<p>Well, my PSAT was.... quite high, far exceeding my expectations for myself (234)...</p>
<p>I realize getting National Merit is all it really is for. But would it (slightly, very slightly) help me at all if I listed my selection index right next to my Finalist award?... my SAT is quite good itself, but not THAT good. Perhaps it would help the admissions decide if I was academically prepared, or not.</p>
<p>Unless ur black or mexican, not really. It can help for job aplications for teens, if you want to mention it.</p>
<p>What’s your SAT score?</p>
<p>1580/2230 for the SAT. Writing killed me… 650 on the SAT while it was a 77 on the PSAT? Haha, what?.. </p>
<p>Anyway, I have this nagging suspicion that colleges just care about their U.S. News rankings, and your SAT score will affect those rankings (very slightly)… no?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mention the actual PSAT score. It serves no real purpose, since you’ve already listed being a NM Finalist (which comes from having a high PSAT score. so they will know about it indirectly). Therefore it just seems very egotistical to put it down.</p>
<p>Thats not true. Colleges officially use the SAT to determine your natural reasoning skills. It serves as a constant in that all schools are different, meaning you could get good grades at easier schools and worse ones at harder schools, and it can get really tricky to determine your standpoint nationally. However it isnt a perfect system, as NOTHING in life is, which can lead to unhappiness and rumoring. Of course there are other reasons why colleges care about the SAT, since it also defines your level among peers in your regional area. It annoys me when people think the SAT is unfair. Everything is unfair and the SAT is something you can easily prepare for, which is crucial in every aspect of life regardless. If you’re “poor” suck it up; prep classes do not guarantee 2400s and self-motivation and hard work will impress an adcom more than daddy’s wallet. I half-assedly took like barely eight classes for a CR prep and Writing prep in the beginning of ninth grade and all it really did was make my essay go from a 8-9 to an 11-12. Honestly, two more years of SCHOOL would have done just the same and without further prep that year I scored 2200 range and my math went up to the 750-800 range from a high six hundred. NO PREP. I also got my Psat from a 201 to a 226 using 3$ tests and 10$ books. You can spend not even 100$ and your score will go up. So IMO, does not have to be yours, Money does not buy HYP SAT scores, rather hardwork and determination as well as the sheer intelligence of a scholar will score in the 2300s. Therefore the SAT is fair in that aspect. Sorry I went off tangent and to answer your question, if they really cared that much about ranking, Princeton and Penn wouldnt deflate GPAs, and they’d consciously only hire professors with Ph.Ds and biasedly report their information in their favor (not like they don’t already, look at the world rankings with Princeton at 16th below Cornell, Brown, Cambridge, and Caltech to name a few). And besides, all these top schools have practically identical SAT median rangesso it wouldnt really alter rankings at all. I hope you read this because I just spent the last ten minutes typing on a stupid iPod Touch keyboard. Ow thumbs… ; (.</p>
<p>I feel your pain… </p>
<p>Anyway, I just wondered because it would seem to me to actually “test” intelligence (As the SAT was meant to do…) it would make much more sense to look at a PSAT score. Why? </p>
<p>The PSAT you can only take once- that’s it. No one really prepares for it. The SAT you find people taking 6-7+ times, and then sending 3 of those best scores in to become one gigantic superscore that colleges “think” is equivalent to a single-setting… </p>
<p>Anyway, my SAT isn’t bad. 800 reading, 780 math, 650 writing. It’s just my PSAT is better. 80 reading, 77 math, 77 writing- Because writing killed me on the SAT.</p>
<p>Sorry double post :P</p>
<p>Does anyone else think the writing on the PSAT is harder than on the SAT? I think the PSAT questions have more than one grammatically accurate answer and that the essay makes the curve more generous on the SAT, while also taking out those annoying writing multiple choices found more often on the PSAT.</p>
<p>Noooo no one replied. Come on :<</p>
<p>Actually for me, PSAT is pretty important （I learned the hard way). There’s a free state sponsered camp for “gifted” scholars in our state after the sophmore year. and they determine by looking at your PSAT scores. Then there’s also TASP and the MIT summer programs which are highly selective. I believe they look at your PSAT scores too.</p>
<p>@ Carin: if you don’t believe wealth can give you a massive advantage in testing, then you’re just fooling yourself.</p>
<p>The PSAT was meant for practice before it became trendy to study/practice an absurd amount.</p>
<p>its good test prep for SATs and other tests.</p>
<p>In our district the schools use the PSAT since the 9th grade as a diagnostic tool. It’s an inexpensive way (for the school system) to find out how students stand in comparison to the rest of the country and to start guiding the students into the Honors and AP courses when they score well. For many slackers that score well but their grades haven’t been up to par, it ups the ante and all of a sudden both student and parents realize there’s untapped potential. The school even pays for it in 9th and 10th grade, but you have to pay for the one in 11th grade. In the worst case, it’s still good practice for the SAT. And by the way, mowmow, a lot of schools still don’t take the writing part too seriously if they count it at all. 1580/1600 is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations.</p>
<p>@carin - no they are equal in difficulty</p>
<p>Aside from National Merit, a good PSAT score can be useful if you want a teen internship. Also, I believe that the PSAT would make a better diagnostic tool than most state-required standardized graduation tests.</p>
<p>the PSAT and the SAT writing are basically the same section–except that the PSAT doesn’t have an essay and is noticeably shorter. your essay is probably what brought you down to the 600’s level.</p>