National Merit Scholarship with Lauren Sigut

    Lauren Sigut from Greater Latrobe received a National Merit Scholarship the past week due to her outstanding SAT scores. Fortunately, I was able to talk with her about how she managed to accomplish such a big feat and to discuss some tips on how you too, can do well on your SATs this year!
        Preparing for the SATs can be very difficult in some cases. A lot of times students prepare so much in a way that maybe isn’t so necessary or not at all! Lauren, on the other hand, has mastered this. I asked lauren how she personally prepared for the SATs and this is what she had to say.
            “The best prep I can see for such standardized tests is to familiarize yourself with the test itself. Whether that means taking practice exams beforehand or just taking the real thing over and over again.” Sigut then added, “You can never accurately study for every single topic that will be on the test. Therefore, if you have strategies planned out beforehand, you can make sure you answer all the questions you know how to.”
       This advice will be very helpful to the “over-thinkers”.
          Standardized tests, in this case the SATs,  can be very stressful and hard to prepare for. Lots’ of work goes into tests like this. I asked Lauren what tips she had for students taking the SATs this year and this is the advice she gave!
          “For math sections, do the grid-ins first, they are harder to guess on than the multiple choice! Also, use a calculator you are familiar with, while you can use a fancy graphing calculator on most tests, I still prefer my simple scientific one.” Sigut then said, “For all sections, make sure you have a set max amount of time you spend on questions. Like I said earlier, some you just don’t know.” She then notes, “ Don’t spend more than a minute on each question, 30 seconds for the grammar questions, and skip the ones you don’t know how to do. You can always try and come back to them later!” Finally she states, “Take the last 15 seconds before the section is over to bubble in guesses for questions you haven’t answered yet.”
          I wrapped up my conversation with Lauren by asking what she plans to do for college and how receiving a National Merit Scholarship has helped her! She is applying to the University of Dayton, Pitt, and Georgia Tech. However, She has already been accepted into the University of Alabama in Huntsville where, due to her ACT and SAT scores, they have given her a scholarship covering her tuition for four years.
       Lauren will do big things with her future and all students at Greater Latrobe can too! Latrobe provides multiple resources for students to get a head start in preparing for tests like the SATs; make sure that you take advantage of them!