My son is. His friends are about 50/50 split, but the ones who are in the most advanced classes and aiming for top schools are all prepping this summer and taking it in August.

My son is not really in that category, but he is super busy during the school year due to travel hockey and then HS hockey, so he is hoping to take it in August and possibly October and then be done.

Yes. Doing prep this summer to take in the fall before PSATs. If the score is good, we’re done! If not, more time to work on it. My kid had a 98% verbal/92% math on 10th grade PSATs, so we’re mostly focusing on math prep.

Take the practice over summer before junior year to determine act v sat. If the score isn’t that far off from what your kid wants, then take in fall time frame of junior year.

If your kid isn’t close to the score for which they are aiming, better to wait than try to force it, imo.

Anonymous wrote:What? I had no idea this was a thing. I thought they were all taking the PSAT in fall. Are you all doing the both PSAT and SAT around the same time? Or skipping PSAT?

My child did both, but would have skipped the PSAT if it had been after his SAT (we knew he would not be in National Merit range). We just considered it a low stakes practice.

Anonymous wrote:I think for most kids it makes sense to wait. Scores are likely to be higher by the end of jr year.

I think it depends on the kid. I'm the poster whose son tested in December. He didn't want an August test date because he could tell that he had "summer brain". But in the spring he had sports, AP exams, and college visits. So over the summer he took a practice ACT and SAT so he could choose one, we found the prep program he would use, and he started prepping in August and tested in early December. He remarked several times in the spring he was relieved to not have the SAT to worry about.

Plus, having a score early gave him as clearer picture of which schools to look at.

Obviously, though, if your kid hasn't had the right level of math yet (I think Algebra 2), they should wait. Or if they play a fall sport, or have some other intense fall activity, they may want to wait.

Anonymous wrote:I think for most kids it makes sense to wait. Scores are likely to be higher by the end of jr year.

Not true unless the kid hasn’t finished Algebra2

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for most kids it makes sense to wait. Scores are likely to be higher by the end of jr year.

For those who prepped summer before junior year, did your DC test again in spring? If so, how much did they improve over late summer/early fall?

No. My DD did amazingly well and was done.

Anonymous wrote:I think for most kids it makes sense to wait. Scores are likely to be higher by the end of jr year.

For those who prepped summer before junior year, did your DC test again in spring? If so, how much did they improve over late summer/early fall?

I think for most kids it makes sense to wait. Scores are likely to be higher by the end of jr year.

Took in August once and done

DC rising junior studying over the summer. Hoping to only take it once and wants to get it out of the way as they are taking 5 AP classes junior year. Already finished precalc.

My rising junior is registered for the August date. He looked at the dates during the year and realized there will be likely conflicts with his sport for all of them. My guess is his score won’t be high enough from the one August sitting but at least he will have given it a go and have a baseline to work from.

Anonymous wrote:What? I had no idea this was a thing. I thought they were all taking the PSAT in fall. Are you all doing the both PSAT and SAT around the same time? Or skipping PSAT?

Still take PSAT. For kids who do well on SAT, prepping for that during summer before Jr year can result in a great PSAT National Merit score.

The flip side, since our child decided to do ACT during that summer, they never prepped for SAT so didn't have a score in the National Merit range for PSAT. I personally couldn't argue that it was worth them prepping for PSAT, as school grades are more important and they have a varsity Fall sport. Even though they are among the top students at their school, and will apply to some highly competitive colleges, I doubt National Merit would make much difference for anything for DC in admissions and DC is very unlikely to apply to a school a scholarship tied to that recognition.

One thing I learned was that DC did best when "they" wanted to take the test. It was best not to push certain test dates but ask when they wanted to take it and then they owned it.

Anonymous wrote:What? I had no idea this was a thing. I thought they were all taking the PSAT in fall. Are you all doing the both PSAT and SAT around the same time? Or skipping PSAT?

Don't worry. The important thing is to have a score ready by the time of application deadlines fall of senior year. It's nice to get it out of the way before a busy junior year, but many will find they do better later on. They've got more than a year from now before they need a score.

For students who are ready to test in August (have already taken algebra 2), it's not too late to register for the August test date if they don't mind prepping during this summer.