To my surprise DS16 takes the PSAT tomorrow on a Wednesday. Our school had never given the test on a Wed but I just looked it up and college board is ONLY offering Wed tests this year.

DS hasn't been doing enough practice for this test IMO. We ended up not getting him private tutoring this fall because he was busy & resisting. He did do very well on the SAT Subject Math 2 test last spring with little prep and he has qualified for extra time and that should help. I bought two different 'new' PSAT practice test book. But i'm not sure how accurate the books are? The reviews on the books are meh. DS took one sample test and found some of the math problems very vague and not on topics I've seen listed. I'm not really happy my kid is going to be the guinea pig for this new test.

I want DS to take the 'old' SAT in Dec or Jan because I think it would be nice to have both data points old SAT & new. He doesn't want to because he doesn't want to have to study the "SAT words" which is silly since he has been studying them without knowing it since 4th grade. First step I guess is to see how tomorrow goes.

No.

I have decided that I've taken the PSAT enough times to satisfy my cravings for that particular standardized test.

DS (they are twin sons of different mothers, you will remember, bluemagic) is also taking the PSAT tomorrow. They had a choice between a practice ACT and the PSAT; he's taken the ACT 3 times already and scored just fine, so he didn't need practice. He took the SAT through NUMATS and did almost as well, and the SAT II math in June and did fine. This PSAT is the first time he's taking such a test that counts for something; there can be scholarship money attached, but he won't have the grades to back it up, so I guess this one doesn't "count" either? We have a prep book for him. All he did was part of a practice test yesterday, so we shall see. He's been handling a lot of issues at school this year so I did not want to over stress him with repeated admonishments to "prep". I guess I'll return it to the library in the morning.

Our school district pays for all 9th-11th graders to take the PSAT. Middle kid is in 12th, so she won't be taking it (I think the seniors are watching The SpongBob Movie during the PSAT).

I don't see any harm in taking it - it will give him a preview of the new SAT. Since colleges don't see your score, they won't judge him on his PSAT performance. And if he is a junior and does well, he could be NMSF (some schools offer NMSF/NMF great scholarship opportunities).

I think it is a good idea to try both the old and the new SAT. If he is a 2017, most colleges will accept either the old or new SAT with his application. If he is 2018 or beyond, take a look at college policies. Some will not accept the old SAT for HS Class of 2018 or later.

While I believe in not over-testing, I've always assumed that DS would take the PSAT.

Oddly our school will not give it to anyone but juniors. I tried last year they said they don't have the room to give it to anyone but juniors. You can take a practice PSAT in the spring of your freshman or sophomore year but it turns out that was simply a practice new SAT last year. Threw DS & I because we weren't expecting the essay. It's very very common for the top students at our school to spend most of the summer between sophomore & junior year cramming for both PSAT & SAT.

In order to take the test Wed, they gave the students the day off and teachers and in service day. Seems a bit extreme for a test that at most 50% of the juniors will take. They don't pay for it and IMO unless you are trying for National Merit it's not very important. But despite both not allowing the kids to take it in earlier grades nor all the students taking it we usually make the top school in the county & sometimes states for kids who make semi-finalists.

Yes DS is 2017 and I think it's a good idea to take the SAT this fall. Don't think we get the results from the PSAT quickly enough to use that to help decide on a Dec/Jan SAT test dates.

FYI, you can register for any of the old version test dates (Nov/Dec/Jan) to secure a spot. If you decide not to test until the spring you can reschedule for a nominal fee.

My 10th grader is taking it.

Our school is strange. For free-- Horrors students (math or English) in 9th grade take it. All tenth graders take it. 11th graders take it if they have a gpa of 3.4 or above. I bet if you had a slightly lower gpa in 11th you could ask to take it if you wanted to.

I hope he does well this year. Last year he didn't get to all the questions and still did fairly well. He has extremely slow processing and anxiety. This year he has college board extended time for all college board tests.

He is funny he said he read national merit is so hard to get that statistically not going to happen. I told him of all the kids at his school he is one (of the statistical few) who has a shot at it. No pressure but you never know.

Cookie, "horrors students"? That's a good one, autocorrect or intentional!

DS is taking it as I type. But he also has a CompSci project due today. Yes, really. Yesterday he was still debugging, it gets stuck on one spot. A flawlessly-running program is not a requirement; the teacher would rather see the student try something challenging than fall back on an easy thing. The code must, however, be documented. 6:30 last night: ".oh, the documentation will be easy, I want to get this debugged" Sigh. The light was still slipping out from under his door at 11:30. I'm giving up on that NMS money.

Autocorrect on cell phone...honors of course but lol

On the PSAT/SAT…. my twins took the old version of the SAT at 12yo and did quite well (if you ignore the writing score) with no prep whatsoever other than a single dry run with the sample exam provided by College Board. They will graduate h.s. in 2018 so are on track for the new version. I was thinking that the changes in the test could work in their favor because the test-prep machinery for the new version will take some time getting up to maximal performance. By 2018 maybe colleges won't take the old version any way, so perhaps this is a moot question, but would like opinions on this strategy?

Barring unforeseen disaster, I think at least one of the twins (they are both good test takers, but one has a clear edge) has a good shot at NMSF.

