@mtrosemom, my S has done clinical data analysis after freshman year and shadowed few doctors last summer and and doing couple of other activities related to medicine. You are correct, those are the things BS/MD programs expect. Which BS/MD program program did your D’s friend join?
DS17 & DS19 are taking the PSAT today. Neither prepped for it although DS17 is done taking the ACT & SAT. At this point my only concern is that my younger one may get a better score. The Junior is a better reader but the freshman is better at math…
Her friends family lives in Nevada and they have a program for state residents only through the University of Nevada.
I’ll second that “Good luck to all of the PSAT test takers today!!”
My DS isn’t taking it until Oct. 28.
I found out last night because DS mentioned it. All the Juniors in his class who didn’t pay the $20 to take the PSAT are instead taking the ASVAB. Which is a multiple-aptitude battery that measures developed abilities and helps predict future academic and occupational success in the military. I’m not sure if this is for all schools in Georgia or just some.
My daughter is taking the PSAT today as well. She didn’t do any prep except an online “crash course” that was just more about taking the test and not actual practice questions. Her school offers it free (and also the SAT next Fall will be free) but we will have to pay for the ACT. She hasn’t taken Pre-Calc yet (her school runs on a block system so she has that next semester) so hopefully she does ok on Math, which is not her strong subject. I know she’ll do well on the rest.
I emailed her counselor last week about the class rankings but haven’t heard back yet.
My daughters reported the “no calculator” portion of the New PSAT as very difficult; reading much easier as compared to the current SAT.
I just texted DD to ask how she did on the PSAT. She text back “very good”. Let’s hope she is right.
All I know is whenever my kid says something was “easy” she inevitably misses more than she thought she did and when she says something was hard she does better than she thought! Will be interesting to hear her thoughts when I pick her up.
My S said reading was tough, but everything else was easy. Reading is his weak spot though (relatively)
My S says it was easy. Hmmm…we’ll see. He said there was one on the math calculator section that stumped him so he took an educated guess. He did some prep and it helped him feel less stressed about the test. December seems like a long way away. Class rank comes out tomorrow. 
@jedwards70 - Where does your son go to school? curious since you said class rank comes out tomorrow.
I asked my daughter how it was and she said, “It was fine.” So I asked if the math was hard and she said, “Not that bad.” Well that was super helpful. LoL.
Ranks. I’m jealous. I asked our career counselor if we could get a rank, or at least a decile, if we asked really nicely since lots of calculators use it for merit and such. She looked at me very sternly and said “we have no way to sort by grade point, so no. No deciles either.” There is no easy way to determine it from our school report, either. Really, no way to know.
@2muchquan I wonder how this factors into colleges whose entering class is made up of almost entirely the top 10% of classes? We visited Stanford on Monday and a very high rate (I think it was 94% or something like that) was from the top 10% of their high school class. If a school doesn’t rank, how do the colleges figure this out? I’m not sure yet if my daughter’s school ranks since I haven’t heard back from the counselor. But I also wonder if the ranking even matters that much yet since Sophomores have very few APs available to them and the bulk of APs are taken Junior and Senior years at her school. I would think the ranking when Junior grades are finalized would be the best indicator as far as college admissions goes.
S finally texted that the test “went well I think”. He said he’d talk about it at home. Meanwhile he is taking himself to Baskin and Robbins for a celebratory ice cream. It’s done and we can’t change anything now.
As far as rank goes, S’s school doesn’t rank either. His sister (D15) is at a school where the admin said that 90% of the accepted students were in the top 10% of their HS class. D wasn’t ranked, but she was a NMF, so that probably put her up into the top 10%. Also, the colleges use the HS school profile, rigor of classes, unweighted GPA, LORs, etc. to assess the strength of a candidate. Many schools use the first semester of senior year grades in their eval of a RD student.
@MSHopeful, I don’t know, but I thought I read on CC somewhere that about 60% of HS do not rank any longer, so I think Stanford doesn’t know, in a lot of cases. One way they could figure it out is from your HS’s ‘school report’ that they send to colleges. This sometimes shows a histogram or some sort of chart that contains a breakdown of GPAs, so you can pretty much figure out fairly closely where a student falls, at least to a decile. Our school report does not give enough information to do this, however.
So, rankings going the way of the dinosaur. Standardized tests are next.
@mtrosemom @2muchquan I guess that all makes sense. I’m sure they have some way of figuring it out from the school report, GPA, etc. Especially if 60% of high schools don’t rank! I wish we could see this report. LoL. It would just be really helpful for us to know ahead of time if we’re just wasting time/money on applications. I think she’s a top student and she has all As and only one B so far, has taken 3 APs and an Honors class through Junior year, BUT I have nothing to compare this to. Maybe a lot of students get all As. Maybe they take more APs (though she told me it’s pretty common to only take one Sophomore year). I mean I really have no idea! Maybe her school just grades easy. There is just so many unknown factors so it would be great to know. I guess once we get the PSAT scores we’ll have a better idea even if it’s not NMSF-worthy.
Also, everyone keeps talking about Naviance but I don’t think her school has that. I guess that’s another question I can ask her counselor (if I ever even hear back from her).
@MSHopeful Your daughter will know if they have Naviance. She should be in it filling out various profiles or surveys by now if they have it. As for school report, that is not secret, I found it on my schools website using their search. Or, again, your D’s counselor can provide.
@2muchquan Thanks for the info. They must not have it then because she would definitely know. I searched the school website and didn’t find anything. I guess I will email the counselor (again…lol). Thanks again, these boards are so helpful and full of great information.