you, if you look at the top 100 according to US News, slightly more than half are now test optional. They will fully consider your application without test scores. For some you need test scores for scholarships, but can be considered for admission. At more than half of those without. Scores. But here's the thing, so as a student, could I in 10th or 11th grade say, You know what? I'm just going to ignore tests entirely and only apply to colleges that are test optional? You could, and that would, in 2018 not be, you know, a crazy thing, and we're actually seeing a handful of kids that are looking at it that way, and in a few cases, we're the ones that said, do that. So the scenario would be this. So if you're a student by 11th grade, you know that taking these standardized, multiple choice you know, intense, fast paced tests is never going to be your thing, and test scores have always just under, under, predicted what you know you're capable of, and you've got, by comparison, very strong grades. I would recommend taking a long, hard look at the test optional list and making sure at least some test optional schools are in the pool of colleges to which you apply. Period. But here's the here's the problem. If you're aiming high in terms of selectivity. Even at the highly selective test optional schools, the vast majority of applicants still submit test scores, and the average score, or median score, at those places has only been rising, you know, since they've gone test optional. So it doesn't mean that test optional doesn't mean that it now got easier to get into, you know, super competitive colleges, but it gives students another path, and it's worth considering. If the scores are not a strength for you, clearly you will have more options if you are able to take tests and do well on them relative to your your grades. Sorry, not, not a short answer. No. You can imagine, if you own a test prep company, it's on your mind.


Ethan Sawyer  16:45  
Well, okay, so assuming students are going to take the test, they've decided, okay, this is something I'm going to do. When do they take it? What's the advice that you give


Adam Ingersoll  16:52  
on that there's a window within which you're most developmentally ready to take the test? And then, unfortunately, that the trend in recent years has been for kids to feel pressure to take the test earlier and earlier. My finishing that the the greatest number of students who take the test every year take the SAT only take it once and don't take it until followed senior year. Wow, these are typically kids who are first generation in their family to go to college, who go to a high school where there's a really high, you know, student to counselor ratio, and they're not receiving a lot of sophisticated advice during the process or in their lives. There's all kinds of challenges that, you know, interfere with or just pull away from attention given to, you know, massaging the college process. What I see within, you know, the population of students who are very sophisticated and and ambitious around around college, is the tendency to overdo it, and this attitude that surely more is more when it comes to testing and attention given to test prep and so forth, and the trend is to start too early, doing formal test prep and taking the test officially in 10th grade or earlier is not necessary and is not appropriate. That's giving the test, you know, way more credit than they're due, preparing for these tests and doing your best on them. You know, does not take two to three years. You know, it takes two to three months, or in some case, maybe six to 12 months. But I'm gonna say this is very bluntly. I'm sorry if I'm offending any your listeners to do things differently. But when I see test scrub companies, you know, offering, you know, two to three year programs, packages, plans starting kids in eighth and ninth grade. I think it's unethical. The fact is that kids who are challenging themselves academically and also reading outside of school, they are doing test prep in ninth and 10th grade. If you're taking the toughest math class you can handle at your school and working as hard in it as you can. That's that's Test Prep. So in 11th grade, perfectly appropriate to do something formal or informal to prepare for the test and kind of Polish what you've learned and learn the specific test taking skills. But that is not a multi year proposition, right? And people who act like it is, I think you know clearly, are acting out of self interest, right? So here's a question, when is the when is the right time to take it officially for most students, the first sitting should be spring of 11th grade. It's often March, if it's the SAT, February or April, if it's the A, C, T, but what you're trying to do is kind of hedge it perfectly. On the one hand, the longer you wait until you take the test, the older you will be, so developmentally, the further you are, along with not just hard academic skills, you know especially are just reading comprehension ability and vocabulary skills, but also just kind of the toughness that it takes to sit for a three to four hour exam. The high stakes, and keep up your endurance and focus and manage your anxiety. All of that tends to be, you know, developing, and when you're older, you do better. And the data shows that most students do not peak on these tests until fall of 12th grade, or the very end of 11th grade at the earliest. So there's this trend of students sitting for the test, officially, even in fall of 11th grade. In most cases, it's not productive, and what they're doing is effectively putting a practice test score on their record. Very few students can peak on these tests in fall of 11th grade or even winter. Most need more time, so waiting until spring of 11th is the right time, and even though, as someone's gonna ask the opposite question, Ethan people say, well, developmentally, you're unlikely to peak until fall 12th Why don't you just wait until then? And that's actually not a bad idea, but for most families, that's too nerve wracking, right? They want to go into the fall feeling like a 12th grade, feeling like I've got a good idea of where I stand. I'm finalizing my college list. You know, I want to be mostly settled with testing by that great so


