Saturdays are for SAT preparation
Archived article from Nov 3, 2000
By Douglas Frank
The two-year $112,402 Lucent Technologies Foundation grant awarded last May has enabled the Saturday Academy SAT preparation and research program to expand and get some needed feedback, according to Janice Robinson, associate dean for academic affairs and director of the Academic Foundations Center on the Newark campus.
The program was established in 1989 to prepare high school juniors and seniors from the Newark and Irvington public school systems for the SAT.
The aim, said Robinson, is to improve academic competence and increase the number of students from urban public schools who apply to and are accepted by colleges and universities.
Students meet from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays in Conklin Hall on the Newark campus for extra instruction in mathematics, English and critical thinking. A culture of learning is established along with the instruction, said Robinson, who is also a lawyer and special counsel to the dean of the law school in Newark.
"We've been successful, and over the years have had varying numbers from 40 to 80 students each year, and this past spring we topped 100," she said. "Overall, we have served approximately 1,000 students from 1989 to 2000."
The program begins in the spring semester of the junior year and runs for 11 weeks. Students take an SAT pretest at the start and then the actual June SAT. They can use those results or return in the fall of their senior year for about nine weeks and take the November SAT. The fall session also helps students complete college applications, fill out financial-aid forms and visit some colleges.
Funding comes from the Newark and Irvington public school systems, which pay $75 per student for those who sit for the test. This allows for a small stipend for instructors and pays test fees for the students.
The Lucent grant, however, has enabled the program to plan for expanding to four semesters, said Robinson. "We're going to look at bringing in 10th-graders," she added, "because we really need to begin earlier so they have more time to make improvements in their grades."
The funds have also provided a research component to explore how psychological and social needs, study habits and coping issues affect student success, said Robinson.
Kent Harber, assistant professor of psychology in Newark, has preliminarily analyzed test scores of most recent students and found that they gained 43 points in their mean combined scores from March to June, increasing from 852 to 895.
"It speaks well to preparing for the test," said Robinson. "We're not creating miracles, but it makes it clear that what we are doing is certainly improving the students' ability to perform on the SAT test."
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