We haven’t been attuned to the PSAT at all. Guessing S22 should take it in a couple of weeks, eh? Or is waiting for junior year generally OK? He took the SSAT last year when we were thinking about continuing with private education, but we ended up going with a good public high school. So he’s had some standardized-test practice. Don’t want him to stress out but also want him not to fall behind.
S22 also takes the PSAT, on October 16, 2019, which is called “National Testing Day”. No prep for it this time, let’s see how he does. Guessing math will be strong, verbal will be relatively low. Good feedback to get him reading more!
D22 will also sit for the PSAT in Oct. Her school provides free PSAT testing for all 9-11 students.
And, on another note, she started driving to school last week…wow
My S22 will take the PSAT, also no prep this time, so no stress. This approach worked well for our S19 who ended up National Merit Finalist, so we’ll see how it goes. Our school doesn’t advertise to any students except juniors (and it’s optional), and they don’t explain the link between PSAT and National Merit. It makes me a bit sad that many kids and families miss out.
I asked S22 if he knew the PSAT test date was coming in a couple of weeks, and if anyone he knew was taking it, and the answers were no to both. Since it’s essentially like a practice test for 10th-graders, he can just take a practice test or two another time. Back-to-school night is coming Thursday, so maybe I’ll see if any teachers or administrators have thoughts on it then.
My son is also taking the PSAT on Oct 16. It’s standard at our school, all 10th graders do it (even my S21 last year who isn’t planning on going to college). He’s doing no prep, I think that’s the easiest way to see our starting point and then we’ll go from there. We can see how close he is to score cutoffs for NMF levels and we’ll know whether to he should take it again as a junior.
Question: are most parents in your area going to pay for a private admission counselor? Is this just a coastal cities thing? It seems like most people just look a local referral, but how do you know if they are any good (actually have insight better than what is on the CC forum)?
Almost no one gets a private admissions counselor where we live.
Ran into S22’s counselor at back-to-school night yesterday and she said he should definitely take the PSAT this year, so I’m signing him up. He’s fine with it. I think he might look at a practice test to familiarize himself, but he won’t do any real preparation.
We have no plans at all to get a private admission counselor. Our D19 did fine without one, coming from an international school in Switzerland, and I’m sure our son’s school college counselors will be just fine here in the States.
No plans for a private admission counselor, but we know that D22’s high school counselor will only be of minimal help due to the sheer number of students that each one supports. Hopefully what we learned with test-kid (S16) will get us through this.
S22 is also taking the PSAT at school on 10/16. Anyone know when we will get the results from the test?
Just looked it up. It said December 11-13 depending on where you live.
My plan was for S22 to take the PSAT next month, but it’s on a Saturday and he has a band competition that day. So, he will not be taking it. He does take the PSAT 10 in the spring and we will use that to figure out a plan for studying for next October’s PSAT.
School’s going well so far. He says AP World is less homework than AP US History was, but the quizzes are harder so far. I think he’ll be glad to be done with AP history classes.
@Rivet2000 I’m approaching it the same. Not expecting any great reliance on the high school college counselor. My wife and I will be guiding our son on the college selection and application process. Although it will be the our first time doing this.
What is a benefit of taking PSAT in the Fall vs PSAT 10 in the Spring? Apparently our school doesn’t offer the Fall test but will have the Spring one. Wonder if we need to look for alternative locations for D22 for the Oct 16th PSAT.
PSAT day! Good luck to all your kids!
Yes, PSAT day. No major prep for S22, but he did do some practice exercises that Quizlet offered over the weekend. I wanted him to have passing familiarity with the test content. The tools kids have these days versus what we used to have (1980’s for me).
@sfSTEM , same here. Minimal prep. But now he can identify areas of weakness and see what he needs to work on. The test today was harder than my often arrogant young son anticipated, at least in some of the math (he will suffer nightmares about Texas windmills). Which is good, because now I will be able to get him to take that prep class next summer.
PSAT went well as he had plenty of time to finish. 
He did no prep, other than taking the PSAT 8/9 last October in 9th grade. 
He thought the questions were straightforward, except for three math questions towards the end. He did some winnowing down of options and then selecting the best remaining answer for those three.
Thanks to @Lovetogolf for providing the “so when will we hear?” answer.
Mine felt like he did well. He said he thought the math was pretty easy. We’ll have to see how he did. He’s a naturally strong test taker generally. He did no prep besides looking at a couple online tips for the PSAT last night.