<p>10th grader plans to take PSAT in Oct 2014 and SAT next Spring or fall. The problem is how to prepare the old SAT and the new PSAT at the same time. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>Um…prepare for the PSAT first…and when you are done, you will have five or six months to prep for the SAT. I’m not sure I understand your problem.</p>
<p>The PSAT and SAT have been different for a while!</p>
<p>@thumper1 – current HS sophomores (class of 2017) will take the current PSAT in 10th grade. The accompanying SAT will be administered through Jan of their Jr year. But, in Oct of their Jr year, a new format of PSAT will be administered. The accompanying SAT will be administered March of their Jr year, or March 2016. So….ambitious sophomores may want to take the current SAT either the spring of 2015 or the first four test dates of 2015-2016 school year. </p>
<p>As of now, I have not seen any study materials for the new PSAT. I don’t know if the Kahn Academy tutorials will address PSAT.</p>
<p>I have been struggling with this for some time as I have a son in 10th grade. It actually makes no sense since a qualifying score on the PSAT for National Merit has to be confirmed with a similar score on the SAT. So if your child is sitting for the SAT before March of 2016 they will be confirming their October 2015 PSAT score with the old SAT test that does not correlate to the new PSAT. I actually called the College Board and no one could really answer my question. I am not sure they even understood what I was asking.</p>
<p>Makes more sense to administer the first new PSAT after the first new SAT test.</p>
<p>You can only use the PSAT taken during Jr year for the NMSP. A new PSAT will start in Oct. 2015. For class of 2017, students have a choice to take the old SAT or the new SAT (starts in Jan. 2016). However, in order to use the PSAT score for the NMSP, students have to take the new PSAT in Oct. 2015. It’s going to be hard to prep for the new PSAT since not much study materials available as CT1417 had mentioned. </p>
<p>I totally agreed with you. It’s really hard for the current 10th graders who want to get NMSP because the new PSAT Not very comfortable to wait till the new SAT in 2016. May be we just have to take the old SAT and take a chance on the NMSP.</p>
<p>@HarvestMoon1 – (I still can’t quote), but you wrote:</p>
<p>“Makes more sense to administer the first new PSAT after the first new SAT test.”</p>
<p>While it makes more sense for those of us with sophomores, it kind of defeats the purpose of the PSAT. Even my son is questioning the point of taking the PSAT this year as a 10th grader since it won’t be a practice for his practice SAT. I say this as someone who had stockpiled my older son’s practice PSAT booklets, thinking the younger son could use them. The playing field will certainly be more level than it has been in years.</p>
<p>I find it amusing/disconcerting that the folks at the CB could not answer your question about whether or not they will accept a confirming score from the old format SAT. Sigh….Reflecting on our own HS days when we sat for the PSAT as a practice exam Oct of Jr year, took SAT for first time in May of Jr year and second time in Oct of Sr year and then squeezed in the Achievement tests in Nov or Dec.</p>
<p>@123PSAT – I believe the new SAT will be administered starting in March of 2016. The current exam format will be administered Oct, Nov & Dec 2015 and Jan 2016, or so I thought.</p>
<p>I have not put much thought into testing, but all this talk is really confusing me. Just talking out loud to make sure I understand…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Current sophomores taking the PSAT next week will be taking the old format test. This is a practice test where the scores are unofficial and maybe a useless exercise since they will never need to take this type of test again.</p></li>
<li><p>Old format SATs will be administered through January 2016 (winter of junior year). Should consider taking this version if the practice sophomore PSAT reflects potential good performance.</p></li>
<li><p>As juniors, they will take the newly formatted PSAT (fall 2015), scores from which National Merit Scholarships will be awarded. </p></li>
<li><p>New format SAT will officially begin March 2016 (spring of junior year) with no more chances to take the old test.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@CT1417, this is how you quote:
[peace]You do it like this.[/peace]
Copy the above exactly as is. Replace the word peace with the word quote.</p>
<p>Are freshman allowed to take the PSAT?</p>
<p>My son needs it for online course eligibility, but the school says he can’t take it there, but they were telling us to take him to another school for it.</p>
<p>Yes, freshman are allowed to take the PSAT but unlike the SAT, registration is done through the individual school so they can set up their own rules. If you know any homeschoolers in your area, you might ask them what schools are open to outside students testing. Here some schools are very welcoming and other are not.</p>
<p>@bogibogi You are correct. </p>
<p>We had planned on studying for the SAT/PSAT over the summer (2015), as study time, once DS starts his challenging junior year (and X-country), would be limited. Hopefully they will have a study guide out for the new SAT by then…</p>
<p>Looking at the current crop of PSAT study guides available on Amazon, it looks like they were released in either May of June of this year. I would suspect that the set of books (Kaplan, etc) that will be released in May/June 2015 will match the “new” format…whatever it turns out to be.</p>
<p>@bogibogi yes your understanding aligns with what I think its the case. </p>
<p>What irritate me is that this leaves some current sophomores studying both formats, the old and the new. They need to prepare for the new format of the PSAT but if their plan is to take the SAT before March of 16’ they need to study the old SAT format. I think these kids should be given the option of taking the old PSAT since that is the format their SAT will be confirming. I am going to call the CB again and make that suggestion - maybe if others do the same they will consider it. If you don’t care about the possible National Merit designation then it really does not matter except for the dilution of the SAT preparation factor. Not sure what other purpose the PSAT serves.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Never happened in the history of SAT changes, so save your nickel (and breath)</p>
<p>btw: allowing some kids to take either is “unfair” tot those students who can only take one.</p>
<p>I totally agreed. I will call the CB too. Do you have the number?</p>
<p>Is there a separate phone number for the National Merit organization? I think the CB just sends the scores to NM, so maybe that explains why CB doesn’t know what NM will do for confirming scores.</p>
<p>Also, the confirming score isn’t all that high, right? <2000 I think.</p>
<p>At least it seems all the kids will be in pretty much the same boat on the new PSAT, so even if the scores are lower overall, they will still have the same percentage of kids at NMSF (skipping state-by-state complexity here).</p>
<p>Below is contact information for College Board PSAT-NMSQT</p>
<p><a href=“Contact Us – SAT Suite | College Board”>https://www.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt/contact-us</a></p>
<p>Yes, I found it on another thread:</p>
<p>National Merit Scholarship Corporation
1560 Sherman Avenue
Suite 200
Evanston, Illinois 60201-4897
Main Telephone: (847) 866-5100
Main Fax: (847) 866-5113</p>
<p>PSAT123 - just to be clear the only PSAT that counts towards National Merit designation is the Junior year PSAT. The sophomore PSAT is not really relevant to anything except practice ;but for our guys its not even practice due to the change in Fall 2015.</p>
<p>@rhandco You can search for another local school at <a href=“SAT Suite Ordering – SAT Suite | College Board”>SAT Suite Ordering – SAT Suite | College Board;
Then find contact info for the school or their counseling departments and call to ask how your freshman can register. Schools order the tests in advance, so they have to guess how many. Our school isn’t letting freshmen take it, and only ordered enough for 150 sophomores and all the juniors.</p>