PSAT Day

[Anonymous]

What is the purpose and what is the cost of requiring 1000s of 10th graders to take the PSAT? Many of these students have no interest in college, or plan to attend MC first.
There seems to be a whole lot of teacher training to proctor the test, but what is being done to prepare students? To my knowledge, nothing.
I wonder how long this contract will last with College Board. If you want to provide the PSAT free of charge to families who are interested, great. But making it mandatory seems to be a waste of time and resources.

[Anonymous]

It’s another data point. And many students do take the SAT by choice.

I’m grateful it’s free. There’s other things the county spends money on that I don’t love, this is not a problem to me.

[Anonymous]

Think of it as Universal screening in high school. It provides everyone (students, families, school staff) a comparison benchmark for where students are in reading and math. Data can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses and for students considering college an idea of where they stand with respect to SATs.

[Anonymous]

OP, Yes I would agree with you. What is the point in imposing this, especially at high school level. What if the student has no interest to pursue college.

[Anonymous]

Its voluntary and it gets kids prepared to take the SAT.

[Anonymous]

I would guess that most people on this thread know about th college process and their children will pursue it. I mean, you're commenting on a PSAT thread so you have some awareness.

There are TONS of MCPS families - parents and kids - who have no idea about the college process and don't know what the PSAT is.

Providing it for free gives those families a way to practice a test and gauge their performance and catches some students with potential who would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

If you can catch 2-3 kids and help change their life, is that not worth a little annoyance to UMC DCUM people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would guess that most people on this thread know about th college process and their children will pursue it. I mean, you're commenting on a PSAT thread so you have some awareness.

There are TONS of MCPS families - parents and kids - who have no idea about the college process and don't know what the PSAT is.

Providing it for free gives those families a way to practice a test and gauge their performance and catches some students with potential who would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

If you can catch 2-3 kids and help change their life, is that not worth a little annoyance to UMC DCUM people?

This!

It's a tragedy in this society that huge swaths of the population don't receive any nudge to get further education. Their parents aren't focused on it and don't understand the value (or that they likely qualify for tons of financial aid). Teachers are busy with their regular jobs and don't individually identify such kids. And so they slip through the cracks.

MCPS offers a free SAT junior year. But if you're on this board, you know that wealthy kids spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours prepping before taking the SAT. Whereas kids who haven't been nudged engage in no prep whatsoever. How can they be expected to do well on a test they've never seen before (and graded against kids who spent months prepping?)

So the PSAT a) gives them at least one practice in real test settings so that the SAT isn't completely a novel situation, and b) helps schools perhaps ID kids who otherwise might fall through the cracks and can actually be nudged to think about college at about the time they would need to start prepping, and c) perhaps inspires kids who thought college was out of reach to think that they might be able to succeed.

I agree that not everyone should go to college. Far too many kids from wealthy families assume that's the only path and ignore the possibility of making a lot of money and having an enriching life in the trades. And too many kids from poorer families assume college is for other people and never give it much thought. Anything we can do to even that out is a great idea in my book!

[Anonymous]

My state requires it as the annual state assessment for 8th-11th graders.

So they take the PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, PSAT 11, and SAT for free.

I think it's probably better than a crappy homegrown single state test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would guess that most people on this thread know about th college process and their children will pursue it. I mean, you're commenting on a PSAT thread so you have some awareness.

There are TONS of MCPS families - parents and kids - who have no idea about the college process and don't know what the PSAT is.

Providing it for free gives those families a way to practice a test and gauge their performance and catches some students with potential who would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

If you can catch 2-3 kids and help change their life, is that not worth a little annoyance to UMC DCUM people?

This!

It's a tragedy in this society that huge swaths of the population don't receive any nudge to get further education. Their parents aren't focused on it and don't understand the value (or that they likely qualify for tons of financial aid). Teachers are busy with their regular jobs and don't individually identify such kids. And so they slip through the cracks.

MCPS offers a free SAT junior year. But if you're on this board, you know that wealthy kids spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours prepping before taking the SAT. Whereas kids who haven't been nudged engage in no prep whatsoever. How can they be expected to do well on a test they've never seen before (and graded against kids who spent months prepping?)

So the PSAT a) gives them at least one practice in real test settings so that the SAT isn't completely a novel situation, and b) helps schools perhaps ID kids who otherwise might fall through the cracks and can actually be nudged to think about college at about the time they would need to start prepping, and c) perhaps inspires kids who thought college was out of reach to think that they might be able to succeed.

I agree that not everyone should go to college. Far too many kids from wealthy families assume that's the only path and ignore the possibility of making a lot of money and having an enriching life in the trades. And too many kids from poorer families assume college is for other people and never give it much thought. Anything we can do to even that out is a great idea in my book!

Yeah. Most people who need to be persuaded that this is the right thing to do are jerks. Or at a mininum, I guess don't share the same values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the purpose and what is the cost of requiring 1000s of 10th graders to take the PSAT? Many of these students have no interest in college, or plan to attend MC first.
There seems to be a whole lot of teacher training to proctor the test, but what is being done to prepare students? To my knowledge, nothing.
I wonder how long this contract will last with College Board. If you want to provide the PSAT free of charge to families who are interested, great. But making it mandatory seems to be a waste of time and resources.

It is NOT mandatory