A Strange SATurday

Ding! An email has flown into your inbox. 

“[IMPORTANT] TAKE THE SAT IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY” from noreply. The College Office strikes through Naviance again. You’ve considered blocking them because of the sheer volume of spam they send you, but for some reason, you are unable to block this email account as per the @stuy.edu domain restrictions. You get ready to hit delete, but pause as you come to a realization.

Gosh darn it! It’s the first semester of senior year and you still haven’t taken this SAT thing everyone always talks about because you heard it was digital. You HATE digital tests. There’s a reason you got into Stuyvesant: it was a paper test. (And because the person in front of you was an incredibly smart student who’s in your homeroom now, but doesn’t share any classes with you.)

The voice in the back of your head squeaks out. “Maybe there’s an exception to take a paper test? There’s always an exception. I doubt they have enough laptops to host everyone anyway.”

That’s a fantastic idea! You stretch your fingers out and get ready to consult with Dr. Reddit, Ph.D. in Excallant Advise.

You enter “can i take papar ssat reddit” into the search bar. You really need to fix the s-key. It’s jammed and always double types the letter S.

You click on the first link that pops up, which brings you to a registration page. Ctrl + F—you’re so tech savvy so you search “digital.” Zero results—excellent. This must be the paper version. You quickly sign up before seats run out. Ha, funny, it’s in the same middle school you took the SHSAT in.

On the day of the test, you walk in, ready to ace it with no prep. Stuy has taught you well; you don’t need to study. You scan the room to see if there is anyone who looks smart to sit behind; the strategy has worked well for the last three years. Nah, they all look like children. Besides, YOU’RE the Stuy kid, not them. Stuy’s average SAT is 1650. It’s impossible for you to get anything less than the default 1600.

On the scantron, they ask you to rank the specialized high schools. You pause and think, scratching your head. Why would they need you to rank the specialized high schools? Maybe USNews doesn’t have the money to pay their staff anymore and is using this voting system instead? Regardless, you rank Stuyvesant first, Brooklyn Tech second, and Bronx Science third—the three real specialized high schools—with the rest in a random order, ending with Lehman.

You start the test, zooming through 57 reading and 57 math questions. It’s almost too easy, and you get a sense of déjà vu, almost as if you’ve done this before. You finish the test an hour early and leave the building, feeling satisfied. Personally, you don’t know what all your friends were crying about when they spoke about how hard the test was back when they took it.

A few weeks later, you get another email from the dearest College Office once more: “[IMPORTANT] HOW TO SEND YOUR SAT SCORES.” Your forehead creases with worry as you frown. You still haven't received an email with scores yet. You try googling when your test date’s scores will be released but find nothing. You figure that the scores are likely automatically forwarded to colleges.

In March, another email pops up in your inbox. “SHSAT Results”.

“Here are the results of the test you took at Mark Twain Middle School in November.” What?? That was the middle school you took the SAT in. “Your score is a 402. You have been offered a seat at High School of American Studies at Lehman College.”