<p>I would not do any test prep yet because The College Board hasn’t released any prep materials for the NEW PSAT/SAT that your child will be taking. My S18 will take a test prep class Aug 2015 before school starts and will take the Oct 2015 PSAT for practice and the Oct 2016 PSAT for real when he is a junior. </p>
<p>I echo the question as to what is the goal here. As far as the college admissions game goes, none of these scores mean anything until the PSAT of his Junior year. So I would suggest this practical plan until then:</p>
<ol>
<li>Don’t stress your kid out by letting him know you are highly focused on his standardized test scores</li>
<li>Have him take the PSAT as a sophomore. Most schools do this - if his doesn’t, you’ll need to find another way for him to take it.</li>
<li>Now start building a test prep plan based on his sophomore PSAT scores. If his scores are really high, he might not need much test prep. Or maybe - like my son - he can benefit from some prep that is specifically targeted to shortcomings that his sophomore PSAT point out.</li>
</ol>
<p>My son took the SAT in 8th grade (for CTY) and scored a 700/6?? - can’t remember the exact number. When he took the PSAT as a soph his scores were 800/660. He’s a very strong math student and yet he wasn’t scoring very well. So he did SAT prep in a group of kids whose sole focus was moving from the 600s to the 700s. </p>
<p>His counselor suggested that as a kid who will probably have a high SAT score, he should do his test prep this fall, so that he would realize the benefit in time for this October’s junior year PSAT. And he’s taking the SAT tomorrow with the hope that if he scores high enough, he can be finished with the SAT and focus on ACT/ SAT II coming up.</p>
<p>I am very pragmatic about the SAT and realize the importance of a high score in getting into selective schools. But I can’t see any practical gain that comes from focusing too much, too soon on scores that have no bearing whatsoever on the admissions process.</p>
<p>WorryHurry411, I would wait with the test prep. You know he tests well. </p>
<p>Far more useful would be encouraging his interest in the world around him, and his own academic interests. It is of utmost importance that you encourage him to read. He should read novels, read non-fiction, read adult-level books, best sellers and classics. It would be a great idea for him to read the newspaper regularly. Explain the background to him of any story he doesn’t quite get. (For example, why is Sweden worried about Russian submarines?)</p>
<p>All colleges at the level you have your eye on practice holistic admissions. That means he’ll need to write convincing personal essays, and likely go through interviews. It’s much easier to do well on such measures if you’ve spent time working on your background knowledge.</p>
<p>Echoing the others in that it is too early to worry about this. Have him take the PSAT in 10th grade (when it doesn’t count). If he is close to or exceeds the cutoff for your state, nothing more would be needed. If its lower than expected, you can assess whether he needs to do some review on his own or even have a few sessions with a tutor that might help him with the “tricks” of the SAT like when to guess, how to not get stuck on one question etc. (although are they removing the penalty for guessing?) Not sure that courses really help the kids the score high. </p>
<p>If you live in some states, he may be a shoo-in, but in others (as stated above) a silly mistake or two can mean he will miss the cutoff. </p>
<p>NMF is nice, but not as big a deal as some think. Colleges look at SAT scores, not PSATs, and many do not offer any NMF money, meaning don’t put too much emphasis on this one test. </p>
<p>Thank you so much for taking time to give advice. What sort of extra curricular activities do you recommend? Where can I find a SATprep class of his level if he wants one later?</p>
<p>I understand that PSAT has limited importance but it seems easily achievable for him and I am hoping that it would look good on resume. Am I right or is it useless for Ivy hopefuls?</p>
<p>Extra Curricular should be something that your child enjoys! All 3 of my kids are very involved in scouts ;-)</p>
<p>PrepScholar.com worked well for my D because she could test out of the stuff she already knew and just focus on the things she needed to brush up on. Again the CB isn’t releasing any test prep material until June 2015 for the new tests so I wouldn’t waste time on anything before then.</p>
<p>NMF is close to useless for Ivy hopefuls except insofar as it will make your son eligible for Merit aid at some State U’s that are trying to attract high test score kids.</p>
<p>Harvard and Dartmouth will barely notice if your son is NMF. They will look at the SAT scores, not the PSAT scores. You should encourage your son’s curiosity in life and the world and leave all this “good on resume” stuff to the parents of kids with low scores who will need the extra boost. Just encourage your son to read, get involved in things he enjoys, and the rest will unfold.</p>
<p>Not useless, but not something to worry about in 8th grade. Save your money. Personally, I had my son meet with an SAT tutor twice before the PSAT just to get more familiar with the test and to give test taking advice. As others say, ECs should be something he likes and excels in (and may get on a leadership path).</p>
<p>I know parents of middle schoolers who can’t find the time to take the kid to the library once a month, but suddenly when the kid is a HS sophomore, they are driving to SAT tutoring twice a week.</p>
<p>Waste of time and money to have a kid memorize vocab words when he or she could have been getting involved in stuff that’s actually interesting and fun and challenging back in 8th grade.</p>
<p>My kids are part of Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY). I can’t find the study, but CTY did track kids for a long period of time. In general, scores raise 50 pts each section per school year. So an 1800 in grade 7 is on track to be capable of obtaining a SAT score of 2250-2400 by 11th grade without prep.</p>
<p>However, as a parent of a NMF from NJ (one of those high cut-off states), I strongly recommend prep the summer between 10th and 11th for Math. Most kids who are scoring over 2200 have advanced Math courses (Calc, AP Calc) and tend to forget the Algebra they had in Middle School. Just practicing with the SAT Prep Book of prior tests should do it. IMHO - I strongly believe kids who are NM competitive should take the SAT in October of 11th grade to correspond with any prep for the PSAT.</p>
