Closing the Chapter on 2020
As we near the end of 2020 (finally), I’ve been thinking back on what this year has taught me. If not taught me, then reinforced what I already knew, but needed to work on. I’m sure this list will look different for everyone, but if I had to guess, there may be a few items on my list that you would find on yours as well. 2020 was a year of many hardships for the entire world, but I am grateful to look back and reflect on things that mean more to me now than 12 months ago.
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Be more patient.
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Learn something new.
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Revise. Plan. Revise. Plan. Revise.
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Be more respectful of others.
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Listen.
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Educate Yourself.
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Find joy in the smallest of things.
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It’s okay to take a minute for yourself.
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Keep working hard…it will pay off.
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Take time away from the news and social media every now and then.
What’s your top ten? Does your list look different? Challenge yourself to look back at this year and write down what you’ve learned so you can use what you’ve been taught to move forward. We are excited and hopeful for 2021. We hope you are too! If you’re thinking about taking an ACT in 2021, reach out to us and let us know how we can help you prepare.
Get Smarter Prep Partners with The Future Of Us
Get Smarter Prep is pleased to announce a partnership with The Future of Us, a local non-profit that provides character-based scholarships to high school students from underfunded and under-acknowledged communities.
Starting in 2021, Get Smarter Prep will provide up to seven scholarships to well-deserving students for either one of our ACT courses, if applicable, or One-on-One Private Tutoring. The Future of Us will choose a student who they deem will benefit the most from receiving ACT prep.
Get Smarter Prep and The Future of US are both passionate about helping Kanas City metro students achieve their dreams by supporting them through ACT prep.
“We are so excited to team up with The Future of Us and help local students reach their ACT goals. The ACT is one test, that without help from a tutor, can quickly become overwhelming and take up a lot time,” said Marketing Director Jill Purcell. “We have numerous strategies to make the test manageable and help beat test anxiety.”
The purpose of extending ACT preparation is to provide local high school students, who would not otherwise have the chance to complete ACT prep, the opportunity to reach their own goals and attend college and/or receive scholarships to make college more affordable.
About The Future of Us
The Future Of Us was founded in Kansas City, Missouri by three Ruskin High School graduates. Each of whom went on to graduate college where they identified a disparity in the amount of collegiate opportunities and support for students from more affluent communities than their own.
The Future of Us wants to strengthen the financial and structural support network in communities lacking collegiate influence. They invest in students by offering finances, time, guidance, leadership, support and encouragement for their academic goals. For more information, please visit their website.
Focus
This year has been rough for a thousand reasons! Let’s think about last January, which seems like a million years ago at this point. Students went back to school after Winter Break, some were already prepping for the February ACT, other students were active in sports and living their best life.
Fast forward to mid-March when the world paused. In-person school was done for the year, all extra-curriculars were canceled, Continuous Learning started at the end of March, beginning of April, and quarantine began.
Even when school started back up in September, it began three weeks later for most student. Some schools went hybrid, some went virtual, and a few, more rural schools, went in-person. So how can students get ahead and keep track of everything they are supposed to accomplishing this year?
Focus
Focus on the goal. Whether that means getting the ACT score you need for your reach school, excelling in virtual school, or taking the ACT for the first time. Set goals and start slowly moving towards the goals you’ve written down. Goals usually aren’t accomplished overnight. They take time.
If there is one thing we’ve all learned from COVID-19, it’s that we can’t plan more than a month ahead at a time, sometimes not even a week! That doesn’t mean your goals are squashed. There may be obstacles along the way, but if you’re passionate about those goals, they will slowly come into focus. Keep moving forward one step at a time.
We’ve had students who’ve studied for an ACT and the day before the test, their test site cancelled the test due to COVID-19. Those students put in 8-10 weeks of prep to be hugely disappointed hours before their test. However, they kept on going. They kept on preparing, they came into Office Hours, they studied and were diligent about taking the ACT. Every one of those students ended up taking an ACT months after they first started studying, but they did it. Their focus and drive led them to accomplish what they set out to do.
If you need help setting goals or need tangible steps to accomplish those goals, contact us! We are passionate about helping and empowering students achieve their best.
Fall 2020 ACT National Test Schedule
As of June 23rd, ACT has added three new national test dates to the Fall 2020 schedule, creating a total of eight dates available for fall testing. Never before have students had this much availability to take an ACT in a three month period. ACT sited the changes to “help meet the demand for testing caused by COVID-19-related cancellations and social distancing requirements that limited test centers’ capacities this spring and summer.”
ACT will still move forward with online testing and superscoring beginning in September 2020, however they will wait until 2021 to rollout section retesting.
Students have numerous options and on days other than Saturday to take an official ACT for admissions decisions, merit-based scholarships, and placement. Registration will be open toward the end of July, so make sure to sign up to receive important information regarding registration and deadlines from ACT.
Get Smarter Prep will have Test Prep Courses available for certain fall test dates, including Sept 12th and Oct 24th. One-on-One Private Tutoring is also available for all eight fall test dates. If you don’t know where to start preparing for the ACT, the very best place is with a FREE Practice Test. We offer Practice Tests every Saturday and encourage all students to establish a baseline for the ACT so that we can make the best possible recommendation for each unique situation.
ACT Section Retesting Revision
The ACT has announced that the previously-planned September launch of Section Retesting has been postponed. According to ACT, this “will enable us to increase testing capacity for those who need to take the full ACT test.” Due to the cancellation of the April ACT, and many test centers being unable to host the June ACT, many students have been unable to take their planned ACT test date. While the ACT is “preparing for greater testing capacity for July 18 testing,” it is likely that some test centers will again be closed. Information about test center closings will be announced by the end of June.
In the meantime, postponing the individual Section Retesting will allow more seats for students to take the full ACT exam. Section Retesting is currently expected to launch “later in 2021.” When Section Retesting is launched, students will have the ability to retake individual sections of an ACT, instead of retaking an entire exam. This option will require that a student first take a full ACT test, and they will be able to take up to three sections at one time. Also of note, Section Retesting will only be conducted as a computer-based exam and will not be available to students by the traditional paper method.
While we expect that Section Retesting will be beneficial for some students, due to the uncertainty of this timeline, we encourage students not to rely on this option being available in time for their particular application plans. Instead, students should focus on preparing to take the entire exam until we know more about when Section Retesting will be available.