Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Anyone else taking the PSAT this year?

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.