Blair/MCPS offer SAT preparation for second-semester seniors

MCPS has begun to offer "crash-course" SAT tutoring to a group of seniors who it believes has a strong potential to improve their scores. Between eight and ten students have been participating in the voluntary web-based course, which started three weeks before the March 27 administration of the SAT.

The tutoring, offered to students with combined SAT scores between 900 and 1000, is designed to help them score above 1000. "The data shows that these intense programs, two or three weeks before the test, will give a 100 or 200 point boost, and most of the kids we're targeting were in the range where they're in striking distance of 1000," said Principal Phillip Gainous.

According to Assistant Principal Patricia Hurley, the course was developed at Wheaton High School as part of a program that will eventually be offered to many more students at various points throughout the school year. After the course was piloted, all MCPS high schools began offering it to seniors who scored in the 900-1000 range. While Hurley does have some doubts about the effectiveness of preparing students for the SAT in March of their senior year, she believes the program will greatly improve the prospects for many students when it is instituted in the late fall and early winter of subsequent school years.

Responding to perceptions that this effort is aimed solely at raising the average SAT score for the class of 2004, Gainous and MCPS Director for High School Instruction Carol Blum iterated that only students who stood to personally benefit from improving their scores were taking the course. Both pointed to scholarship opportunities for students with higher SAT scores, as well as better chances for students who are waitlisted at colleges and who applied to colleges that use rolling admissions. "Of course, the overriding issue is to produce as many students scoring over 1000 as possible," said Gainous. However, "even if that's the ultimate objective, the initiatives in place…still do benefit the kid."

Blair Career Coordinator Sharon Williams does see that there could be some individual benefits to students, but believes that the program would have been more beneficial had it been implemented earlier. According to Gainous, Blair had the data for all of the students in the targeted SAT range in time to prepare them for the January SAT administration, which is generally the last possible date that a senior can take the SAT and have it considered for college admissions. However, according to Gainous, MCPS only finished piloting the "crash course" in time to prepare students for the March administration.

Blum funded and piloted the program through the MCPS Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs using "reserve funds" that were not affected by the current budget freeze. "It's not been an expensive initiative," said Blum. "We had an online course already developed, and we trained some additional teachers. We are really looking at success on SATs, APs and IBs, and it's hard to support that without putting in more money."

According to English Resource Teacher Vickie Adamson, the situation was also complicated by the fact that no down county MCPS schools or non-MCPS schools close to Blair were offering the SAT in March. Blair and other down county schools do offer the SAT in January. At the request of Blum and several MCPS Career Coordinators, Springbrook High School was opened up to the March SAT administration last week, and down county MCPS students taking the March SAT were transferred to that location.

According to Hurley, students will be given incentives such as pizza and soda during lunch to participate in and continue with the program.