Ethan Sawyer  21:06  
students often wonder, what's the difference between the SAT and ACT? You know? How do I know which one I should take? What's your thought?


Adam Ingersoll  21:14  
First you have a choice. It's your choice. There's no college in the country that has a meaningful preference one way or the other. It's up to you. The tests have a lot in common, but some really key differences that you understand by by experiencing them. So here's here's the advice. In a nutshell, make sure, before you decide what tests you're going to pursue officially, and certainly, before you start any formal test prep, take a diagnostic test for both your school. May do this for you in the form of a PSAT and or a pre a CT, but the best practice, to me is summer before 11th grade, or fall of 11th grade, take complete diagnostic tests which are readily available from the testing agencies or from test prep companies, and see if there's a clear winner based on the scores. The key is this, try to make the decision correctly up front, and what you want to avoid is a situation where you're not ever, ever sure which one you should have taken, and you go back and forth between both. You take both multiple times. You even get lured into some shady Test Prep. That's combo that covers both. These are things to try to avoid, and taking diagnostic tests up front is the way to do that. Great.


Ethan Sawyer  22:19  
And we'll say more, a little bit more about that guy that he just mentioned this resource. We'll say more about that resource in a few minutes. So what about this? And in terms of the differences? And we can link to this in the show notes, but just give me a quick, you know, a short version, if you can Adam about the difference between the SAT and ACT well,


Adam Ingersoll  22:38  
both tests, fundamentally, are about the three Rs, reading, writing, arithmetic, right? And the overhaul of the sat in the last two to three years really aligned it to a large extent, with the A, C, T, in terms of being about this fundamental academic content. Parents listening. You know the SAT you took 2030, years ago, you would not recognize today's sat back then it was all about esoteric vocab, words and math that felt like logic puzzles, and to a large extent, that has been stripped away. Here's some of the differences, though. So both tests put you on the clock and force you to, at speed, read a dense passage on something maybe that's not interesting to you, and then answer finicky questions that really kind of parse what is there. Here's a difference. The SAT, that's the first piece of the test at eight o'clock in the morning, and it's 65 minutes long, or if you have extended time, one hour, 37 and a half minutes. The A C T, the reading comprehension, comes up two hours into the test after a break. It's only 35 minutes long, so it's much, much shorter. But on the AC T, it's faster paced. There's fewer seconds per question allotted. So this, this always comes down to when you examine the test, as I'm advising you to do. It's a lesser evil situation, right? You know, on which of the two tests and all the different mix of structural differences and pacing and different kind of, kind of format of questions, what netted out for me as Least Worst, and the process of taking practice tests and evaluating them side by side, you figure out, okay, for me, endurance is more of an issue than having to work faster for a shorter period of time, right? You know, and I go on math, on math. The ACT is very, sort of straightforward in its structure, 60 minutes, 60 questions, all multiple choice calculator allowed. Sat covers mostly the same academic content or similar content, but does it in a different way. Structurally. There are some questions that are not multiple choice, where you must get your own answer. There are some questions that don't allow a calculator. It's broken up over two sections. It's not quite as fast paced. Is that better for you? No one can say so. Here's another other quick, quick takeaway. Do not rely on any generalizations or kind of old wives tales you hear about. Which test is better or easier or better for a certain type of learner, all that is bunk. Great.


