My kids have all had to take PSAT in 8th grade for application to an out of district high school. We don’t test in 9th grade but do test Spring of 10th grade and Fall of 11th grade. Somes schools require that you send in all test scores taken in high school so we’d rather not have a 9th grade score in there.
One caution. Some schools require submission of all test scores. Those 9th grade scores might not be scores you want to send.
My kids do test prep with prep books. We don’t want to give CB or ACT any more money than we have to. I am not a testing fan. My current sr only took it once after CTY testing in middle school (in 11th grade) and that is it for her. We have better things to do on Saturdays.
S16 took the ACT in 7th for talent search and the PSAT in 10th. He knew after tenth that he would concentrate on the SAT because he liked it better. Unless you are doing it for some kind of talent program, I think a 9th grade PSAT is overkill.
QOTD: Do you notice that the most acceptable form of discussion amongst teenage girls seems to be complaining\ranting? When my DD is with her “smart” friends (HS group labels, not mine) in small groups of 2-3 they do sometimes talk about other things but whenever a large group is together of her peers whether they be “smart”, “sporty”, “musical”, or a mix it seems to be a constant “I have it worse, than you” contest–especially if the ages of the girls are varied. I find it very hard to listen to. It seems to be the result of never wanting to be perceived as arrogant. Boys will join in if the girls are already having the conversation but it does not seem to be their main conversation when girls are not present. Am I just hearing instead of seeing the recent Girls Life and Boys Life magazine covers?
Not amg my teenage girls and their friends.
re QOTD: My D20 has a mix of freshman friends that are girls and boys, and her friend groups are mainly from band and drama club. I haven’t really noticed any “I have it worse than you” conversations, but I have noticed that the girls seem a little bit more overwhelmed with the newness of high school than the boys. D’s female friends do talk about the huge amounts of time they are spending on homework/activities compared to each other, but I think they are just doing it for commiseration more than anything else.
Since we homeschooled until 8th grade, my children had never taken standardized testing until oldest took explore test (baby ACT, per my understanding) last year. Lack of standardized test taking didn’t seem to hurt oldest. I don’t see any reason to sit either the ACT or PSAT until necessary in junior/senior year. We did have oldest take a practice explore test before taking the exam, but that just seemed like good practice.
re: QOTD, I haven’t noticed a lot of ranting amongst oldest and friends. Not sure if it is because oldest has a very mixed sex group of friends or what the reason is for that. I have noticed that anytime a gaggle of parents comes together (single sex or mixed) - we all ‘rant’ about how different the system seems to be from when we were young…but I can’t tell if that’s because we are all just getting to the, “Get off my lawn!” stage of life.
Edited: to remove explore scores. seemed silly to post after some thought
<:-P
@bgbg4us, D’20 will be taking the PSAT this Oct. Good for a baseline score. S took the PSAT and the SAT and felt the PSAT was more challenging. He is a natural test taker and did well. D2, otoh, benefited from a tutor. She took the PSAT in 10th grade. She did best in the ACT.
@beebee3 - thanks for reminding me about that explore test. I’m going to see if S20s school offers that.
I have been wondering at what temp xc practice moves form afternoons to morning before school.
Apparently 107 is that point!
Yes the schools here just went to minimum day. I am also in So Cal. Sadly, for my homeschooler, he didn’t get the day off 
Sorry for veering off-topic - is anyone’s kid considering self-studying for AP Human Geography this year? I told my daughter the course load is only going to get harder in the upcoming years, so if she wants to do it, she might as well do it this year. Do you agree? Also, I found some recommendations for textbooks and materials in this thread - any other suggestions?
No day off except xc and they practiced before school so really no day off at all.
Self study hug. The kid is in it, so will not self study, obviously. I would ask what the aim is? If for credit, d17 is finding that with European, and US she is fulfilling all social studies requirements at most schools that take AP credits. HUG is not adding much.
The primary benefit she got out of it was writing practice and good discussions in class where she learned a lot of oral debating skills.
Agree with @VickiSoCal the actual AP credit might not be of much value. DS is taking the class because it’s weighted and yeah we’re in Texas so he needs it for rank but I don’t think the the actual AP credit will help him much in college.
At our school most honors students take HUG/Euro/USH/Gov and maybe Econ Micro/Macro. That’s just way more AP social studies than most colleges are going to give you credit for.
@typiCAmom as you can see, I posted in that thread! LOL. Homeschoolers, in a way, are always self studying. I don’t know if we will make the AP test, but I am following one of the AP guides as my own teaching guide. Our public independent study homeschool is giving basic geography credit but I am using the fact that we are upping the level of material to a higher level (which will be indicated by the school and my son when he discusses it in the common app other info section.). He won’t get any kind of special GPA bump, but we are showing that he is not taking an easy road by using an AP course outline rather than a general geography course.
Of course he is using the information he is learning in a totally project based learning way. He created an alternate universe to explore the concepts, rather than just reading a text, but that is just us…
@LKnomad D17’s IB econ class creates a model economy of middle earth!
@VickiSoCal & @3scoutsmom, I don’t think my daughter would use the credits, either - she too plans to take APUSH and AP Euro. but she hopes it might help her stand out a bit in her application by showing initiative - though I know a lot of kids self-study for AP’s. I don’t know how much her World History class will differ from Human Geography textbook + exam prep, ideally they’ll go hand-in-hand. @LKnomad, I saw your post, too, thanks for your input!
For S16 APWH was by far one if the most work intensive classes out of all the APs. The Nightly reading took significant time and every day they were quized on the content (bock schedule so every other day). From what I understand APHG and APWH have very different in work load. It seems many schools start kids with APHG to get their feet wet, and then hit them over the head with an APWH book.
@LKnomad, frankly, I wasn’t even aware of APWH exam at all. At our school it is a regular class, and essentially a three-quarter course. The first quarter is a mandatory Life Skills - an equivalent of Health Education course. So I doubt our WH class would prepare kids enough for an AP. And since the amount of free time left to devote to things outside of school is always limited, it’s hard to justify spending more of it on an AP class that likely won’t give any more college credit than an easier class (HG). I’d still love for my daughter to read more on Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and especially Russian history, but maybe without stressing her out too much for the AP.