<p>I received a 219 on the PSAT my freshman year (71 CR, 78 Math, 70 Writing). Is this a reasonable score to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship in my junior year? In 7th grade, I scored a 176 and I scored 192 in 8th grade, if that helps. Also, I live in Tennessee, so I should hopefully easily make semifinalist standing by my junior year and then possibly earn National Merit Scholar standing. Also, how do you advise studying for the test? I have done no preparation yet, so I might need to do so to get an exceptional score. Thank you in advance!</p>
<p>It is a very good score. NM depends on your state, so you might want to check out the stats on your state to see if you would have qualified. If things keep going the way they do, you should have an impressive score by junior year</p>
<p>Really good. Assuming you do about as well on the SAT and keep good grades and extracurriculars you are pretty much set. 219 converted to the SAT scale is 2190 which is really good. There are some things you can do to improve your test scores but many colleges admissions office interpret a 2200 and 2400 the exact same way.</p>
<p>Thanks for the quick reply!
I was wondering, how are my chances for getting into an Ivy League college in a few years? Of course, I should hopefully gain more experience and improve my scores on such tests, but how is it looking if I stay on the same general path?
In terms of extracurriculars, I am a member of my school’s debate team; assistant teach, compete in, and take lessons in classical ballet; compete in math competitions; participate as a lawyer in the International Court of Justice through Model United Nations; tutor students in math; and read extensively, especially a sort of in-depth independent-study of physics.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Your chances of getting an SAT score that would qualify you for an Ivy League school are pretty much 100%. It all depends on academic performance and on involvement in the community from this point on.</p>
<p>224 is the current highest score to qualify for NM semi finalist in any state and some states are as low as 203. So 219 might qualify you in about 40 states and not the other 10.</p>
<p>What State are you from?</p>
<p>I live in Tennessee, so I make the cutoff, but I know that there are some other requirements as well. Plus, I’m only a freshman, so I still have a chance to raise my score a bit. Based on my prior scores as well, I’ve made pretty big improvement each year (at least in my opinion), so hopefully I can raise it just enough to be a serious competitor for the scholarships.</p>
<p>How would you recommend studying for future SAT/ACT/PSAT tests?</p>
<p>You don’t need to, and you don’t need to take the ACT. Spend your time doing other things. I think about 15,000 of 16,000 semi finalist make finalist. It is just a matter of doing the paperwork and getting a decent SAT score. Just do some normal prep before taking the regular SAT spring of Jr year. Meanwhile you can focus on other things for the next couple of years. Visit the SAT-preparation forum for SAT related stuff.</p>
<p>No one knows your chances at ivys from a psat score. There is a lot more. How will your grades be within the context of your class and how rigorous your schedule? What sort of outside interests have you developed and followed up with? What special talent and accomplishments will you bring? Browse the accepted student profiles in the individual college forums. There’s a thread each year, it is started already for the ED/EA round.</p>
<p>Remember that super selective schools have to deny many accomplished kids every year. So pick a good safety and match schools.</p>
<p>As freshman you seem to be doing quite well. You will probably get closer to a perfect score by 11th grade which is when you should take your SAT. You don’t need any more prep other than attending school and perfecting some areas that you are weak in by checking out collegeboard website analysis for you.</p>
<p>If your main goal is to make national merit, one thing you need to make sure is that you don’t get any Cs or Ds in school. That is what determines whether you move from national merit semi finalist to finalist apart from scoring 2000 in SAT.</p>
<p>That’s a good match for UT! Do you wanna be a vol?</p>
<p>Haha, no thanks! We’re Vandy fans! Sorry!</p>
<p>Yes, great job! </p>
<p>Best I ever got on mine was 209 or something…good look on getting National Merit as a junior!</p>
<p>Do a few practice tests during sophomore and junior year and you should be able to get 2300+. As others have said, I wouldn’t invest too much of your time into studying for the PSAT/SAT.</p>
<p>Why don’t you recommend studying for PSAT/SAT? I’m taking the SAT later this month because some of the highly competitive summer programs I’m applying to require scores, but based on the PSAT-SAT conversion, I should have no trouble getting scores that meet the requirements; however, I still think that studying would be useful later on. Is there some other sort of studying you would recommend instead?</p>
<p>The fact that you’re a freshman and have already taken the PSAT 3 times might suggest that you’re a little obsessed with standardized testing. It’s fine to be prepared and if you need to take the SAT now because it’s required for a summer 2014 program, then by all means prepare. But remember that many selective schools will require you to report all your scores from 9th grade forward. And you don’t want to be one of those applicants who has taken the SAT 6 or 7 times (try not to take it more than 3 times) by senior year. Then it starts to look like you’re just learning how to game the SAT.</p>
<p>Usually the issue between 219 and 240 is a small knowledge gap in a specific area or common mistakes made during test taking. My guess is you made one mistake in math, 3-4 in writing, and 5 in reading.</p>
<p>You learn more material through 9th, 10th and 11th grades which will rectify that issue and if you do practice tests occasionally, you will see if you are making the same mistakes over and over and figure out how to do it differently. Collegeboard also provides an analysis for PSAT to help with SAT. </p>
<p>SAT is considered an aptitude test and studying for it has zero effect on your score. However, you can improve on your weaker areas if you notice mistakes consistently in one specific area.</p>