Ethan Sawyer  24:59  
So. And what about the optional essay? Do students need that?


Adam Ingersoll  25:03  
This is a tough one. This essay talking to the essay, guy, boy, oh boy. Is it problematic. You know, it's fairly recent development on the end of each test. After three hours of almost all multiple choice, you have an optional essay that, for the A, C, T is 40 minutes. Sat is 50 minutes. It's on a topic not given in advance. You're essentially writing a hurried, rough draft. And then it's scored by human beings, and it's so for some students, it's just a very unfamiliar, awkward exercise, not something that they're used to doing, the opposite of how they have to write for a school. The thing is, is the scoring is very, you know, well known, and it's not hard to learn kind of what the topics are going to look like, what kind of approaches are rewarded. You know how the scoring works. And you should absolutely practice, you should, you know, write a couple of sample essays at least, so that you're familiar with what that, you know, activity looks and feels like here's the frustrating thing. Technically, the essay is optional, and nationally, only about 10% of colleges require it. However, you know, for 11th graders taking the test and not yet having a final college list, the safe bet is to include the essay with your test. You don't want to be fall of senior year, adding a college to your list, say the University of Michigan, and realizing, oh, shoot, I need the essay and I don't have it, and in that scenario, you have to take the entire test again. So to avoid that, even though 10% of colleges, only 10% require it, nationally, the data shows nearly two thirds of students take it. And in our office, you know, 1000 students a year we work with. It's nearly 100% because it's the safe bet. So to sum that up, treat the option, let's say, as as recommended, safer to take it, do some minimal preparation for it, even on your own. We have in this guide that we're referring to, six days page spread on what it looks like and how to approach it, and you should be fine, great. This


Ethan Sawyer  27:01  
is kind of a several part question, but oftentimes students are like, How many times should I take it? You know, what colleges are they're going to see all my scores. And does it even matter? What are your thoughts?


Adam Ingersoll  27:13  
Do not be a serial test taker who takes the test four or five six times and starts too early. You know, when I worked briefly in admissions, we would see that. So I recommend that in almost all cases, students take the test at least twice less your first scores. You crush it, or you're one and done. Most students benefit from a second sitting, even without a lot of formal prep data, the data showed that the significant improvement in most cases, from the first or the second test and no college, no college, is going to look sideways at you for taking it twice. Taking it a third time is where it starts to become debatable. And are still not colleges that really are going to worry about that. But it's in many cases, if you've been well prepared, knew what you were doing the first and second time, oftentimes, then your score is going to let have leveled off and any further improvement. You know, the law of diminishing returns now applies. You know, it's going to be hard to eke out further improvement. So the question to retake really comes down to a careful assessment of whether there's still significant likelihood of improving when you go to apply to colleges. So it's a question of, will colleges see all my scores? The answer generally is no. It's up to you. You have an option called Score Choice, provided by college board and a CT that lets you selectively report test dates. So if you completely bomb the April AC T and you just killed it in September, at most colleges, you could spend only the September result and not reveal that earlier blemish. But basically, there's no disadvantage to taking it more than once. At worst, colleges will simply look at your best overall test date. Last, but not least, there's a small problem, and it's small, but there are a handful of colleges, probably a little more than a handful, that prohibit Score Choice, that in some way restrict or prohibit altogether you exercising Score Choice. You apply to Georgetown, Stanford, you're going to sign a statement on the application stipulating that you reported all your scores that you did not exercise Score Choice. There's different rules and wrinkles of that which we explain in our resources. But here's the thing, you know, I don't think there's a witch hunt for, you know, really erratic, weird test taking, but the fact that some colleges prohibit Score Choice, to me, is just one more reason why, if you're in ninth or 10th grade right now, thinking about a testing plan, you don't want to overdo it. If you do, there might be some colleges where you have to reveal that, and that's probably not helpful. What's