DS is back from taking it and since no one told he he was supposed to go to a different room hid didn't get take his extra time. He said he completed it anyway but I'm sure that extra time would have helped. GRRR... Oh well can't redo it now. But it's frustrating I emailed the counselor in charge and she said she had it handled. He wasn't on the list of the room he went to and instead of sending him to look for where he should go the proctor just added him. And he didn't insist.

Kids just don't like to stand out or be singled out. I arrange dinner for a group of kids several times in the season, and always accommodate the dietary restrictions. They are just supposed to ask, and their teacher and parents remind them. If they have separate individual meals, they are set aside so the rest of the wolves I mean students don't take them. But most of them won't ask. I try to recognize them in line, but there are over 100 kids altogether and it takes me 3-4 dinners to know who gets a special meal, and if they don't let me know the first week I may never know who they are.

The ones who DO ask are not restricted for medical reasons, or else they are seniors, who are developmentally taking charge of their lives in general. It takes until the 6th meal for most of the kids to be comfortable with asking, and then the season is over.

When it comes to accommodations, and on a test day when there are so many new and different rules, different rooms, etc, to keep track of, it's really hard for a student to know when and whom to ask. The room proctors should know to figure things out when they don't have a name on their list.

Sorry to veer slightly OT, but I find this fascinating. I have a dd who has anaphylactic allergies, and by the time she was 6-7 years old (and started to really understand what anaphylaxis and death meant) sdshe *absolutely* had no issue with speaking up and asking. I can totally understand that it's a huge task to keep up with as the adult supervising the group meal, but honestly, I'm very surprised that the children with medical issues wouldn't speak up - that's the polar opposite of what our experience has been with dd and the other children we know with medical issues that are issues enough to make them physically ill.

Re the PSAT bluemagic, I'm so sorry that happened to your ds! My ds has had similar things happen at school at different times with standardized testing but his high school at least seems to have their act together re being sure the kids with accommodations know when to go where etc.

And yes, ndw, kids don't like to stand out. My ds who has accommodations for his dysgraphia and dyspraxia did not like to stand out for many many years. He's finally growing into his own "skin" and much more at ease with using accommodations in class and for tests etc. What made the difference with him feeling comfortable speaking up (and this is a kid with an expressive language disorder).. is the point in time at which it really clicked with him that yes, the accommodation *did* make a difference in allowing him to show what he really knew and that *without* the accommodation he was very frustrated in not being able to accomplish what he knew he was capable of. Perhaps that's a bit similar to my dd not having a concern in the world about telling an adult she couldn't eat something once she'd had made the connection that the accommodation (food) was necessary (so that she didn't get sick).

Sorry for the ramble!

Hope your ds did well blue

polarbear

Yeah my son's high school testing coordinator is new and claims in a high school of over 3000 kids not a one kid had college board approved accommodations. Well that was bs because my son took his letter in and showed her and we know there are a few more. My son was the only one given his extra time and she had to scramble to make that happen. I said my son needs to email her (and my dh too). And get her to acknowledge that she is aware he gets them for AP too. And he will send a reminder after winter break and before spring break and double check in May

I got an email back from the counselor. She was very very apologetic and is kicking herself from not calling him before the test and telling him where to go in person. Seems she figured it out at the END of the test and was quite frustrated herself. The proctor was instructed to send kids not on their list to her office. And ALL the other proctors that needed to do did this correctly. I'm still frustrated about the whole thing but not the much I can do. I'd done.. it's a one shot thing. It's probably not going to make or break anything, kid didn't study very much so probably had little shot at NM anyway. And it's the PSAT, universities won't see it. Coordinator promises me this will not happen at the AP exams and that the SAT's are done differently. DS did finish and answer every question but he did say that some of the math problems were harder than expected.

I think the plan of sending them to a room organized with all the other kids and then having the proctor send them somewhere else is TERRIBLE design. Teenager's and my son in particular don't want attention brought to the fact his is getting extra accommodations. He doesn't want his friends to see that he is being treated differently. Particularly at my H.S. Even though he is getting no where near the grades as many of the other kids he still has this mystique as that supper smart kid who was reading way before everyone else. Add to the fact that extra time on these test feels like cheating to DS so he really didn't feel like pushing the proctor.

Just really needed to VENT. It's not something I really discussing with most of my RL friends. Many don't really understand about the 2E thing. I was so excited last spring when I found out he was going to get the extra time and have found myself disappointed.

There are over 2,500 kids in DS's H.S. And I got there impression that there were at least a handful of kids getting extra time. Our school seems to be very successful in getting College board to grant extra time.

That is my hope also. DD14 is not at all into test prepping, but usually does quite well and has pretty much no test anxiety. I figure her relative score will be better against un/under-prepped kids than it would be most other years.

Last week her post-test mood was pretty much the same as always - when I ask how it went, I get a blase "Eh, it was OK."

Best of luck,
--S.F.

My son said the math was harder than the rest of it. He is pretty good in math, thinks very logically and thinks about life mathematically. He will take it next year for NM...he has decided he will test prep for it over the summer focusing on the math.

My son is good in math as well. He did quite well on the SAT II Math Subject test last spring with the extra time. That test theoretically has more advanced math concepts being tested. His comment refers to the difficulty of the math in the sample tests he did vs. in the what was on the actual test. Difference in expectation rather than the math was particularly difficult. The math in all the prep material we looked at wasn't aligned well with the actual test. Something like that is to be expected when you are the first year taking the test.