@inthegarden I totally get where you are coming from, and think it is why we often have parallel conversations going on within the same thread. I have learned a lot from the very high achievers, but when the conversation does not apply to us I just move on. I don’t post very much, but know that parents with kids in similar situations are here and happy to help/discuss where we can. CC is here for you to get what you need, don’t let it stress you out! 
@inthegarden I get it - it is hard to hear people acting like 1300 is such a bad score. (not saying on this thread right now, just on CC in general and even in real life.) D21 has amazing grades but who knows what her tests will bring, she is not a good test taker.
I have to remember to be careful what I say in real life too. Last night D21 had some friends over who I don’t know that well yet. We were talking about colleges and some of them thought a 1250 was an amazing SAT score and said if they got that they wold never take it again. I realized we had talked about my D19 in front of them before who had much higher scores and thought they weren’t good enough. These girls are all so sweet and on such different paths and it can be hard to remember that when I am on here all the time.
Speaking of D21, I have barely seen her in the past week. We had a 5 day weekend last week because of the hurricane (missed us but luckily but was coming right for us and the school is used as a shelter so kids can’t go until it is cleaned up) and she stayed at friend’s houses 4 of those nights! She is missing her sister who use left for college a ton so I know that is one reason she is spending more time with her friends.
I ordered the official SAT and ACT books this week and she looked at them sitting on the counter with dread! I want her to tae a practice test of each and decide which to focus on, her sister did so much better on the ACT that we kind of wasted time with the SAT. She will pick one to start with and probably take the first test in October. Now if I can only get her to stay home for more than a quick shower and bite to eat then we will have time to actually do the practice tests!
Texas Tech would love to have your son @Momof3B.
@inthegarden and @Momof3B I hear you. With my S19, I ended up hanging out more in the 3.0-3.4 thread than the regular thread. Even though he had a high GPA, S19 was in honors/AP humanities and regular track math/science. He took the SAT at the end of junior year and again the August right before starting senior year. He did not crack 1300. He attended a small, Catholic school that only offered a handful of AP options. CC literally had me freaking out.
Well, he just started his freshman year at his top choice of Penn State University Park. As an English major. We are full-pay PA residents who were chasing merit and he got into the other four schools to which he applied, with merit at the private schools. Prestige was not a thing for him.
S21 is literally following in his big brother’s footsteps. Honors/AP humanities and regular math/science. His GPA is actually a bit higher than his brother’s. He took the PSAT10 last year, didn’t crack 1300. He will take the actual SAT sometime in the spring. He does not want to attend Penn State (“way too big and way too in the middle of nowhere”) but he went on all of the visits with S19 and already knows where he wants to apply. His top choice right now is the Jesuit college his dad and I attended which accepted S19 with a really solid merit scholarship.
Don’t let CC freak you out. There are great options out there for all kinds of kids. 
My D21 is in an odd place. She has a 3.9 UW/4/6 W but says she does not want to go to a “smart people” college. She doesn’t have much rigor in her transcript (only 3 APs) and I’m thinking she’ll get in the mid-1300s on the SAT. She said she doesn’t want to go to a college where everyone is really smart and she’ll be the dumb one. But she also has no patience for classmates who aren’t as smart as her. We were at a college fair a couple of months ago and the Northern Arizona rep talked to her about their honors college and she really likes that idea - she can go to a “regular” college but take classes with the smarter kids. So now that’s her top choice, although she really has no idea what she wants to major in. There’s a big college fair in a few weeks so hopefully she’ll get some more ideas there.
Question for those of you whose kids are skipping the PSAT because they know they won’t make NMF - why aren’t they still trying for NMSF? A lot of schools give some really nice aid for NMSF. For example, Washington State gives full tuition.
@BingeWatcher it’s on our list to tour in the Spring! He’s just trying to wrap his head around Lubbuck ?
@Johnny523 my son had no intention of taking the PSAT in October, but since he’s taking a dual credit course this year our school automatically enrolls him in it. I guess we’ll just treat it like a true practice test.
@Johnny523, NMSF is when the kids have the qualifying score for their state…such as NJ is 223, Texas 221, etc. if the kid has score that meets the state cut off, then they make NMSF, to progress to NMF is just paper work, no behavior issues from school and no Cs or maybe one allowed. The heavy work is scoring high enough on the PSAT to make the state cut off.
@inthegarden I get it, too. I found this site by the 3.0-3.4 GPA thread for S17…who was probably more like 2.7. D21 is a much better student, but definitely not a super star. But she’s always been a great test taker. We’re hoping for merit, but not prestige. Right now she’s shooting for a 1300 because that’s the cut off for honors college at one of our state schools.
I don’t have any illusions that my daughter will score the type of number she would need on PSAT to qualify in PA for NMSF.
But I am having her take the test for what I understand was the reason it was really started back in the day and that is as a practice test for the SAT’s.
She takes the PSAT in October and then she can see where she stands. Study up a bit and take her SAT in December.
D21 will take the PSAT. The whole class is required to take it. But I don’t expect miracles as her PSAT10 wasn’t great and she’s chosen the ACT to study for this summer. She will take her first ACT next weekend. She’s already so busy with ECs and homework and up until 11:30 each night doing homework. I’m glad she started studying for the ACT when she had more time this summer. Anyone have any tips as to how to study for standardized tests during the school year? Honestly, she can only find time on weekends and, even then, she’s got a good six hours of homework for Sat/Sun. I would almost rather her try to do 20 min/day on weekdays if she can even though that’s so little. Doing two to three hours on the weekend has also been hard to carve out. How are your kids finding time?