Ethan Sawyer  29:50  
the what's the most part, though, you control your scores. Oh, sorry to cut you off. What's what's the most number of times you've heard of somebody taking the ACC or as a T,


Adam Ingersoll  29:59  
uh. I've taken this dozen. Are


Ethan Sawyer  30:03  
there any, like, ridiculous student examples where a student took it like, Wait,


Adam Ingersoll  30:07  
you're not, you're not recording this. Are you? No, I've taken it many, many times, and the test score people do that. There's, that's, that's actually a thing. You know, I've had a poor kid who came to us not until fall of 12th grade, and his parents had had him taking it every time it was offered since beginning of 10th grade, and it was really just, you know, they didn't realize that was that was not necessary, not advisable. Kid, of course, was totally burned out. You know, that would have been, if revealed to colleges, would have looked a little bit crazy. And it really he had just they had wasted a lot of money and a lot of time, yeah, totally unnecessary. You know, as I said earlier, doing formal stuff like that in ninth and 10th grade. It's almost always premature. So it was just he had listened, had listened to a podcast like this and this ill advised decision, the data shows us this, yeah, the wrong podcast. Yeah. The data shows that the vast majority of students only take it once or twice. A large number, nearly a couple 100,000 out of 2 million, take it a third time, but vanishingly small. Numbers of kids take it 456, times or more, and in many cases, those are recruited athletes trying to be eligible. Yeah? So two, maybe three times is the sweet spot.


Ethan Sawyer  31:33  
Do you enjoy taking the test? Yeah. Do you enjoy writing essays, even writing them. I mean, I enjoy writing Do I enjoy? And I've done it too. I've taken it a couple times since, you know, since I, when I, when I was in test prep, I took it a couple times, and I did enjoy it. There was like, a lightness, and it's kind of fun. It was kind of weird to roll up in my Carolina blue sweats and to see the kids sit next to me, like, who's the dude with the beard? So that was kind of fun, like, in an outsider way. But, yeah, I don't know what do you like about it? I'm just curious. Well, here's, here's what I


Adam Ingersoll  32:03  
like about it is, is it's just when I'm taking it, I've taken them, I've taken every test that's ever been released, and I've taken the test formally dozens of times. Let me really quickly. I'm not going to be a shill for test prep today, but let me give you an anecdote that I think is relevant to to your listeners. So when I take the test, you know, I get through the sections pretty quickly, right? I have time to look around and sort of take in what's happening every student in the room. I can just based on their facial expressions and their body language. I can, I can conclude one of two things about them, and I don't know, I don't know, you know, their ability per se, but the kids who look like they're they're managing it. They have a look at determination and focus and resolve on their faith. I know that those kids, they came in knowing what to expect. Maybe they didn't spend 1000s of dollars on a, you know, fancy tutoring service for the test, but they at least got their hands on practice tests, which are free, readily available, right? And they set through these dress rehearsals in the same way you don't go out and run a marathon. You got to build up for it. And without knowing their ability, I know that they were much more likely scoring to their potential than the other kids who have a look of just utter dismay and just shock on their face. They're just they're just completely blown away by just how exhausting the test is, or how fast paced it feels, or how they didn't know, you know, there's gonna be a section with no calculator, basic stuff, and that is totally avoidable. You know, it's not an arms race here. You can do your best if you practice on your own and use good resources and take it really seriously. So my message there is, don't, don't assume these tests are just this kind of CAT scan of your brain and they're going to be what they're going to be. You know, they reflect practice, and a lot of the the skill and experience that helps you reach your peak score is simply a function of being willing to work at


Ethan Sawyer  34:00  
Right. Talk to me about Subject Tests. What's your take on those who needs them? You know, students are asking me, which one should I take? When should I take them? What's a good score


