<p>@CallMeC:</p>
<p>First of all, if I did not openly make it clear in my previous post, to make it clear, I did not desire a critical, harsh, or in any way “superior” motive with what I said. If I came around to be a bit arrogant and ignorant, my apologies for the misunderstandings.</p>
<p>Throughout my high school years, I’ve personally been immersed in a privileged preparatory private high school. Most of my fellow friends and scholarly acquaintances have also been students to elite North American private institutions. However, I do have connections and ample relations with public school students as well, and I cannot stress any further that many are equal in intellectual ability and score just as well on the PSATs.</p>
<p>In truth, I believe that it depends on which type of environment of public schooling that you are situated in. A sophisticated public school that aims for pro-90% matriculation to a college will definitely impose the PSATs on Junior students, if not earlier. Given that the average score on the PSAT is a 144, you did incredibly well with an 162 as only a Sophomore. This is the case with decent public schools.
However, in less educational and privileged cities and towns across the US, the situation is not the same. Many public schools do not even offer the chance to take the PSAT, and thus apply for a scholarship. Even in the tiny pool of those who do, you have to consider that there are many sub-144 scores given that cause the average score to be 144. But those scores, although they do not directly indicate success in college applications, are indirectly related to a student’s insight on priorities- there is a larger majority of students who receive pro-220 on Sophomore/Junior PSATs that attend Ivies than those who receive sub-200s. While there is no clear or definite relationship, it is in the logic of common sense that such precocious students actively seek to boost their changes of admission to college as early as they can, and thus attempt to evidently reaffirm their success and ability through pre-college achievement examinations such as the PSAT.</p>
<p>I myself have, like many others on CC Forums, have sought to apply to a prestigious Ivy League college, and thus adopted such strict standards upon myself. But as many of us can tell you, these standards are more self-deprecating than superiorly affirmative- we don’t intend to assert ourselves as superior to others by showcasing our high scores, but we do allow ourselves to stress over any unacceptable Ivy-standard score, which, in comparison to the less-high goals student’s standards, is much higher, and unknowingly become callous and insensitive to the regular student’s standards. Thus is the reason why I’m playing the Devil’s Advocate here and taking your recent score from a private school/Ivy-league applicant’s stance. Sophomore year is already a vital time to start pursuing your college dreams, and it is undeniable that that is the reason why you are posting on a matriculation discussion forum, is it not?</p>
<p>In defense to those who believe I am crazy, you are simply being ignorant of the facts. I know many people who argue about a 200+ score on the PSAT that are from America, but I also know many more who WOULD contemplate failure for a 220+ score on the PSAT from international countries (PSAT is not offered internationally). The educational and scholarly competition in India, China, etc is more than tenfold than in the United States. To those who apply to Ivies from overseas, a 220+ Merit Scholar on the PSAT is a simple achievement- they follow up with several self-study APs and perfect IB scores and still seek to bolster their application with winning state/national category awards and attaining noteworthy success. To these disciplinarians, a sub-200 PSAT score would be considered anything next to a failure.</p>