Many colleges and universities worldwide now accept homeschooled graduates with high school diplomas. They also require homeschoolers and other students to take the SAT or an equivalent test to help them make decisions regarding admissions. So, how do homeschoolers take the SAT?
Homeschoolers take the SAT at a designated SAT center, as there are no online tests yet. The students answer the questions on paper under the supervision of a proctor. The students register with the College Board either online, by phone, or via mail under exceptional circumstances to take the SAT.
I’ll talk more about how homeschoolers take the SAT in the rest of this article and discuss what homeschoolers need to register for the SAT and how to register. I’ll also explain what to expect on the test day and how to access your scores. Here we go.
Why Students Need To Take the SAT
Some colleges and universities require all students seeking admission to take the SAT in addition to their high school diplomas. This requirement also applies to homeschooled graduates with homeschooling high school diplomas.
The SAT results help such institutions decide whether you’re good enough to join the college and if you can handle the rigors of college life.
To take the SAT, all students, including homeschoolers, must become members of the College Board, which deals with students worldwide. It also promotes equity and excellence in education.
The College Board sets and administers the SAT and later posts the results to colleges.
Items You Need To Register For the SAT as a Homeschooler
There are several things a homeschooled student requires to register for the SAT. You should have these things ready to make the registration process as seamless as possible.
The things you need include:
- A high school code: The College Board gives high school codes to traditional schools to use when registering for the SAT. Since homeschoolers don’t have high school codes, the code that all homeschoolers use in place of a high school code is 970000.
- A College Board account: The College Board administers the SAT, so you’ll need to register for the SAT online through the College Board website. Consequently, you should create a College Board account. Creating an account is free.
- Personal details: The registration process will require some of your details, including academic achievements and information about your family. You should therefore have these details ready to make the process easy.
- A personal photo: You need to attach a recent photo of yourself. The website gives you details about the kind of photos it accepts, so follow the instructions carefully so that the system doesn’t reject your picture.
- Registration fees: There’s a registration fee for taking the SAT, but the costs vary every year.
How To Register For the SAT
When you have all you need to register for the SAT as a homeschooler, you can enroll to take the SAT. You can register through mail, calling the College Board, or online. The online process takes about 30 minutes, as explained below:
- Go to the College Board site and create an account. The process takes approximately 30 minutes if you have everything ready.
- Fill in your details. Personal information helps the College Board track your test, so make sure that the data is accurate.
- Upload your latest photo following the set guidelines. The system may reject your picture if you don’t follow the guidelines.
- Select a test date. The College Board offers the SAT 7 times a year, which takes place in March, May, June, August, October, November, and December. Incidentally, the College Board administers the tests only on Saturday, but you can also do the test on a Sunday if you have a valid reason.
- Select a test center. You can see which test centers have seats during the registration process. You’ll want to register to take the SAT at the nearest test center to avoid the hassle of traveling long distances.
- Pay the registration fees. You can pay the SAT registration fees using your credit card or through PayPal.
- Print the SAT admission ticket. After the registration process, you get the SAT admission ticket, which proves that you’ve registered for the SAT. This ticket has the photo you attached earlier and all your details. After verifying the details, you can print the ticket or wait to print it later.
What To Expect on the Day You Take the SAT
After registering to take the SAT, the College Board will allocate you a test center and issue you an admission ticket to the test center. So, prepare for the test and wait patiently for the test day.
Below is what you should expect on the day of the test:
- Opening of the test center: The doors of test centers open at 7.45 am and close at 8.00 am. So, ensure that you’re on time, or you may be locked out and have to reschedule the test or register again at a fee.
- Checking by test center staff: At the test center, you’ll find a team to check whether you have everything you need for the test. For instance, you require a current government-issued photo ID and the admission ticket, a calculator, pencils, and a sharpener.
- Sitting arrangements: Once the test center staff verifies your details, they show you a testing room where you meet a proctor, which allows you into the testing room and assigns you a seat reserved especially for you. You sit down with many other students to take the SAT.
- Settling in the testing room: Once you settle in your seat in the testing room, the proctor gives you question papers and answer sheets. The test begins between 8.30 and 9.00 am and takes three hours, excluding break time.
- Taking the test: The test has several sections, and the proctor administers it section by section. Therefore, you should work on the section the proctor has indicated. Don’t skip to other questions in the question paper.
- Taking breaks: The proctor will give you two breaks during the test. You will get a 5 min and 10 min break. You can take a snack during the break or go to the bathroom.
- End of the test: At the end of the exam, the proctor collects the answer sheets and the question papers and then dismisses you from the testing room. The test center then delivers the answer sheets to the College Board scoring headquarters.
How To Prepare To Take the SAT
You can take the SAT several times to attain the best scores you need for college. However, this wouldn’t be necessary if you worked hard from the very beginning. You can use some of the methods mentioned below to prepare for the SAT so that you excel:
- Self-preparation: You can prepare for the SAT on your own using online resources, prep books from the library, study guides, and other items.
- Enroll for the SAT prep course: Several companies now offer SAT prep courses online and physically at a fee.
- Hire a private tutor: You could also hire an expert in SAT to tutor you.
- Take practice tests: You can find numerous practice tests on the College Board website. The practice tests are real questions given to students who took the SAT in previous years. The practice tests also come with free study guides.
How Long Will You Wait To Get Your SAT Results?
You will wait at least 13 days to get your SAT results. It takes the examiners about 13 days to mark the SAT. So, once you take the SAT on Saturday, you can look forward to getting your results on the second Friday after the test.
However, if you take the SAT in June, you could get your scores after five weeks.
The examiners take this long to release the scores because thousands of students take the SAT on every test date. So, marking all the papers takes time. After the examining Board releases the SAT results, it sends them to colleges within ten days.
How Homeschoolers Get Their Scores After Taking the SAT
Once the examiners release the SAT scores, you can get your scores through your College Board account. You sign into your account and click “My SAT,” which is where you can view your scores online. You can print your scores if you so wish or you could also post them online to the various colleges you would like to join.
Conclusion
Homeschooling as an alternative educational option has grown tremendously since its inception in the 1970s.
Although homeschoolers learn from home, they prepare for college the same way students at traditional schools do. Homeschoolers also take the SAT and similar tests the same way other high school graduates do.
As a homeschooler, taking the SAT and getting good scores validates your homeschooling to the colleges you’d like to join. If you have an impressive homeschooling high school diploma and excellent SAT scores, you could end up in an Ivy League university that recruits and accepts homeschooled graduates.