Adam Ingersoll  34:10  
in our resources, we keep a very up to date list of what colleges require them and which ones don't. Here's a stat that maybe would surprise some folks. 10 years ago, 44 colleges explicitly required Subject Tests and would not consider your application without them. And you can imagine that 44 was you know. You would know everyone, every name on that list. As of this year, only four colleges remain that explicitly require Subject Tests, as places like MIT and Cal Tech, so Harvey Mudd and Cornell, so places renowned for their engineering programs. This kind of begs the question, though, you know, did those other 40 colleges over that time frame become, you know, easier to get into or less interested in what subject tests measure? No, of course, not. What's happening is it's kind of like the test optional movement colleges, to their credit, are saying you. What in our process and in our requirements discourages applications from underrepresented students and Subject Tests are a little bit, you know, obscure, not offered as often, you know, something some kids just don't hear about. So colleges have made them, in many cases, not required, but recommended or language like will consider, right? Here's the thing, though, you know Harvard is an example Dartmouth. You know, their language goes like this. Subject Tests are recommended. However, if taking them would would represent a financial hardship for you, then they are not, not required. So you have to, as a student, think about your own context. And if you went to a school where you know you knew about subject tests, and a lot of other kids were taking them, and clearly, based on your background, they were within your wheelhouse, then you're probably not as competitive if you don't. But on the other hand, the colleges are very clear in saying they are truly not required. The key with Subject Tests, if you need them, is to take the right ones at the right time. So generally speaking, you're going to want to choose subjects that correspond with your greatest academic strengths. So if you're in honors or AP US History, taking the Subject Test in US history would probably be a good idea, and you want to take it at the end of the school year, when you would be peaking in that material anyway. So that's key with Subject Tests. Do I need them? If so, which one should I take and then taking them at the right time.


Ethan Sawyer  36:20  
We haven't talked any at all about the PSAT. Will you say a few just words about it? What is it relevant? What does it matter? You know, how does National Merit work? Just a little about that. Yeah,


Adam Ingersoll  36:30  
sure. The PSAT will not hurt you. It can help you if in 10th grade you take it, you do. You do phenomenally well, and you're in the running for National Merit Scholarship consideration, which we write about, but it can't hurt you. And just to be clear, when you take it in the 10th grade, if your school offers that you're taking the practice for the practice test, so the stakes could be lower, and you shouldn't stress out about it. However, you should take it seriously. You take it seriously. You get data back, you get a score that is really useful as a planning tool the College Board has a really wonderful connection now, PSAT reporting that funnels you into Khan Academy, their do it yourself, or test prep platform. So take the PSAT when it's offered, take it seriously, then you have a planning tool to work from, but know that it can't be used against you also know that after you take the PSAT, your mailbox is going to blow up because your name's now in the College Board database. Colleges purchase that, and you start getting lots of very select marketing material from colleges Adam. Talk to


Ethan Sawyer  37:33  
me about accommodations for students with learning differences. This


Adam Ingersoll  37:37  
is something important to know about. If you receive accommodations for learning differences at your school. You have an IEP, or the equivalent in a private school, there should be a liaison at your school who would help you go through the process to apply for accommodations on the SAT or ect. And it's it's important to get those accommodations if you qualify for them, and then I think it's also important to then practice with those same accommodations. This is really detailed. We elaborate on it at length in in our resource and then blog posts. You know for whom it applies, but know that it's an option out there if you have learning differences, that's documented for which you receive accommodations, and if so, you should pursue it. Yeah,


Ethan Sawyer  38:18  
that's this is a good segue. Will you talk to us about this resource? Because I just think it's awesome, and more people should talk about it. So set it up for us, but tell us about the resource, why you created it, and what's


