He took the regular PSAT yesterday @homerdog .
Regular PSAT here as well, regardless of grade.
@me29034, some families such as mine need our kids to make NMF to afford college, not looking for a top 50 college at all.
@homerdog, D21 is in high school H geometry in 8th grade now, she will hit calBC in 11th but our school doesnât have anything higher than that. So jr college it will have to be.
She has been working through AoPS Intro to Algebra and hopefully can cover AoPS intermediate Algebra before high school gets too time consuming.
Thatâs interesting. Our school has kids take PSAT 8/9 as part of freshman placement. Then the sophs take PSAT10 as another data point to see how they are doing. Then, the kids obviously take regular PSAT in 11th. Maybe it has something to do, too, with IL high schools now giving the students the SAT for free now instead of the ACT.
PSAT 8/9 is also used for placement for freshman class, PSAT is taking in 9th for exposure, PSAT 10 for exposure and PSAT in 11th but it is paid for by parents. All others are paid by the district.
@VANURSEPRAC My DS16 did not score high enough on the SAT for NMF , but his ACT was high enough to be offered some very generous merit , higher than his friend who did make NMF. Iâm not saying this to brag , but just to say that there are options for kids that donât make NMF.
What I have noticed over the past year and a half that Iâve been on CC is that there are so many differences in how schools determine sequencing for classes, weighted vs unweighted GPA, paying for AP tests vs schools paying for the test, the number of AP classes offered and when they are offered and the types of standardized tests offered and when they are offered. To try and compare or determine why something is the way it is is a lesson in futility and a huge waste of time. Sometimes things are just different . No real reason for the difference. One way is not necessarily better than the other, just different.
@carolinamom2boys good points.
How colleges compare kids from all different situations is baffling to me. What I do know, though, is that Chicago suburban kids definitely compete against each other directly and maybe thatâs because their situations are similar - easier for colleges to compare apples to apples when looking at their apps.
@homerdog the students of Chicago are not âcompetingâ against each other IMO. They are applying for admission to a school that is weighing applicants from all over the country.
I guess I just meant that, in any application pool, colleges are looking for diversity. Many of the students from the Chicago suburbs (or at least when you compare the top kids from the top school districts) look very similar. And they bring the same geographic diversity to any college since they are all from the Midwest. If colleges are looking for strong students from this area, then the pool of kids must be competing against each other at some level.
And GO CUBS!!! 
=D>
Back to regularly scheduled programming⊠
@homerdog actually no, they are not. At least not unilaterally in a broad brushstroke general way. Each college has itâs own methodology and own needs and all kids are competing against that years global application pool, not chicago versus chicago or seattle versus seattle. Sure, a super strong student out of Hawaii, Guam, Alaska or Puerto Rico might have an edge over others but reallyâŠnot much.
I just had an example yesterday, where Stanford accepted 11 (yes 11!) kids from one HS in 2015 and ONE in 2016.
Personally, I think we do our kids a huge disservice promoting the mentality that you are competing with your friends for the one spot a college has. That you canât share your hopes, dreams and lists because some kid at your school with âbetterâ stats might then take âyourâ spot. It is not that simple, or that linear. Be accepted, or not, on your own merits whatever they may be. And if you arenâtâŠin my opinion, itâs not the right school.
FWIW you can also look at any schools CDS and it will tell you how much (or how little) they value geographic diversity. The vast majority could care less. Colleges are looking for more than strong students. They are looking for students that fit whatever it is they want to round out their class and itâs more than just academics, at least at the privates. Your publics will be largely stats only based, the rest being fairly irrelevant.
Of course I feel the same way about waitlists. If you didnât love my kid enough the first time to accept them, thanks but no thanks. I know many will disagree and agree to a waitlist, hoping for that âdreamâ to come true butâŠno thanks.
@eandesmom Thanks so much for clearing that up a bit. I hope thatâs true. We certainly are not at the point where our S19 is competing with friends about colleges. Too early. When the time comes, we will focus on whatâs right for him and not worry about anyone else. Iâll make sure he understands that itâs all about a match between a school and a student - not a competition among his peers.
^^ This.
Also contributing: The incredibly pervasive idea that college education admissions is a zero-sum game.
True. One year Harvard accepted three kids from our school of 130 graduates. Each kid spectacular in their own way but from the same school with similar curricular choices and playing violin. Zero acceptance the following years.
It is true @homerdog .
OMG, I have a psat tale to share but I have to run catch my bus home. Suffice it to say that the whole school is abuzz. And D19 has taken the SAT in 8th, the PSAT 8/9, a practice (proctored) SAT already this year, and just took PSAT two days ago formally at school. Will tell all if I can later. Such a disaster!! Gotta go!
@Gatormama , canât wait to hear what happened.
So the 10th and 11th-graders were all taking the same PSAT, the 11th-graders in one gym, the 10th-graders in a separate gym. Some 11-grader decided he would fill in all the bubbles at the beginning of the first section to spell out SEND NUDES ⊠a current meme, from what D19 tells me. He then TOOK A PHOTO OF IT and posted it online.
Then he erased all the bubble and took the test.
School is trying to decide whether the whole thing has to be thrown out. They had to notify the College Board, etc etc.
@Gatormama Keep us posted . Oh to be that boyâs parents. Ugh. How did they find out?
Holy cats!!! Did it disrupt the actual test or was this all post test?
Those poor parents!!