College Dreams Are Riding on Results of SAT

With No. 2 pencils in hand, hundreds of Ventura County high school students will join the jittery masses of youths around the county this morning agonizing over the three-hour SAT.

Doing well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, taken by about 1.9 million college-bound students nationwide, is the ticket into most of the country’s colleges and universities.

Greg Nishimoto, a Simi Valley High School junior, hopes to do well enough to get into the University of California system or a seven-year medical school program in the Midwest. Brian Sullivan of Thousand Oaks wants to attend Princeton.

And they’re not taking any chances. Each has forked over about $600 for a course he hopes will improve his scores.

“It’s important,” Greg, 16, said. “Of course I’m hoping to do the best I can.” The tests given at Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard and Thousand Oaks High School today will be repeated in May and on several dates in the fall.

Janice Tjan, 17, who lives in Moorpark and attends Chaminade College Prep School in West Hills, is taking the SAT today in Thousand Oaks. She plans to take it again after going through a prep course.

“I’m a little nervous,” she said.

Along with the courses offered by such companies as the Princeton Review and the Kaplan Testing Preparation, there are less expensive alternatives offered at local community colleges and in local school districts.

Students fill courses offered through the community services departments at Ventura and Oxnard Colleges for about $50. Cal Lutheran University is offering a course for about $80, and some local school districts offer courses through their adult education departments for about $50.

In addition to the tests, high school juniors often face the most stressful periods of their lives with stiff competition for scholarships or financial aid, said Joan Sparks, who works in the Thousand Oaks High School career counseling center.

“It’s very competitive now,” she said. “(Students) have to be willing to put in a lot of time if they want to get into a good school.”

Brian, 16, a junior at Chaminade, bubbled in answers on a sample test during a preparation class in Thousand Oaks on Thursday.

He took the test once before, but said he didn’t think his scores were high enough to get into his dream school: Princeton. That’s why he’s putting in the extra time to prepare for the test.

“It’s sort of difficult to do right now because I’ve been cramming for mid-terms,” he said. “But the SAT is pretty important, you have to do well.”