It used to be only the kids in the gifted program took the PSAT in 10th grade, this year all sophomores took it.
Actually my Dās schoolās approach to the PSAT is just like yours. The change is the 30 high achievers are being encouraged instead of being ignored. Most extra help offered by the school is need based, it is refreshing to see āmeritā based assistance.
It was not encouraged here. Those 30 students have learned to do their own research and seek out opportunities themselves. Letās not get into a discussion about how schools can discourage high achieving kids. It is one of major pet peeves about the district. They use to have one of the better gifted/enrichment programs but I have seen it get smaller and smaller year after year.
May I join in? Coming over from the PSAT thread as well. (Sorry, I only read the last couple of pages.)
We are probably not the norm for the thread, though. We are homeschoolers (been homeschooling for almost 22 yrs). Our current 11th grader is #5 out of 8 kids. According to CC standards, we fall into the āridiculousā category bc we donāt qualify for much in FA, yet our kidsā college budget hovers around $10,000/yr. Thankfully, it looks like our dd will be a NMSF bc her score is significantly higher than our stateās highest historical score. That opens a lot more options for her since there are no instate schools that match her goals.
She has been researching schools for her desired majors (Russian, French are absolute musts for her) and right now her list of affordable options is very, very small. Currently, the ones on her list are University of OK, UNM, UKy, and Temple. We are unfamiliar with all 4 areas, and reading about the area around Temple makes me think she should take it off her list.
She is going to make contact with the depts and then start sorting through those schools. And then she will be researching other full-tuition schools going forward.
Then, I guess we need to travel.
So appreciative of our GC at our public school, who spent an hour with us yesterday on DD Post-secondary individual planning. We have about 1000 kids with 5 GCs.
DD also starts to receive a lot of materials from colleges, Rice, Brandies, Naval Academy, etc to ask her to visit the schools. Are you all getting the same materials? Any one applying for goverorās school?
Just want to say hello to all the new folk who have found this board. Our 2017er is a computer science guy. He will hopefully make NMSF (fingers are crossed cuz he is above the historic state cutoff). We are taking a quick trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit relatives and make a visit to Cal Poly SLO (out of the way but ācloseā). Weāre kind of excited to get to visit schools again. D15 only wanted small LACs. S15 is more open to different schools as long as they have his major.
So who else felt much better about their kids PSAT score after this was released?
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/2015-psat-nmsqt-understanding-scores.pdf
@delilahxc - When was this released?
Still nervous, but feel better. The funny thing is my daughter was very nervous the first couple of days after scores came out, but then said, Iām done with it, while Iām still worrying about it. Finding out the scores of a large sample in her schools GT program helped.
Is there a break down of 99+ scores to fractions for SI?
If I understand all the people analyzing back and forth 99 is probably safe for NSF for 99.5 should almost certainly be. As certain as any of this can be anywayā¦
@itsgettingreal17 My son is about the same way - although more in that heād written off his chances because so many in his school scored similarly. I think itās those of us who will be paying the bills if they donāt get it who are more concerned 
Florida has a total cost of attendance scholarship for all NMF so to me itās a pretty big deal.
We also are in wait and see mode. I canāt imagine that the state cutoff would climb more than 4-5 points for the lower cutoff states, but it also seems like so many of the skewed CC self-reporters are reporting very high scores. S is looking a schools that offer full tuition for NMF, so it can be very important.
Until cut-offs are officially reported (or actually letters go out in the fall), I think we need to trust the numbers provided by CB and not rely on reports on CC that the test was really easy, everyone they know scored really high, etc. etc. Both students posting here and reports about their friends offer a very skewed picture of how all juniors did or perceived the test.
Yes, clearly. Thatās why seeing 99.5+ on SI from something from the college board eased my nerves a skosh at least 
I admire yāalls calm. I fear it shows that itās my first ride on this merry go round.
@delilahxc where are you seeing a percentile for the SI? Iām so confused!
In delilaās Post #1408 in this thread, there is a link to a document explaining the 2015 PSAT scores that contains the national percentiles for SI. The SI is part of the studentās score report, but there wasnāt any percentile information for it.
Iāll repeat the link here:
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/2015-psat-nmsqt-understanding-scores.pdf
The percentiles for SI were on page 11.
Thanks! I see the 99+ but where is the 99.5+ coming from?
Nowhere. but we are interpreting 99+ as 99.5+ where higher cutoff states go.
So for historically low cutoff states below 220 in the past, 214 should be safe, one would hope.