@vistajay Sorry to hear about your son’s ankle. My son’s high school is remote until 2021, so I guess he’ll take the PSAT then. We snuck in an SAT last week because he needs a score in the system. He’ll use it as a learning tool and hope to improve on whatever score he gets over the next 8-12 months.
D attends a private HS, very academic and competitive. Her counselors discourage anyone from taking SAT/ACT before March. They argue the in class time will help prepare and it reduces anxiety about college admissions. I have to say this approach resonates with me. If she takes a standardized test twice or perhaps three times and doesn’t get a superlative score, then she will cull her school list as appropriate. I am naive to think this???
@songbirdmama Not at all! I think waiting until spring of junior year is pretty typical. We signed S22 up for the SAT following the PSAT just because he had a summer of tutoring and we wanted to take advantage of that.
Turns out that now the SAT is the ONLY test he may take. And that still may get canceled.
S22’s school (public outside Boston) is doing the PSAT on Oct. 17, and a hybrid schedule of partial in-person attendance (2.5 days in, 2 days out) starts Nov. 9. He’s doing OK with the current all-remote classes, though he had to retake a biology quiz because he misread an instruction, and he’s capped at 80% on the retake. Said he would still be on pace for a 96 if he does well on that.
He’s in AP Chemistry and all honors or advanced classes besides that. Hasn’t done any studying for the PSAT yet but will be getting around to it. I have to keep reminding myself that he’s an ordinary excellent student, despite lacking the hypercompetitive fire that’s a common feature here. CC is not the world! 
1 Like
@Vineyarder I loved the term “Ordinary excellent student” With your permission, I think I will have to use that!
@songbirdmama Certainly! Glad you liked it.
Hey everyone!! I finally went back and read all your posts. It’s interesting to see who’s in school , who’s virtual, and who’s taking the PSAT & SAT.
My D22 is still virtual until early November. She’s taking the PSAT on October 14- in school. She took the SAT in 7th and 8th grades, so she knows what to expect. She won’t take that again until spring. And she just turned 16 in July, so she’s on the younger side.
So she started off the school year fine, then missed the whole second week of school as she was in the hospital from a ruptured appendix! Five days in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She had emergency surgery at 2am! What a nightmare. So then the third week of school was spent in her bedroom doing two weeks worth of work! She is all caught up now. But I was glad it was virtual. There was no way she could have gone back to school in person. She’s physically recovered now, too. But, ugh… it was a terrible way to start the year.
She auditioned for her school play and was cast in two parts. That’s virtual as well.
I’m not sure if I wrote this before… this year has been the worst. My mum died in May- cancer. She lived with us for the past seven years. She was diagnosed in March. And less than two months later she was gone. And we couldn’t have a funeral. Then six days later my 28 year old son got married via Zoom! No wedding. 2020 has been a bit of a year!
@sewemma You have had a lot of challenges this year. Hoping the remainder of 2020 is much better for you and your D.
@sewemma , so sorry to hear about your D’s surgery and your mom’s passing. Wishing for all the roubles to stay behind and a nice fall ahead.
@sewemma , glad your D has recovered but what a tough year for y’all! Hoping for a much better 2021.
I checked the status of the Nov. 7 SAT on the College Board website. S22’s test center is closed!
“This test center is closed. All registrations will be canceled and refunded.”
Bummer, no PSAT this month, no SAT next month. If your kid registered for Nov. 7 and want to check the test center status, this is the page on the College Board website:
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/test-center-closings
Note: In his College Board account it still shows the test as happening. That will change soon enough I presume.
@sfSTEM, You can change the testing center up till two weeks before the exam. Right now all the changes are free.
Thanks @SilverGrass. We’d checked around, everything is either canceled or booked in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s nuts. We’ll give it one more sweep. Meanwhile he has a spot for Mar 13, 2021 secured.
@sfSTEM , CB testing centers’ page is updated real time, so check frequently. At times, there will be only one seat available and you can take it. The fact that the center is listed as available, doesn’t mean that it’s not in the “black list”. Double check everything against the cancelation list.
Also, if everything is cancelled around you, consider going a bit further. There is a chance that those centers won’t close in the last minute.
Our older took the SAT in Dec of her junior year for practice and in the spring for real, and that worked out well. We’re doing the same for our current junior if we can. If the Dec one is cancelled, we may just do the single test in the spring. It is nice to take it a second time, and I don’t recommend taking it fall of senior year if you can do it sooner.
But no one really has control over this, and most 2022 kids probably don’t even take it.
My S22 got his SAT scores back from the Aug. 26 test. He is very happy with his reading/writing score - higher than any practice test, but he is not satisfied with his math score (we agree - lower than any practice test). Although it would have been great to be one-and-done, we feel lucky he was able to take a test this Fall and have time to re-take. I feel bad for the many kids where tests continue to be canceled, like @sfSTEM. I agree with @pn24601 that no one has control over the timing at this point. It seems hard to know how much emphasis schools will put on the SAT/ACT a year from now, but I hope schools help facilitate this for students who want to take these tests.
Got his Sep SAT scores back. He did well on verbal, but his math wats 60 points lower than any practice test he did. He’s registered for November too. I think all the schools he might apply to superstore, so one good math section and he can be done. His school s doing the PSAT on Weds, so he’s doing that too.
@sewmama I’m sorry to hear of the rough year. That’s a lot to deal with.
@songbirdmama I had S22 do the summer testing because in 10th grade, he had algebra 2 and AP English Lang. I don’t think anything in 11th grade would have specifically helped him on the test. Plus, he is busy with robotics in the spring along with IB tests, so I felt adding in studying for SAT/ACT would be too much.
S22 has been practicing for the PSAT which is tomorrow. He struggled on the reading section a bit, so has worked on that specifically. He seems to have improved and have a better understanding on how to get the right answer. He seems well prepared for writing and math. We will see! He’s signed up for the Nov SAT as well. He has room to gain on the reading there as well.
Classes are going well. He is in IB Music, which worried me a little. It sounded hard and not like his typical interest. But, he is enjoying it a lot and finds it very interesting. This year there is no written test and he feels that will benefit him overall. IB Chinese is a lot of work and he’s nervous he won’t be fully prepared for the tests in the spring, but he is working hard on it.
And just like that, his Nov SAT was canceled. There are still quite a few local places offering it, so I picked one. Now I have to call for a refund of the late fee though. I’m surprised I couldn’t just move to a new location.
Good luck to all kiddos taking PSAT tomorrow!