OPINION: Timing of SAT for juniors was off

On Tuesday, Apr. 15, MHS hosted the SATs for all of the juniors in the school. The testing was offered to all juniors who were not currently being quarantined. Though how it was arranged kept students from being exposed to many people, the timing of the testing left many students feeling uneasy for multiple reasons. 

First of all, with the testing taking place right after the end of spring break there was not really a way for students to feel completely safe being in the building with their peers. There was no way to tell if people who did go out on vacations had not gotten COVID but were yet to show symptoms, so the students who have higher-risk family were uneasy during testing because of this. And since not many students have been fully vaccinated yet, it caused a lot of unease in that way.

Another problem was how little notice juniors had for these testing dates. Most years juniors know for a fact that they will be taking the SAT in the spring, and they have all year to make these preparations, but this year that was not the case. The whole year, juniors were lost on whether or not they were taking the very important test and were not informed until a couple weeks before that it was confirmed for all juniors to take. Since this year left juniors with no solid information, many students felt very unprepared for the SAT.

Obviously there is only so much the school could do since this is a matter that was mandated, but the timing that the test was given just was not the best. Even a two week delay to make sure people coming back from vacation could quarantine themselves would have been better for students’ minds. With how crazy this school year has been, students really hoped for something different when it came to arguably one of the most important steps to determine the future of these students.