@inthegarden I hear you. For me, I think that the best way to move forward is to celebrate the achievements of our kiddos based on their own goals rather than trying to compare to others. If the kid with the 980 SAT pulls it up to 1100 through hard work that’s worth cheering about! If the kid who prepped gets a lesser score because of a harsh curve, then we commiserate. If people feel more comfortable on one thread or another, that’s fine too. I frequented both with my D17 - hi, @NJWrestlingmom !
I think if people apply the same tact on line that they do in person with parents of classmates, that goes a long way.
I have been on here long enough to learn that 1) CC is skewed towards the high achievers. 2) A B+ kid with 1200+ SAT is considered highly desirable by most colleges and universities in this country. 3) There is merit money for the hard-working B student if you know where to find it. 4) While I admit to a tiny bit of envy for families that can afford full pay, I am profoundly grateful to be able to afford varied options for my kids without taking out loans. 5) Kids are resilient and most end up loving their college experience, regardless of where they land.
I’m also grateful for the fact that when I had the “it’s really time to start prepping for the PSAT” talk, I got zero pushback! This was not due to any magic parenting skills but because older students had advised her to get testing done this fall. I’ll take it! I signed her up and ordered a prep book.
@homerdog We’re going to try to block out times on the weekend and maybe on one afternoon during the week when there are no ECs. Regular time during the school week is highly unlikely.
My older D preferred the ACT over the SAT; my younger is the opposite. She’s going to try the SAT first, based on encouraging PSAT sophomore results.
@homerdog It is tough now that school has started to really get any test prep into the mix. I have not really pushed too hard but when she says things like she doesn’t have homework, or sleeps in until 10:30 on weekends I give her a little reminder that she could be going through all those books I bought her. She was pretty good about doing stuff during the summer so we will see.
Good luck to your D21 on ACT. My D18 did pretty good on SAT and then killed it on ACT. I highly recommend students taking both ACT and SAT first and then circling back for a second test on the test they felt most comfortable taking and scored the best.
I will have D21 take the ACT in early February and then take which ever one she liked better in the spring.
My D will have to work very hard to find the time to really study for SAT. She is an IB student, doing work-study 5hrs/week and has a year-round sport 17-20 hours/week. I do not envy her schedule. We are doing our first college visits over our fall break and I hope that will light a fire under her to buckle down and start chipping away at it. Hearing it from college coaches/admissions will have more impact than hearing it from me! All sophomores and juniors at her school take the PSAT in October, so she’ll get that practice and the result can help focus her studying. She’ll aim to take it in March.
@mamaedefamilia , You said so eloquently my thoughts. Thank you. I feel exactly like you. This forum is for all of us. I hope no one leaves. I personally have learned so much through CC.
yeah. I’m just going to have to convince D that she has to suck it up. She really wants to have one day a week where she can have a day off. Saturday would be that day. She did end up doing about an hour of ACT prep yesterday and another hour of homework but now insists that she will be working most of the day today on homework. She’s out with my husband at our local library and will probably stay for three hours to knock out some work, come home for lunch and then work here. Like a lot of kids, her EC takes her until 6:00 each night and then there’s a shower, dinner and homework starting at 7:00. I really want her in bed by 11:00 if she can do that but our kids get a ton of homework. Even going to bed at 11:00 only gets her seven hours of sleep which isn’t enough! She’s already jealous of S19 whose first class most days is 11:00!
My S21 is pretty reluctant on the test prep. He signed up for the question a day from the Erica Meltzer website. He probably didn’t do it every day for the two or so months leading up to the SAT last spring, but said he did it a fair bit until it started feeling redundant. English was by far his weaker area on the PSAT in 10th grade and he bumped up 90 points between that test in October and the actual SAT in March.
@homerdog - for studying; at this point, I think it’s just going to be full tests (plus review of wrong answers) from here on out until my daughters ACT (not until October). Couple reasons:
(1) seems almost easier to just find 3 hours on a Sat or Sun, than find 20 minutes a day; and
(2) full tests are more realistic for her score expectations.
In summer, my daughter took a full practice test - then did the Princeton Review ACT book. After each full section of the book (ie Science), she’d take a section test. Her score jumped way up when you looked at her new section scores, but then when she took the next full test, her score was up from the first practice test, but down from her highest section scores. I think it’s because her brain is understandably sharper when she just takes a 35 minute section, rather than taking that same section after two hours of other sections.
She’s probably almost as good as she’s going to get content wise, but now she needs to try to train her brain to be as sharp as it can be 3 hours, not just 30-60 minutes at a time. At the same time, she needs to be realistic that her score will likely be lower on a full test than what she can score on one section at a time.
@3kids2dogs I agree about the full tests. D21 has done all four in the official ACT red book and I have the older Real ACT book so she’s been doing sections of those and checking answers. Her science score went way up after studying too but took a full practice test last weekend and it wasn’t as great. Of course it’s because they are tired at the end. Practicing full tests is the best way to study. I just (1) need to find more tests and (2) need to convince her to do them. Three hours is a big chunk of time when they kids have weekend homework too. I did find more recent actual tests on reddit. Anyone using those? I wonder about Princeton Review or Ivy Wise or other companies and I’m curious which of these other companies’ tests are closest to the real thing. What have you guys noticed?
@homerdog I don’t know anything about the ACT, D has never even seen it, but yes to the Reddit SATs, I printed every single SAT no matter what poor condition it was in and PsAT from students submitting their QAS on Reddit. Test Fatigue REAL. That is why I like the REAL official SATs used as a practice test, to keep the test fatigue in check. D would hate 20 mins here and there of test prep. She likes to dive deep with a 4-5 hour section once a week (now that school is in session) then 20 mins a day.