Adam Ingersoll  38:29  
in it. So, so for years and years and years going back, you know, 20 plus years, high schools have invited me or my colleagues to come and speak, and one year this was 2004 we thought, You know what? Let's go in tonight with a really beefy handout. What we did is we put together something that was what we use in our own advising of students. So all the nuts and bolts that you need to know about, the test answer, all the finicky questions. So we did like that on about a 15 page handout. Made a bunch of copies for everybody who attended, and oh my goodness, they loved it. The counselors told a bunch of friends. And then, okay, so let's take our own internal, you know, tools, and let's create a kind of accessible version of it and see if, see if that's helpful to folks. And 15 years later, that is now a book about 100 pages. And what it tries to do is, is answer with detail and kind of real substance, any possible question one could think of about college admission testing. So if you can think of it, the answer should be in there. And if not, tell me what wasn't there, and it'll be, it'll be in the next edition. So here's what it is. It's a hardcover book that we provide, you know, in print to every counselor that we can reach. It's also available for free as a PDF resume book, so anybody can download it, and if you're going to make it available completely free, please, please use it. And it's really helpful. Here's the here's the other thing. Okay, there are some topics. See college admission testing. It's all about lists and all the different restrictions and policies and rules and just things that aren't the same at every college, like, who requires Subject Tests, who does super scoring and who does not? Who prohibits Score Choice, who requires the SAT and ACT essay? These are all fundamentally about lists, right? So those, those lists are constantly kept up to date and companion resources on our website. But the bottom line is, if you get a copy of the guide and you refer to it and you when you need to jump from it to the companion resource on our website, you're set. You will not make a mistake with something in the nitty gritty. Know how of the test the other thing, and honestly, this is only our power users, but if you read it cover to cover, you're gonna get a really good perspective on what these tests are all about, how they're really used by colleges, what the scores do and don't say about a student's ability, and what a reasonable but also successful approach to test prep is going to look like. So I'd encourage you know, I think if you've got a podcast, listeners made their way through this, this session might also be a reader, and do check it out. I think it's really worth your time. I


Ethan Sawyer  41:12  
agree. I just want to second that it's when I first came upon it years ago. I was like, holy cow. This is awesome. This is everything you know. Talk to me as we sort of wrap up here. I'm curious when you know, imagining that it's spring of 12th grade and you know, students are looking back on testing and everything. How do you feel like this is kind of a philosophical question. How do you feel like students should define success?


Adam Ingersoll  41:37  
It's a great question. You know, here's the thing, the families that we work with, in many cases, we stay in touch with them after the student goes off to college. And I have never in my life talked to a parent who says, You know what, my daughter's now away at college, and she's miserable, and if only she had done more test prep and testing, then I bet she'd be happy. I never had that conversation. You know, that doesn't happen. What has happened too often is, I've just been aware of a student, either as it was happening or afterwards, who was just getting demolished by college admission anxiety generally, and attention to these tests specifically. And you know, she got burned out, you know, way too much of her time and energy, you know, in this kind of really meaningful period of her life, was spent consumed by by dealing with tests and other aspects of admission. And she's now arrived at college and and, and, you know, forgot how to love anything having to do with education. And maybe, you know, great relationship with your parents. That scenario. I've seen it too often, but I would say to a parent listening is, how could that possibly be worth it? I don't care what the college admission outcome was. There were other solid outcomes that could have been, you know, reached without overdoing it. So, so don't overdo testing. And I think a good, good way to think about this is, with tests. What are you trying to achieve? As a parent, you know you want the student to reach his or her potential, whatever that may be. And what I would submit to is you want to also have them reach that potential as efficiently as possible. Nothing virtuous about being the one who did the most test prep and testing. So as a parent, if you were always asking yourself with these tests and planning and so on, are we doing it right? And are we doing enough? But also, in the same breath, are we not doing too much? You know, let's give these tests the attention they deserve, but let's also try not to give them one second more than that. That is a really healthy mindset that I think then will flow to the student as just a much, much kind of better context that puts them in a better place, less heartache, totally.


