Our D. was named a 2017 NMSF. Looking back on this process, the most important action we took as parents was to sign her up for a SAT prep course during the summer between her sophomore year and junior year. With that timing, we hit two birds with one stone as she took both the PSAT and the SAT in the fall of her junior year. By Thanksgiving of her junior year, she was done with both of those tests. Had we not signed her up for the prep course, I don’t believe that she would have cleared the NMSF cut-off in our state.
Watch PBS as kids. Read to them and then watched them read with a passion of their own making. Not make a big deal out if any of the testing. Just business as usual.
Showed them the importance of the 11th grade PSAT, how many colleges gave great scholarships. The one DS was interested in gave a $124K scholarship. I had her figure out how long it would take her to earn $124K working a $10 an hour job after taxes. This REALLY motivated her to prep for the PSAT.
Agree with the OP that timing is important and prepping for a 11th grade Fall SAT will kill two birds with one stone. This is really the way to go plus if they do well, all the pressure of standardized testing is off and they can concentrate on their grades and AP exams.
Made sure D (2016 NMF), who has dyslexia, took the test with accommodations. However, this was not in order to do well on the PSAT but to help ensure she would get her application for accommodations through for the SAT & ACT.
I thought the PSAT was just practice for the SAT. It was only after I started getting congratulated by random acquaintances that I asked D what this NMSF thing was. She said ‘I don’t know. I guess I got a good score on the PSAT.’ Me: ‘Nice! Now you have an ‘award’ to list on your college apps.’ It was only by accident that I found out there were scholarships that could be had based on NMF. lol. Most we found out about after she’d applied to colleges… Now I’m more educated in these things, but sadly standardized tests are more of a challenge for S19 and I don’t see NMSF of NMF in his future. D was/is a prodigious reader and S is a prodigious watcher of youtube videos. The former I’m sure helps with the PSAT more than the latter.
I don’t see that the OP was insinuating anything by stating that he/she thought test prep was what helped his/her D clear the cut-off. Test prep does help bring up scores, and some kids do best with a course rather than self-study. Asking if others used test prep seems like a reasonable question to post to CC (out of curiosity).
@PrimeMeridian Nice warm welcome for a new poster!
- I don’t see this is a brag, just because the parent mentioned that their kid made NM is not bragging
- He is not ‘patting himself’ on the back just sharing what worked for him
- You are reading way too much into this post if you think that the only way to prep is by paying for test prep and that is what this poster is advocating.
btw fully agree with @goinggoing and @liska21 that reading is key!
@PrimeMeridian if you don’t like the thread you don’t have to post. IMHO, this thread may help others down the road.
Prep is important but fortunately it’s not necessary to spend money on that anymore. My D17 used Kahn and did fine on the PSAT. She had also taken the ACT late sophomore year (more prep) and so was able to piggyback off that. The prep absolutely helped her as did the practice PSAT and some of the practice rSAT’s. By the time the real test rolled it just wasn’t a big deal.
The CC threads were instrumental in getting me up to speed on this new test. @3scoutsmom and others were posting well before the new test took place.
So Kahn and CC, folks! FWIW.
I’ve mentioned on another thread that I have a homeschool acquaintance that asked her DD if she wanted to prep for the PSAT her D said “No, it’s only a practice test I’ll wait and do some prep for the SAT.” I saw the mom the day after the state cuts off were being reported and she was heartbroken that her D only missed the state cut by a point and they really need merit! She said she had no idea the the PSAT was more than a practice test and that some school give $$$ for NM. I know her DD and she is very bright and I believe she could have nailed the PSAT if she had just taken a practice test or two.
Sorry, not a parent. But I really think the most important thing a parent can do is just encourage reading from the get-go. That sets up a solid foundation for future learning, far better than what test prep can accomplish. (Seriously… math is more than taught in schools, so the big thing is CR section and that’s a longer learning process.)
Seconding what @goinggoing said. I say don’t make a huge deal out of it. That just adds stress. (I knew about NMSF but only that they offered a $2500 scholarship, so literally the only thing on the line for me was that and 4 letters)
Also I personally believe expensive test prep is a waste of money; borrow a book from the library if you really want, but it can all be accomplished very cheaply.
If you are a parent reading this and you made the wise decision to nurture a positive relationship with books in your d/s from a young age, then I would argue that it is all the more imperative for you to engage a test prep firm.
A good relationship with books and reading is not a sufficient condition to do well on either the PSAT or the SAT. However, your child will benefit massively from organized test prep. It is entirely possible for such a child to ace or near-ace the CR portion of both the PSAT and the SAT with that strategy. (This is true regardless of what their initial ‘diagnostic’ score might be.) My daughter is the case example that proves this point.
Because of the way the SI is calculated, a high CR subscore is mandatory to make NMSF. There are more degrees of freedom around the Math subscore.
Seemed the writing section was the killer - at least on the Wed. mid-Oct. administration. I thought that curve was more harsh than Reading.
DS took the PSAT 3 total times: once freshman, once sophomore, once that it counted. It is the only standardized test like this that he took more than once. He did look over an SAT 2400 book from Barron’s prior to the test his junior year, but that was it as far as prep. Other than that, it was just who he was…a smart kid who is good at taking tests.
He also has a very smart older sibling that kept him on his toes academically. He could not do worse than her and live with himself. I guess it was a competition thing. I feel we were pretty fortunate how it all played out, but there is not any one thing that contributed.
Raised her in a state with a low NMSF cutoff score. LOL
@vistajay Reason #83902832 why I’m glad we left CA.
I think a family love of books and reading is the main thing, since qualifying is weighted towards the verbal score. Also, having taken the SAT in seventh grade for the Johns Hopkins Talent Search was a confidence booster, since taking a SAT-style test was not a new experience. Also, our school had them take the PSAT both in 10th and 11th so there was a practice round. Other than that my kid just used a review book, not a review course.
No doubt lots of test prep will help, though it is not necessary. DS made NMF with very high score and virtually no prep (he is a natural test taker).
My advice regards the next steps, especially the crazy contradictory rules regarding naming a first-choice school to NMSC, sometimes months in advance of getting your acceptances/rejections. Start your research early, and these CC threads are helpful.
After all the work to move on to NMF, DS chose a school that did not give merit money to NMFs. So it goes…
We did make sure to get a review book that had the NEW PSAT format, which was like the new SAT, since 2017 were the guinea pigs for that, it was good to have familiarity with the new format.
I’ll add I do believe that the prep my DD did for her PSAT really helped bring up her SAT which in turn helped her qualify for several outside scholarships in addition to NM, again time and money well spent.
For the record I don’t care how kids prep. Private tutors, expensive courses, books from Amazon, books from the library, free on line Khan Academy or just free practice tests, you need to do what works for your kids. Yes some kids can go in cold and just ace it, kudos to them, but for many kids some form of prep will make the difference between NMSF and missed it by a point.
DS was an excellent test taker, but his Sophomore PSAT scores just missed the Calif cut off score, and with the amount of scholarship money potentially at stake, I made the decision to have him do a little one-one-one prep the summer before his Jr year.
I dont know if that by itself made a difference but it worked.