Encouraging and supporting your students to shine on the HSPT is an honorable endeavor, as giving students the chance to succeed can be the difference between high school admission to preferred schools and receiving scholarships. We figured it would be helpful to share how one of our partner schools, St. Lucy’s Priory High School in Glendora, California, utilized Peterson’s HSPT Test Prep. We chatted with Danica Lizama, the school’s Director of Marketing and Outreach, to review how St. Lucy’s utilized Peterson’s Test Prep for their 2024-2025 school year to prepare students for the HSPT test. Danica shared about St. Lucy’s commitment to student readiness, her experience with Peterson’s, the challenges of test prep, and what she would do differently next time. Here’s what we gleaned from her!
Implementing Peterson’s Test Prep: Scheduling
Danica had been desiring to bring a new approach to test prep for the HSPT test for St. Lucy’s, one which would feel new and invigorating to students. Here is how the school utilized Peterson’s HSPT prep course for the 2024-2025 school year for 70 students, along with insights for application:
November: Diagnostic Test Onsite
Some things to keep in mind for other schools as you implement in-person practice and diagnostic tests:
- Preface that scoring is not the same for HSPT as for other grades. Consider converting scores in a way that would make sense to students and what they have been exposed to
- Consider hiding the practice HSPT scores for students so they don’t fixate on their performance at the outset. Reach out to Peterson’s to set this up
- For WiFi troubleshooting, have a tech person on site
- Schedule an on-call Peterson’s representative to navigate system settings
- Encourage students to bring fully charged devices and chargers
- Provide additional chargers, extension cords, and technology
- Hand out logins on this day
December: Self-guided Practice Test at Home
- Give students about a week to accomplish the online test at home
- Send periodic emails to remind parents and students of this test’s deadline
- Be prepared to set up deadline extensions for a few students
- Set up IEPs for specific students with Peterson’s staff
January: Final Practice Test Before HSPT Test Day Onsite
- Students seemed much more comfortable with online testing and the system
- Again, encourage students to bring fully charged devices and chargers and provide additional chargers, extension cords, and technology
“For St. Lucy’s, our prospective students must take the standard HSPT onsite one weekend for the year. Tara (a Peterson’s sales representative) helped me set up the program. We required the diagnostic test and then tests two and three. We did one diagnostic test in November and practice tests in December and January. Next year, we will ideally do the diagnostic test in September or October, but we had to do it in November due to scheduling. We skipped test one, but I would implement test one as an optional, self-led test and an additional resource.” —Danica Lizama
Results: Increased Confidence and Readiness on Test Day
- Many other schools only do 1-2 hours of prep for the HSPT, so students, parents, and administrators appreciated the plethora of material and content available through Peterson’s
- Practice tests helped students focus and hone in on how they performed, getting comfortable with the mechanics and expectations of the exam
- Positive feedback from kids and parents
- Students scored higher on the paper HSPT than on Peterson’s digital tests due to their challenging nature—meaning they scored higher on the day of the actual HSPT test
- St. Lucy’s is glad they used Peterson’s as it was different from their previous test prep strategies
“Kids who did take advantage of it really liked it!” said Danica.
Lessons Learned and Future Plans
- Motivating students to do test prep later in the year (towards holidays) may be challenging if they have not been exposed to practicing all year. For this reason, St Lucy’s recommends September-November as study time from their experience, as holidays can make administering tests more challenging
- Due to their relationship with technology, students may not take digital tests as seriously. Exposure to digital tests may help students prepare for later digital tests like the SAT.
The Value of Peterson’s Test Prep for HSPT Test Day
Overview of HSPT Prep tools and resources used, including:
- 4 Full-Length HSPT Practice Tests and 1192 HSPT Practice Questions to build familiarity with the exam format
- 17 instructional videos and 20 interactive lessons crafted by education experts for all learning styles to boost engagement and knowledge retention
- 34 flashcard sets to actively recall key concepts and terms
- Detailed answer explanations
- Test-taking tips
One of our goals is to ensure students’ success by helping them feel prepared and self-assured on test day. To accomplish this, we provide the resources they need to succeed on test day through practice tests, flashcards, detailed answer explanations, videos, lessons, and test-taking strategies with our HSPT prep course.
Conclusion: Empowering Students with Confidence
We’re grateful to St. Lucy’s and Danica for sharing their test prep and test day insights. It showcases the power of strategic HSPT preparation in building student confidence and familiarity. We encourage schools to consider Peterson’s for enhancing student readiness and self-assurance. To learn more about Peterson’s HSPT prep course and help students confidently approach test day, request a demo for school overview and pricing!
