<p>S is a soph in the top 10% of his class. He just came home with his PSAT score of 150. All of his friends that he respects academically scored way higher than he did. We talked about how he can take classes, or take the ACT instead of the SAT for college admission but he seemed crushed. He is worried about if any college will take him and it also seemed to affect his self image. I'm looking for suggestions about what to do or say, both to help him feel better and to help him be successful with college admissions.</p>
<p>I had a similar experience with D1. Our approach:</p>
<p>I first always emphasize that the test scores don’t define her and even necessarily reflect her intelligence/abilities. </p>
<p>She started SAT prep before the junior year PSAT. She did somewhat better, but not as well as she wanted. </p>
<p>She started taking the ACT and did better.</p>
<p>We looked for test optional schools, of which there are many.</p>
<p>What math class is he currently taking? That can have an impact on his scores. As a parent we don’t always see it, but that extra year of school does help with CR and W scores. </p>
<p>Just keep reminding him that he is taking a test intended for HS juniors. There is a lot he can do between now and the PSAT next year or the SAT. The ACT suggestion is a good one. </p>
<p>With my D we found the best way for her to improve her SAT scores was taking practice tests. Getting the timing right was important for her. Some of us are better at standardized tests and the timing. Some of us need to work on the timing.</p>
<p>All it means is that he has his work cut out for him if he wants to do better. Look up Ziggi’s method here on CC.</p>
<p>My D got her soph PSAT results yesterday. While no one was disappointed in her score, we were all rather 
to see it lower than her older brother’s. (She’s a much stronger student and has scored higher than him for 10 years.) In fact, her PSAT didn’t increase from her 8th grade JHU CTY SAT. </p>
<p>Needless to say, she had a brief crisis of confidence, too. But, after opening the test book and checking some of her answers, D discovered that she made some careless mistakes. </p>
<p>Spectrum, maybe if you S reviewed his errors he could see what went wrong and recover his confidence.</p>
<p>I agree with reviewing what mistakes were made.</p>
<p>Don’t think that this means that you child shouldn’t bother with the SAT. He should still take both tests - ACT and SAT.</p>
<p>Have him take the SAT next June. Pay the extra for the detailed score report and test booklet that will be sent to you after his results come in. He can use those results to determine where he needs to further work to improve his PSAT score.</p>
<p>BTW…colleges never see your PSAT score. Not even for kids who make NMF. </p>
<p>And, when my son made NMF, so did a friend of his who scored a 150 his soph year. That kid increased his score by over 70 points. So, it’s still possible for your child to do well for his junior PSAT.</p>
<p>We had the very same situation here in our house. DS’s score in CR went down 5 PSAT points from last year (to the 50%tile)…he had omitted 22 questions!!! His M score went up 3 points but still, his total index was 2 points lower that last year…while it seemed that most of his friend’s score went up a LOT…two of his friends had 240!! My son is in the top 5% of his uber competitive sophomore class and we had assumed that his score would only go up each year with age and experience. My son did OK in Math (97%tile) but he should have done stellar (since he is currently taking and doing well in honors precalculus and AP stats).
We told him what everyone here has been saying. One, this is only practice. Now we see what areas he is weak in (CR). He will benefit greatly from tutoring…just learning how to speed up and narrow down the answers to two will improve his score a lot. Two, it is just a test and there are test optional schools out there (although he didn’t seem thrilled with that idea). Three, the ACT is a very different test and he may excell at that one. We will definitely start SAT prep this summer but had planned to do that regardless (since he know that he is way too busy during the school year).</p>
<p>Here’s the link to the thread about the Xiggi method j’adoube mentioned:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/68210-xiggis-sat-prep-advice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/68210-xiggis-sat-prep-advice.html</a> Lots of helpful, very specific advice there, and you can also find many helpful threads in the test prep and parent forums. 150 as a sophomore isn’t as dire as he thinks. Test prep works, and if he uses the score to motivate himself, he could have a much better result when he takes the test for keeps next year.</p>
<p>One test prep method that’s not at all intimidating and takes maybe 3 minutes a day is the College Board’s SAT Question of the day, which your son can register to have emailed to him. It provides familiarity with the question formats, and it opens the door to doing more intensive prep. Good luck - next year he’ll almost certainly be much happier with his score.</p>
<p>my daughter’s score was in a similar range to the OP. Even though people say it is practice and it is a test for juniors, they tell you the sophomore percentile which wasn’t very encouraging to us. I also assume most sophomores have her same level of familiarity with the test before taking it. As with the OP, she is a stronger student than this score would indicate, though still not a superstar. </p>
<p>I had originally thought of test optional schools, but in the B+ thread I got lots of feedback that there might be snags with this approach. I plan to still have her look at some of these schools, but will also have her explore the ACT.</p>
<p>Parents…if your sophomore child didn’t do any/much PSAT practice before taking the test, then it’s understandable why your child may not have done as well as he/she could.</p>
<p>Many kids practice before taking their soph PSAT. Some even take the SAT in Sept just to help build their stamina and learning how to pace oneself for taking long tests.</p>
<p>If your child took the soph PSAT “cold” - with no practice and no stamina build up, then that could explain a lot.</p>
<p>Did he have a good breakfast and enough sleep before the test? Could he have skipped a few questions and messed up the answer sheet? Is the length of the test a problem (this will be exacerbated by the SAT.)</p>
<p>Definitely go over the answers and look for a pattern, or gaps in his knowledge. It’s easy for parents to assume that their kids know basic grammar, etc., but many subjects are taught differently now, and these rules aren’t drilled in the way they used to be.</p>
