My son took the PSAT 8/9 as a freshman last year. How might this score/percentile line up with his junior year PSAT score? He did not study for the PSAT 8/9 but will for the PSAT junior year.
There was very little correlation for my daughter. I believe she went up over 400 points.
momofsenior1, did your daughter study for the PSAT junior year? That is quite a jump!
My daughter did far better 10th grade year than 11th grade year, but a notorious bad test taker 31 ACT around the same time as PSAT, but bombed PSAT.
@TXRunningMom - she got a test prep book and did practice PSATs over the summer between sophomore and junior year, and her school integrated some test prep into her math and english classes.
Without any prep my PSAT went from a 1330 on the 8/9 to a 1470 on the official one. Not too much correlation, at least for me
My son did the same on 8/9, 10 and 11. Well, that’s not quite true. He went down 10 points on the 11th grade sitting, the one that counted.
Since we’re talking about the PSAT 8/9 and how scores correlate to the next level PSAT, I wanted to share a funny conversation I had with D21 about this. She didn’t study for the first one and she did well but she wants to study for the next one to see how much better she can do. After going through her test results and marking the ones she got wrong on the 8/9 version, I made the comment that I was surprised to see that half of her wrong answers were in reading comprehension (normally a strength for her). She looked sheepish and said, “I’ve gotta be totally honest with you, mom. I was kinda tired and the reading passages were super boring so I didn’t actually read them.” 
I’m curious about this question too. I thought DD’s score on the 8/9 was on the low side, however, she was in a top percentile, so she couldn’t have done that poorly. She did not do any preparation for this test, but she will probably take a prep class for the SATs.
I think @GoldPenn brings up a really good point. I think the scores on these tests aren’t just based on actual academic skills. But also speed, focus, maturity, being invested in doing well, etc. I have weird kids that hit ceilings on tests in early elementary (my oldest hit the ceiling of a GT screener in kindergarten), would ceiling the first section of the test and do so so on the rest, make sloppy errors on tests through middle school. We homeschool and are required to do some sort of standardized test yearly so we have a good snapshot. My oldest missed NMF because he misbubbled the math section which was obvious when he got his results back. But did get a 34 on his final ACT because he just buckled down and decided to do well. With a few more minutes in math and science he would get a 36 and did get up to a 36 in practice with some tests. I actually wish I would have had him take the SAT because I think that would be a better test for him.
Anyway - I think there can be many reasons why a test score might not be totally reflective of actual ability and you might . I personally did mediocre on my 1 time ACT test with no prep. Fine, but not to my academic level by any stretch. Though I was first gen and prepping or retesting was just not on our radar at all. I scored at the top of scale on the GRE. I got the game at that point.
If your kid did well on the PSAT 8/9, then he’s probably in great shape to do well. If he didn’t do as well as you expected, he might be a kid that would be served well with a little prep and practice when it comes to a test that counts. I think it has definitely served my kids to jump through this hoop a few times. They both start the ACT in middle school through a talent search.