PSAT scores came in this week…both Thing 1 & Thing 2 got an 1180…not where
we need them to be but at least now we have a benchmark to go off of. They both start at our local test prep center in January, time to roll up sleeves.
This year, the drum majors in marching band rolled out “Peer Awards”…and of course I found out about it on Instagram from another band mom, my kids never tell me anything! Thing 1 got the following awards: Band Member of The Year (Male), Sophomore of The Year and Mellophone of The Year. Thing 2 got Euphonium of The Year. My S21 got Funniest Band Student lol.
Nice to see some silliness and fun for these kids, it’s been a tough year.
momof3b; question for you (and others). I was googling about PSAT scores. my D23s was underwhelming . . . was hoping it’d be higher. One site I found talked about studying for the PSAT is a waste of effort if the kid is not close to the cutoff to begin with. This site just recommended going all out and studying for SAT and ACT. and also mentioned SAT is harder than the PSAT.
I’ve been thinking about this, and wondering if it even is worth pursuing. my daughter’s index is 25 points from NM; which seems like a large range to make up. any tidbits of knowledge on going for PSAT? and is that what your boys will study for? or just the regular SAT/ACT?
(and I want to add; my oldest played baritone in jr high; and once told his teacher that “his fingers were better than his lips!” still makes me smile/cringe!)
I think you are saying your D23’s PSAT score had an index of just below 200? My D23 didn’t get to take the PSAT yet this year (called off due to tropical storm and rescheduled for Jan). Based on last year’s score, I’m expecting she’ll get a little over the 200 mark this year if she grew a little from last year (but who knows? Her verbal was pretty good last year and may even go down this year)?, but when she studies, she’ll be studying for the SAT, and whatever of that studying translates to her PSAT score, so be it. She won’t study specifically for the PSAT.
The way I see it, you wouldn’t really need to study for the two tests much differently since they cover a lot of the same content and in the same format, so studying for the SAT should help with the PSAT, too. For my kid, even if she gets NM, it won’t likely translate to a lot of scholarship money for her based on the schools she’s interested in (but that could be a very different situation for your D which could change your strategy).
The main thing that would be different in studying for the PSAT would likely be in taking a practice test (the PSAT is shorter, so if you did a timed practice PSAT before the real PSAT, you’d go in having a sense of how many questions and the amount of time you’ll need to endure, etc.) Therefore my plan is for my D to study for the SAT (probably mostly this coming summer) but to do a practice PSAT a week or two before the actual PSAT just to go in with a good sense for the timing.
Also, the PSAT is a one-shot thing, and there have been many kids who did great on the SAT but just had a bad day that one PSAT day and missed NM by a little bit, so for us, it’s not something we’re going to focus on a lot - a lot of pressure for that one sitting. For the SAT, hopefully your D could get more than one attempt (though our S21 only got one in the Fall of his junior year due to COVID, but we’re hoping it will be different for D23)!
Not sure how much this helps - I realize my answer has a lot of “it depends” in it since the right answer will vary by family/kid.
What is considered to be good for a sophomore? DS got his last week too, and got a 1280 (up 40 pts from last year). We are looking into having him take the actual SAT and ACT in June to get an idea of : 1) where he’s at, 2) what he could work on and 3) which test he does better on. I have a line with an affordable ACT prep instructor (The Goal Digger, Jen Henson), and she says that he does NOT have to take the PSAT his junior year if he doesn’t have a shot at National Merit. She thinks it’s a waste of time unless your child is gifted (her words were “unless he is top 1%, which is SOOOOO gifted beyond gifted”). I’m sure he will take it along with his peers. Anyway, only 8-9 months before they start their junior year - and then we go on the roller coaster!
The test prep center we are using sent out this link:
I don’t think my twins will reach NMF at all, but our school pays for all Sophomores and Juniors to take the PSAT so they’ll take it in 11th regardless. They seem to do better on ACT practice tests so I think that will be the one we concentrate on.
Hello everyone! Still plugging away with remote learning in our district. This quarter, S23 took IB Elementary Functions, PIB Lang Arts, APUSH, and choir. APUSH and LA challenged him in a good way and, after a rough start, he should finish with As in both classes. Next quarter will be Calc 1, PIB Spanish 3, choir, and catering. He is looking forward catering class and learning how to cook.
Some exciting news is that he was selected for city youth council which aligns nicely with his interest in politics. As far as his other extracurriculars, the only club that regularly meets is web design team. The start of swim season got pushed back until May but I’m hopeful the kids will have a season.
I have no wisdom to offer about the PSAT except to say with prep your child’s score should increase. D19’s score increased 100 points from sophomore to junior year with minimal prep.
S23 will take the school administered PSAT in April. I have no doubt it will be offered as the PSAT/NMSQT was administered in October despite the pandemic. I have also signed him up for the May SAT but may push the date to the summer depending upon his PSAT score. He has started self-studying for the SAT which should help his performance on both exams.
Has anyone started to plan for the summer? S23 has priority for USNA Summer STEM, since he was selected last year and the program was cancelled, but we haven’t decided if he will reapply this year. Williams Math Camp is also an option if it is offered in person; I could really use a week in the Berkshires this summer.