<p>Collegeboard.com has an SAT Question of the Day that can be set as your computer start page. It’s a painless way to get daily practice.</p>
<p>He needs to do some timed practice tests, review his mistakes, and read some of the links about how to do well on those tests.</p>
<p>He may have spent too much time on the more difficult problems and then not have had time for the many easier problems. One of the most important things that my perfectionistic younger son learned through practice was how to pace himself on the tests.</p>
<p>When I took the test, what helped me improve was checking my answers instead of whipping through the test and then twiddling my thumbs waiting for time to be called.</p>
<p>It’s not necessary at all to take the expensive prep courses if a student is motivated to use review books, free review sites, etc. on their own.</p>
<p>Go over the test in detail so he can see the types of questions he’s missing. Next summer, have him use prep books, take a bunch of practice tests. There is no substitute for getting familiar with the test. (Don’t pay for tutoring unless it is specific to the test.) It is common for students to go up quite a bit between 10th-11th grade. I hear mid range students reporting gains of 20-30 points. Even those with high scores often gain another 5-10 points.</p>
<p>(My kid prepped as a 10th grader–very happy with scores.)</p>
<p>If your S is concerned about his score, he is already ahead of where my S was. My S didn’t quite get the importance of test scores until he had already taken the PSAT twice, the ACT, and the SAT. At the time of the tests in his junior year, he was 4th or 5th in his class but his test scores, although decent, did not match his gpa. For his second try at the SAT, I bribed him by offering him $ for each math question he did from his SAT question of the day calendar. (I was planning to give him $$ for his trip to Germany since he wasn’t able to get a summer job, so this way he at least did something for the $). In one month, he raised his math score by 50 points by doing 120 questions. When he returned from Germany, he worked for 8 weeks with SAT tutors and raised his math another 60 points and his reading 90 points. If your S is motivated, the tutors probably aren’t necessary. By the way, my S’s first attempt at the ACT was much higher than his SAT; his final scores on both were equivalent. With effort, he went up 200 points on the SAT and 3 points on the ACT.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the advice and encouragement! All of your replies have given me ideas about how to direct him. This has been a difficult school year on several fronts so this was just one more thing. His brother missed NMSF by a point and is in a top 20 college, so although not as strong academically my younger son is acutely aware of tests and college admissions. </p>
<p>rrah: He is taking algebra 2 </p>
<p>frazzled: Thanks for the link</p>
<p>Frazzled and Midwesterner: Have you really found the test question of the day helpful? We have been receiving them forever but after a few weeks my kids stopped doing them. Maybe he needs to get back on it.</p>
<p>Javacc: It sounds like my son and your daughter are about in the same place. </p>
<p>Mom2collegekids: Thank you for that very encouraging tidbit. We’re not worried about him being a SF but that is a great testomonial to how significant improvement is possible. Great advice about testing in June and then getting the booklet for detailed review. We will plan on that. He’s been so busy though I don’t know if he will have time to study during the semester. He did take the test last year but aside from looking at it then, he took it cold.</p>
<p>We will look through the test book more carefully over Christmas break. I think the analysis will give him a springboard to figuring out where the work is needed. We have tons of SAT review materials already from older son but nothing on the ACT. I guess we will start looking at that too. Right off I can see one CR section alone where he didn’t get to 8 questions and of those answered 3 were wrong so this is definitely the section to focus on improving.</p>
<p>Thank you all. It is so difficult when kids feel defined by their test results. You have given me some constructive ways to help him get past that feeling. Any other suggestions are welcome!</p>
<p>Please tell him about my daughter. She got a 180 on her first shot and was pretty disappointed. She took an SAT prep course and scored an 800 on her CR on her first go round with the SAT. </p>
<p>Your PSAT scores do not define you and are not necessarily reflective of how well you’ll do in the long run.</p>
<p>The PSAT is just practice. That’s what we told our S who took it in both sophomore and junior years. His results meant that he needed to prep for the SAT and not go in there cold. In that way, the PSAT results helped in that S was aware “o.k. when SAT time comes, I need to get ready.” Look at it as a helpful guide to knowing what strategy you’ll take with the SAT, and remember, like a previous poster wrote, the colleges do not see PSAT scores. </p>
<p>I don’t think my son compared his results with his peers and that probably helped not to hurt his self-confidence. In that way, having a relaxed temperament child is a positive as they don’t get overly stressed about these things. But your competitive child can now really focus on the SAT and doing better where it really counts.</p>
<p>Way it worked with DS was that he was disappointed in his PSATs and that motivated him to prepare more for the SATs.</p>
<p>As Post #17, it’s called Practice for a reason, so when talking about it with her always say “Practice SAT” instead “P S A T” . . . that will reinforce that it was just a warmup for the actual test. Helps to reduce the pressure,too.</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>^^^Same here. D2 was not thrilled to have the lowest soph PSAT score of all her friends. When summer programs and volunteering didn’t work out as planned, she instead did some serious prepping during the summer. So far it seems to have paid off, with an over 40 pt increase on her jr PSAT and hopefully NM semi. The biggest benefit of PSAT prep is that with slight additions (harder math & the essay), it’s the same as SAT prep and lends to getting testing done relatively early jr year.</p>
<p>I would like to say that my PSAT score was lower than that sophomore year. However, with some practice and simply taking more high school level classes I was able to much better junior year as well as on my SAT. The main thing is to get movitated by the score and continue to work hard.</p>