Aptitude Test At Fitch Helps Kids Find Their Way...

This test gauges not just what some Fitch High School juniors and seniors know, but what they’ll likely end up doing with their lives.

And, while there’s a “misconception” that sitting for this test means students are obligated to join the military - not true, said LCPO Kellen Voland of the Naval Recruiting Station - the scores and what they reveal are nonetheless a tool for military recruiters to identify armed forces candidates.

The name, though traditionally abbreviated, could scare some off: the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Created in 1968, another in a long line of aptitude tests administrated by the Department of Defense to determine qualifications for enlistment, it was in 1974 when the DOD decided that all branches of the military should use the aptitude test as a way to screen potential enlistees as well as provide career paths and specific jobs. But ones not just in the military.

“It’s an indicator on what they’ll be good at,” said Fitch College and Career Center counselor Lynn Wisniewski.  “Recruiters are here to help (proctor) the test but that’s as far as it goes.”

The ASVAB, which is offered to high school students free of charge, “provides tools to help students learn more about career exploration and planning, in both the civilian and military worlds of work,” according to the program Web site. The test is administered annually to more than 1 million applicants as well as high school kids and post-secondary students.

“What the career exploration test will do is point you in the direction you never thought you’d go,” said Voland. The results are shared with the military and should students score high enough and have an interest, they may be contacted by Army or Navy recruiters.

A Groton native and Fitch alumnus, Voland praised the school for “doing a great job” of promoting the test.

“I’m not partial, but Fitch just does a great job and it doesn’t hurt that we’re a Navy town either,” Voland said. “I think I have a unique perspective on this. (The Navy) is looking for great applicants and we mean it …it’s not a marketing ploy.”

Fitch student Justin P., who said he plans on taking the test, is doing so not because of an interest in the military but because, “I have no idea what I want to do (after high school) and this is supposed to help me figure it out, I guess.”  

The ASVAB test will be given Oct. 20 at 7:30 a.m. in the Fitch cafeteria; students must register by Oct. 17.

Both Voland and Wisniewski said that while the test is sponsored and proctored by local military, students are under no military obligation and military personnel are expressly prohibited from recruiting.

“If we end up with some great kids (after the tests are scored) that’s terrific but the purpose is to point them in the direction,” Voland said, of a job they might otherwise never have envisioned for themselves. He said he ended up as a sonar technician in the Navy: “Never thought about that, never thought I would like that, but (the predictor test) was right; I really did.” 

For more information about the AVSAB test visit the website at www.asvabprogram.com or contact Wisneiwski in the College and Career Resource Center located in the guidance office at Fitch High School.