Psat/sat practice for strivers

[Anonymous]

If your kid was motivated with big goals but busy with sports/activities...how did they prep for the psat/sat? Is it worth it to invest time studying for the psat (looks like its very hard to qualify as a national merit scholar in md) or just for the sat? Is it possible to space less practice over an extended period or is it better to cram?

[Anonymous]

Miy kid skipped any PSAT Prep but regretted it when they missed the national merit by a few points. It's very hard to get national merit in some states, especially for STEM-oriented kids.

[Anonymous]

PSAT: No Prep. NMSF qualification highly likely

SAT 1/fall junior year: Did a few practice tests. Didn't hit goal. Thought it was time management issue.

SAT 2/summer after junior year: Signed up for June exam to have time for prep after school ended. (He had too much going on to take it again junior year.) For 2 weeks or so, prepped a little each day. Told me he practiced the harder math q's so he could do them faster. Also watched youtube videos with tips/tricks for both the verbal and math sections.

Don't have score yet but he's confident he did better this time and will hit his goal - maybe even surpass it.

[Anonymous]

Rising juniors should do SAT prep over the summer. That will also help prep for the PSAT.

[Anonymous]

^^This is a good idea for the right kid. I encouraged my kid to prep some last summer as a rising junior, but he wasn't interested at all so I didn't push.

[Anonymous]

Mine is a rising Jr and prepping now. Will take the SAT in August and PSAT again in October. I don't like this plan per se, but if they have an upcoming heavy course load it makes sense to try to get the SAT behind them. That said, my oldest followed the same plan and still ended up taking the SAT in August of Sr year.

[Anonymous]

We ended up not listing national merit scholar in the college application. We were told that it is far too common to add any value to the application.

DC did not prep at all for either PSAT or SAT. Effort went into EC's.

[Anonymous]

Was a semi-finalist at the time of application and was told SAT score pretty much covers this aspect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We ended up not listing national merit scholar in the college application. We were told that it is far too common to add any value to the application.

DC did not prep at all for either PSAT or SAT. Effort went into EC's.

Less than 1% of American high schoolers are NMSF. Good for your kid that they had enough even higher honors to fill up that section.

[Anonymous]

OK, my kid drove me crazy as she was aiming very very high for one particular school but absolutely had zero interest in prepping for the SAT. This was before TO and I thought she was nuts. She did a couple of Kahn Academy practice tests and that was it. She wasn’t a naturally amazing test taker, but after her third test her superscore was basically the average score for school she set her sites on and it ended up being enough. Ultimately, she was right and I was wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid was motivated with big goals but busy with sports/activities...how did they prep for the psat/sat? Is it worth it to invest time studying for the psat (looks like its very hard to qualify as a national merit scholar in md) or just for the sat? Is it possible to space less practice over an extended period or is it better to cram?

Khan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid was motivated with big goals but busy with sports/activities...how did they prep for the psat/sat? Is it worth it to invest time studying for the psat (looks like its very hard to qualify as a national merit scholar in md) or just for the sat? Is it possible to space less practice over an extended period or is it better to cram?

Khan

+1
Took a few exams through Khan Academy
Took pre-calc in 10th grade
SAT June of 10th grade-1520
PSAT October of 11th grade-NMSF
SAT June of 11th grade-1540

[Anonymous]

My DC did Capital Educators test prep for the Fall test (targeting the Novembers test), they would have done “early fall” (October test) to track closer to PSAT but their summer schedule couldn’t make that work.

It was a very good fit for DC. DC was motivated and attended the extra help sessions.

DC hit NMSF for DC, which is the highest cut off (because it tracks whatever is the highest cut off state). DC took two SATs, November and December because observation of friends and others was you get a bump second time. DC did well on both, but second score was better at a 1540. DC also tried the ACT and got a 35 first sitting with that, that came from a test they did at Capital Educators. Very little extra studying for ACT, we bought a book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We ended up not listing national merit scholar in the college application. We were told that it is far too common to add any value to the application.

DC did not prep at all for either PSAT or SAT. Effort went into EC's.

Is there truly not enough room on the apps for an extra honor like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We ended up not listing national merit scholar in the college application. We were told that it is far too common to add any value to the application.

DC did not prep at all for either PSAT or SAT. Effort went into EC's.

Is there truly not enough room on the apps for an extra honor like this?

What we were told pretty much by everyone we asked that for T20 this is going to be of no help at all.

Your SAT score already tells you all they need to know about that part of the applicant, psat is just a subset of that. So you are not providing any additional info, which to T20 I am told was "not using the application to your fullest advantage". I am pretty sure I must have rolled my eyes at that advice but DC followed that suggestion. Got into 4 T10's.