Free SAT will be offered at Blair in April

A Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) will be administered at Blair for all interested juniors free of cost on the morning of April 10. The free test is part of a county-wide program being piloted at various high schools to grant all students access to college entrance exams. "What they wanted to do was provide every student with an opportunity to take a college readiness exam, and they did not want finances to be a deterrent," Blair's Assistant Principal Dirk Cauley said.

The testing at Blair will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., and students not taking the test will be permitted to arrive late. "We will have a delayed opening, and students will be able to come in for the last period of the day," Cauley said.

High schools around the county will offer the test on one of the following dates: March 7, March 21, April 10 or April 24.

Students who do not attend a high school where the test is being administered will still have an opportunity to take the SAT free of cost. "The schools that did not offer the free SAT are allowed to give their kids free vouchers. They're allowed to take the SAT on a Saturday," Cauley said.

Regardless of if the SAT is offered at a student's school, all students may opt for a voucher to take the ACT during national administration. Additionally, students who are not interested in taking a college entrance exam can receive a voucher for a licensure exam. "The county decided to offer students that are juniors either a free SAT or a free ACT, and for some students that don't want to do the SAT or ACT they provided them with a voucher for a licensure exam," Cauley explained.

A concern is that the free SAT test will not offer the essay, but student who opt for the ACT can pay an additional fee to include it. For this reason, junior Alice Turnham opted for the ACT. "I knew I wanted to take the ACT, and on the ACT I've heard you can add the essay and just pay for it, but on the SAT you can't take the essay. I knew I wanted to take it with the esay," Turnham said.

Junior Ollie-Angel Nono is looking to improve her score by taking the test for a second time. "I signed up because I've taken the SAT once already and I already knew I was gonna take it again, so when I heard they were offering a free one I thought I might as well take advantage of it," Nono said.