<p>All that said, my NMF son did not prep more than 2 hours. His scores just made the cut. More prep may have relieved Mom’s stress waiting for the results.</p>
<p>IMHO - OP, it doesn’t sound like you are pushing the student. It sounds like you are planning the best course of action. </p>
<p>As a family with multiple kids on a limited budget, I did much planning before I ever bought my oldest into the college planning. By the time I brought him, I could realistically tell him where he was positioned for colleges that we could afford or that he could get merit. If you are in a similar position, just know colleges can and do change their scholarships. We thought my kid was positioned for 2 full rides; by December of senior year those schools changed their policies.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, the NMSF cutoff score is defined as the top 0.5% of scorers in each state, not top 1 or 2%. Qualifiers tend to be clustered in wealthy schools and very sparse in the poorer ones.</p>
<p>Actually the number of NMSFs in a state is approximately the top 1/2% of expected graduating seniors in the state. Qualifying score chosen to select that many. On average that is about 1% of test takers, as about half of juniors take the test. But it varies from state to state. In some states almost all juniors take it, and in others (like ours) very few. I say 1/2% and 1% because those are easy numbers and there are something like 3.2 or 3.3 million graduating seniors. If the number of graduating seniors changed by much, would have to change the %ages as NMSC fixes # NMSFs at around 16,000, does not change with changing HS population.</p>
<p>You don’t know how much I appreciate these replies. God bless you.</p>
<p>Longhaul’s post reminded me of two things I forgot to mention. </p>
<p>The initial impetus for having my daughter prep after freshman year was that our school requires sophomores to take the PSAT. I thought this practice run would be far more valuable for her if it really were a first shot rather than just walking in unprepared. She would be able to identify anything she needed to work on, including pacing, which you really can’t know if you just walk in and take a test cold. </p>
<p>And secondly, the plan was to be well prepped for the junior PSAT and also get the SAT over with in the fall of junior year. So the summer after junior year was more focused on the SAT. This worked very well for her, she took the SAT Dec 1 and was done. Very nice not having to worry about the SAT in junior or senior year. </p>
<p>Colleges don’t see PSAT scores and I doubt top schools care overly much about those awards. But even if you think you won’t accept the full ride offers you will get, it’s nice to have those options in the event circumstances or minds change.</p>
<p>Mathyone - this is exactly what we did.
D took a local prep class in August before before 10th grade PSAT - waited for PSAT scores and prepped where needed and then took SAT March of 10th grade. Prepped very deliberately for 11th grade PSAT and will take the second and hopefully last SAT Nov (this Saturday!) while her prep for the PSAT is still fresh. We should get her last SAT score and PSAT scores before the end of the semester and be done with testing 
… at least until the AP tests in May…</p>
<p>@WorryHurry411 I would encourage you to keep in mind that admission to the type of school you are aiming at is not going to be driven by being NMSF as much as it is by your son’s having highly competitive scores plus high GPA in a demanding curriculum plus extraordinary achievements (possibly awards) in extracurriculars. If your son becomes too singlemindedly focused on test prep and doesn’t come up to snuff in the other two areas, his chances will be much lower.</p>
<p>In part what I’m saying here, and alluded to in my first post on this thread, is that your son may need little to no test prep. Mine had zero, for SAT’s, ACT’s, or AP’s. That allowed him to spend almost as much time as he wanted to on his extracurricular interests, in which he was a very high achiever. Don’t drive your son to needless time spent prepping for tests that he’s likely to ace anyway. Now I admit, that my son’s temperament meant that he wasn’t going to study for those exams no matter what. “Waste of time. Borrring,” he would say. He wanted to do more challenging things. He also had his hobbies, which curiously became a major component of what he later did in his post-college career, and he had some EC’s at school that demanded a lot of his time as well. But test prep? Nada.</p>
<p>I was unnecessarily confusing. I think they take the top whatever% in each state (more or less), but that means in some states you have to be in the top .1% overall. (You really need to check with your state what is likely to be required.) Doing well on the PSAT is worth it if you are looking for free tuition at U of Alabama or other colleges with similar deals. 
Otherwise nobody cares. Extra curriculars should be what the kid enjoys, because that’s what they’ll actually put the time into and achieve in.</p>
<p>Nobody cares? Even if you don’t take one of the full rides, it’s still $2500 and the hourly return on studying is a lot more than my daughter earned working. And nearly all that prep is applicable to the SAT as well, which can bring in a lot of other scholarship money. Personally I would expect a child to put a reasonable effort in to get their best performance on these tests. I’d have an issue with a kid who said “test prep is boring–you can just cough up an extra $30 or $50K or whatever for my college education because I don’t feel like giving it my best try to win those scholarships.”</p>
<p>I think the cut-off is approximately the top 1% in each state. But some states have far more than others scoring high, so in some states the cutoff for top 1% is about the 4% mark nationally whereas in others it’s 0.5% or less nationally. The percentiles don’t really matter though. What matters to your student is the bottom line of how many questions they can miss and still qualify.</p>
<p>(Noticed an error in my previous post, meant to say that she studied after sophomore year, not junior year. Thanks to prepping and testing on the earlier side, she was done by then.)</p>