I started an old thread about college funding for large families, and several people mentioned starting PSAT/SAT prep very early in order to maximize scholarship potential.
I just got my 8th grader’s PSAT 8/9 scores back, and they were decent, but she WILL need to work in order to reach NMSF level.
She has 3 years to go before the test counts, so it seems a bit early to start working practice tests. I also don’t want to run out of practice material too soon. What kind of prep do you do this early?
Spare your poor kids. The test counts fall of 11th grade. Make sure they are doing well in math class and English classes in middle and early high school. If you want to prep, start at the beginning is summer before junior year.
Your child’s best prep right now is reading high quality literature, learning grammar and writing skills, and keep some rolling math review going as your child progresses in math. Have her take it in 10th and go from there.
Thanks for the advice! She’s doing great in math and English classes so we have no issues there.
I specifically need info about how to do early test prep as she’s interested in some schools that will be unaffordable without merit scholarships that are tied to test scores. She has no test anxiety or other issues, and thinks studying is fun. She is interested in doing prep. I don’t want to deny her that opportunity. Just looking for info on best practices for those who started prepping their children early.
@jazzymomof7
Right NOW your kid is interested in some colleges that will be unaffordable without merit…but believe me…that list of colleges has huge potential to change before she actually applies.
Love the kid on the couch. I bet there are PSAT prep books out there…but really…give your kid a break. Don’t do this now.
And regardless of what her PSAT or SAT scores turn out to be…there will be good, and affordable college options for her.
It is way too early for her to prep now. Let her relax and be a kid. She can study the summer prior to her junior year.
I had one NMF kid and one non-NMF kid. No amount of prep could have gotten one of my kids to NMF. We could have studied from 8th grade on, and it wouldn’t have mattered. And just would have made her crazy.
Encourage a lot of reading now. A large vocabulary, good reading comprehension, and fast reading speed all translate into good CR scores. Strong readers often ace that section with no prep. Regarding math, your kid probably hasn’t even had the math they need in school yet for the 11th grade PSAT. So prepping will make you both a little nuts right now.
@intparent makes a great point about knowing your kid. I have one kid that had NO chance, and I didn’t bother. She’s doing the CC to 4-year (and then graduate school) route with straight A’s, no debt, and working part time. It has worked for her.
If you think she/he has the potential for NMF, then, as others have said, reading is huge. Summer reading lists are common for public/private schools, I think, and as a home school mom I made lists for my kids as well.
It is certainly a matter of personal preference as to when to being PSAT practice. For my first NMF kid, we did no practice at all and literally fell into it depsite her parents’ ignorance. For my other, I started his practice the summer after 9th grade. I will be doing the same with kid #4 who is just finishing 9th grade. I will use practice books and practice tests. I will also consider hiring a professional psat tutor down the road if I feel he needs a little more help than I can give.
I can understand why others say not to pressure your kid. If one of mine was very resistant, I wouldn’t push. However, we have made it clear to them that if their desire is for sleep-away college and all the trimmings, they must get a very good merit scholarship because we do not have the funds otherwise.
Repeat the above- love that kid on the couch. So much prep time is a waste of her life when she should be enjoying being a kid. Most smart kids will not be NMS finalists, and most of those will not get any money from it.
Repeat- READ, so much more productive and enjoyable.
So she spends all sorts of time doing yucky prep work. Two results. One, she still doesn’t become a semifinalist. Two she does but still doesn’t have the skill set to succeed at the school she gets into. So much better to spend time getting useful learning skills and a good knowledge base that will help her do well in any college. Plus- she needs to enjoy her life.
btw- many of those NMS kids will not study at all. Some will have done the SAT in middle school for gifted talent searches.
Please do not make her feel like she would be a failure if she doesn’t do well enough on the PSAT to become a finalist.
@Belle315
Are there NO sleep away colleges at all in your home state that would be affordable?
And you don’t have to be a NMF to get a good merit scholarship at some schools.
I sincerely appreciate all of the advice. I want to make it clear that I definitely do not want to overload dd in any way.
If it helps, we are homeschoolers, and I am a VERY relaxed homeschool mom. The PSAT 8/9 dd just took is the only standardized test she has taken other than a Stanford test I proctored at home at the end of 5th grade just to make sure we were on track before middle school.
In my thread about funding college, several parents advised me to start test prep early. If they meant just read, we have that covered, but I thought maybe there were specific materials she could use.
She has a full load of honors level courses during the school year, but this summer she’ll do nothing but read, art, write stories with her brothers, swim, babysit, a little refereeing, etc. She has 2 weeks of biology camp and 1 week of volunteering at the science museum and that is it from now until the last week of August. Lots of down time. I thought it would be a good time to do a little prep.
Definitely I am happy with dd, though. Her scores were good. 95th percentile in reading. Math was a little lower, but I know she hasn’t covered all of the concepts. I thought it took work to get up to the 99th percentile, though, if the student isn’t just there naturally.
No. Not for our family @thumper. I know that thought may shock you. 1 income 6 children.
The cheapest state school with no merit scholarships comes in at @ about $19500 before books and everything needed to set up the dorm room. We currently have 3 kids in college, so that would be about $60k, which is more than half of our gross income.
We can’t even afford that for one child because we have other mouths to feed. We are what they call “middle class”, and most middle class citizens cannot afford to send their children to sleep-away college without significant help.
But you are right, the 4 year directional college in our city gives up to a full ride for high grades and ACT/SAT scores. You still have to have those standardized test scores to get a lot of merit, so doing practice tests and prep books help with that as well.
OP I believe some of the posters here neither have large families nor serious financial contraints; therefore, it’s a bit easier to say “don’t worry about it”. My bottom-line advice is do what you think is best for your kid.
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A suggestion about reading: I recommend the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the Economist. They should have some articles that will be interesting to a bright eighth-grader and they often use SAT-type vocabulary.
Novels and non-fiction are great as well, but the magazine articles are shorter, and come closer to the excerpt-length material that appears on the PSAT and SAT.
You can probably either take the magazines out from your local public library, or take your daughter there to read them.
The magazines will help with essay writing, too.
I’m not saying “don’t worry about it”.
I’m saying…there are ways to attend college on a shoestring budget. They might nit be first choice ways…but theynare possible.
Things like working full time and attending college part time.
Going to a college and commuting from home.
The PSAT is essentially a watered down SAT. So any SAT prep material out there will be reasonable for her to play around with. If she likes that kind of stuff, she can pick up whatever prep books there are at the public library.
@jazzymomof7, Khan Academy has SAT prep materials. Look online for them. If your daughter wants to practice, there’s no harm in it. If she does some questions then reviews them – both the ones she got right and the ones she got wrong – she’ll get a feel for how the test is written.
We’re also homeschoolers. I’ve known families who did test prep as a class. The SAT is an exam and it can be studied for like other exams. There’s no reason she can’t do that and read other materials.
“She’ll do nothing but read, art, write stories with her brothers, swim, babysit, a little refereeing, etc. She has 2 weeks of biology camp and 1 week of volunteering at the science museum and that is it from now until the last week of August.” That’s a lot of stuff!
Yes, knowing her, I think she’d be okay doing some prep. I am not thinking of anything rigorous - maybe 20-30 min a day.
But I have been listening, and I do think it would be a good idea for me to discourage her from fixating on any particular schools and from thinking that NMF is a must. I had that in my mind, too, and I can see how that could create feelings of failure, so I will be very careful about that. We have a local CC that is excellent and a few good schools within driving distance. So she’ll definitely have somewhere to go.
Y’all are stubborn, but this was good food for thought, lol.
Thanks, all!