Before I work with any student, I sit down with the parent and the student separately and ask one question:
"What do you want your SAT or ACT scores to do for you?"
I word it exactly that way on purpose. It pushes families to think about the score as a tool with a job to do, not as a number to chase. Most families have never thought about it that way. The usual assumption is simple: get the highest score possible. But that isn't always what a student needs.
When a high score really does matter
There are situations where a student needs to score as high as they can. If your student is aiming for an Ivy League school or a highly selective school like Duke or Georgia Tech, and they're applying as a pure academic without athletics or another major factor, they're competing at the elite level, and the score matters a lot.
The same is true for a student who is a naturally strong test taker, or who has worked hard to become one. If they've built that ability, they should use it.
For most students, the picture is different
For most students, test taking is a skill they'll have to work to build. And it helps to remember something: SAT and ACT prep is a terminal venture. Once you reach your target score, or once the deadline passes, you're done. The test can only carry so much real importance in a person's life.
So the score your student needs depends on where they're going. If your student is planning on a community college, a two-year school, or a technical college and knows what they want to do, they may not need the SAT at all, or any reasonable score may be fine.
Here's where stress gets created. Say a student only needs an 1100 to reach their goal, but they're fixated on a 1200. That gap creates pressure that doesn't need to exist.
Define the goal, then reverse engineer the plan
Our approach is simple: clearly define the goal first, then reverse engineer a plan to reach it. After about 15 years of helping students with the SAT and ACT, I've found this is the best way to reduce stress.
If stress shows up after the goal is clear, that stress is warranted, and we can deal with it. What we don't want is to manufacture anxiety because nobody ever defined what we were working toward.
Sometimes the goal has to change
Defining the goal also shows whether it's realistic. If a student wants to get into the University of Georgia with a 1400, but the highest math grade they've ever earned is an 80, we need to have an honest conversation.
Sometimes we have to mourn the loss of one goal so that we can build a realistic one. That doesn't mean your student's bigger dreams are over. It means choosing a better path, so they don't pile up stress chasing something that was never set up to work.
Start with the question
If your family is starting SAT or ACT prep, start where I start. Ask your student, and ask yourself separately: what do you want these scores to do for you? The answer will shape everything that comes after it, and it may take a lot of pressure off your home.
This post was written from Adam Osborne's own words and ideas, then organized and formatted with AI assistance. Adam reviewed it before publishing.
