The Foreign Service Journal, December 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2021 77 David Huemer is the founder and owner of Your College Strategies, LLC, an academic tutoring firm for middle and high school students with an emphasis on SAT, ACT and SSAT prep. A graduate of Columbia College in New York, he spent 30 years on various trading floors in New York and Chicago before found- ing YCS in 2011. If you have questions about this article or the SAT or ACT in general, he can be reached at yourcollegestrategies@gmail.com. EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT This is good news for students of Foreign Service families, for whom navigating the college application and admission process is always difficult, but who had real challenges just being able to take the PSAT, SAT or ACT last year. Many colleges have kept, at least temporarily, the “test optional” status of the SAT and ACT—meaning stu- A fter a year of change and cancel- lations for all things academic, the 2021-2022 school year appears to be one of relative stability for the two big, standardized college admis- sions tests—the SAT and ACT. There are more tests scheduled in more places than last year, and early reports are of fewer cancellations. Standardized tests can help you get into the college of your choice, but they are not like ordinary school tests and require preparation far in advance. BY DAV I D HUEMER Preparing for the SAT and ACT Why and HowYou Should Do It dents can choose to submit scores, but students who do not won’t be penal- ized in the admissions process. Some schools, most notably the University of California, are “test blind”—they will not consider SAT or ACT scores at all in the admissions process. But even when a college does not require or will not consider test scores, it may use scores as an alternative method of fulfilling minimum requirements for eligibility or for course placement after you enroll. To Take, or Not to Take? Whether or not to take a standardized ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/NATALIASMURIAKOVA