Ethan Sawyer  43:48  
That's a good, a good thought. That's a beautiful thought. It's a beautiful thought to to to leave folks with time for show and tell. So Adam, what? What's a resource or something in your life that's that's adding meaning or adding value,


Adam Ingersoll  44:02  
huh? Well, I think I'm thinking of something that I read. I'm looking around my office. Here I have on my coffee table. I have a book Obama, an intimate portrait by Pete Souza, who was his official White House photographer. It's about 350 pages of just beautiful photography. And what I like about it, you know, it's, it's, regardless of your, you know, your your political positions, what you what you seem to look at this book is someone who was a really, I think, sensitive, courageous leader. And every, every image that you look at, you see someone who is just deeply human, who seems to be maintaining perspective despite just the incredible pressures and complexities around him. So for me, it's centering. It's a beautiful book, and you I've read it or watched it cover to cover, looked at every picture and every caption. What's kind of cool about it is there's so many pictures you can't even if you're very familiar with. It, open it up randomly to a page, and without fail, you're going to find an image that kind of recenters you and and it's a really powerful book. I'd recommend it to anyone. I love it.


Ethan Sawyer  45:11  
As you're talking I'm looking at my my Google Chrome extensions, and I just thought this would be a funny opportunity for my show Intel to share what my Google Chrome extensions, and why I have them. So one of them is my YouTube ad block, which means I don't get ads on YouTube, which is great. Another one is Boomerang, which allows me to send emails later if I want to, or if I have an email that I don't want to deal with right now and I want to email it back to me in a day. I can do that. That's boomerang loom allows me to record videos just really quickly. I can just click on that, and then I've got one from C alpha, which is, you know, a really cool company that's that has all the essay prompts. When I just click on that, I can type in the name of the school, and it would give me the essay prompts. But my favorite one is, this is like a five part show and tell. My favorite one is the Google Chrome death clock. Do you know about this? I don't. Well, when I open up a new tab, and I'm gonna do it now, when I open up a new tab, I get four one thought, I get the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds in my life based on average life expectancy. And there's a beautiful image behind it, and there's just the words make them count. So according to this, I have 14,424 days, 12 hours, 34 minutes and 18, 1716, seconds left. And so it's asking me, right? It's putting that right in my face and going, is this tab really worth it? And it's some people I've shared this with my family, that think it's kind of morbid. I think it's kind of awesome, because it's making me go, like, just becoming even more intentional and reflective of like is, this is what I'm doing worth it. So that's my favorite one.


Adam Ingersoll  46:45  
That's cool, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna check that out. Ethan, can I? Can I make it? Give you a quick confession here, I love Google. I love Google extensions, and this is going to be just such the opposite of what you just said. Good, sure. So I have a Chrome extension, and what it does is, anytime I'm reading something that has a particular person's name, somebody connected my industry who I really, really don't like, the Chrome extension replaces that person's name with something kind of me. So that's sorry. I admitted that That's Amazing The Most it's super petty. That's amazing. But ran into my mind, what is that one called these wonderful things with Chrome extensions, you actually can make your own. It's really easy. What's


Ethan Sawyer  47:25  
the what's the extension? Called like, how do you


Adam Ingersoll  47:29  
get it? I made it. I didn't share it. But if you, if you Google, make Chrome extension. This is one of the top ones, a simple word, word, replace a tool. And, yeah, I don't find recommend this to children. It's a bit mean skirted, but I got to admit, when I'm in a bad mood, it helps them feel a little better about not something. There's something


Ethan Sawyer  47:51  
in that. Adam, thank you. Thanks so much for your time and your energy and for being with me. Yeah,


Adam Ingersoll  47:59  
thanks for having me. Ethan, I really, really appreciate what you do. Anybody who's a faithful listener, you know that you're you're going well beyond you know, your specialty of essay writing, and so this is life stuff, and it's great. So thank you.


Ethan Sawyer  48:15  
Thanks for listening. You'll find all the show notes for this episode, which is to say, all the links and resources that Adam and I talked about at college, sa guy.com/podcast, especially check out there's this cool like, 10 question, like, there are 10 links for the most common standardized test questions. So if you felt like you were just getting you know a little bit it's true. So you'll find links to all those, plus you'll find this incredible resource that compass put together. It's called the compass guide to college admissions testing, and it's about 100 pages long, but it's like a thorough, thorough it answers pretty much everything you need. Check that out on the page, and as always, stay curious you


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