Hope everyone is safe and healthy. Cheers to a better year ahead!
Our summer will consist of weightlifting for football. Not sure if S23 will take a summer class. He will likely still have his job as well.
I have a D25 that will be taking gym and health this summer (the summer before freshman year) to free up her school year schedule.
S23 is slowly digging himself out of the hole of cruddy grades (like a F and a C). We talked and he’s trying to put some effort into precalc now as I told him regardless of his dislike for the teacher (I don’t like the teacher either), it isn’t worth tanking his GPA over.
We’ve started talking about junior year classes. Not sure if he will retake precalc (he will likely end up with a C) or move on to physics or stats. He already has the math credits to graduate and he’s decided he doesn’t want to do engineering. I’m trying to encourage an AP class or two. Hes going to be my solid B student I guess. We weren’t aiming for top colleges anyway.
Musical rehearsals have started. It appears the plan is to videotape in March then send the link out to view for those who purchase “tickets”. A bit sad as I do love watching them perform live. The music department trip to perform at Disney was canceled of course, I feel for the seniors who have been looking forward to it for 2 years. Darn pandemic.
No plans for summer yet. We’ll start looking into summer programs in January/February, a lot will depend on which college S21 decides on and what his orientation/move in dates are.
Fall semester ended and both Thing 1 and Thing 2 ended with straight A’s. Class rank will be released when we go back to school in Jan. Our district uses weighted GPA to calculate class rank…these two imps of mine are already sparring over who will have the higher class rank
Nothing else much to report…2 days i to winter break and they’re already bored. Thing 1 at least has his job at McD’s, Thing 2 is working on 2 Lego sets lol…The White House & The US Capitol Building…my little politico!
Hi everyone. I’m new to these forums. I didn’t even know they existed until this week when someone told me about them. I’m glad I found them.
My son is a sophomore in an all-boys Catholic high school. He has ADHD and has okay grades. Last year, he finished 9th grade with a 3.3 UW and 3.6 W GPA. Math is his weakness (mine too). This year, he is struggling with math and chemistry so I found him online tutors that were reasonably priced. One upside to online learning is that I would’ve never considered tutoring online until now. Two online tutors are the same price as his in-person math tutor last year.
His school is doing a hybrid schedule and he attended school twice a week this fall. Now he is all online until mid-January or later depending on numbers. School online doesn’t bother him. His teachers teach from the classroom and teach concurrently so he is receiving the same instruction. His issue is keeping all of the balls in the air at the same time.
The only test scores he has were from October of his freshman year when he took the PSAT for 9th graders. Not a great score of 990 but his verbal score was around the 90th percentile. Math, not so good. He also took the pre-ACT in October but hasn’t gotten those scores yet.
S23’s performance dipped spring semester of freshman year when the school went virtual.
For this year, the school offered a choice of online and in-person classes. About 90% of parents/students chose in-person including us. He did better this past semester but not to the same level as that of his first semester freshman year.
He’s definitely not like his older sisters who had the internal motivation to do well in classes. S23 says getting a “B” is ok. I have no problem with that assertion. His sisters (D16 & D19) got upset when they got an A- on anything, so we’re coming at this from a different perspective.
S23 is different and our expectations have adjusted likewise. So long as we continue to set the conditions for him to be happy at what he wants to do and thus be successful, then it’ll turn out fine.
He’s busy for his 2 weeks of winter break with volunteering at a food pantry with his sisters.
My son is the same way. I always wanted to get an A if I was capable of it but he doesn’t understand getting bent out of shape about getting a B. My brother was the same way.
My son is taking his driver’s ed classes online over winter break. He won’t be 16 until the spring but since he has 2 weeks off, I thought it would be a good time to do it.
Welcome, @MDMom2023! As a born and raised Marylander (who now lives thousands of miles away) and an alum of College Park, I heartily approve of your avatar.
I was an academic underachiever in high school and my first year or so of college, too!), and my D19 didn’t have worldbeating stats her first year of high school, and now we’re respectively a full professor and a sophomore engineering major, so don’t give up! Early struggles do not, despite what some parts of popular culture might claim, portend negative outcomes.
His math-verbal split in the PSAT9 is an interesting one. I’ve spent my career in English departments (though my degrees are in linguistics), and some of those sorts of students are the best at the kind of close reading and reasoning I’ve seen in English majors, as well as in fields like philosophy and religious studies and the languages, as well as some aspects of fields like criminal justice and anthropology. So I don’t know what his interests are, but there are lots of options out there for someone with those sort of lean.
(There are often companion threads to the “Parents of the Class of 20xx” threads designed specifically for parents of kids in the 3.0–3.4 range, but with the recent downturn in traffic here, this thread is a small enough community that who knows? We may be able to embrace the academic diversity in our kids all together.)
My son is perfectly content with doing just enough work to get a B. Precalc is a struggle and he may consider retaking it next year to hopefully get a higher grade. I could see him ending up with a GPA in the low to mid 3s. He is all over the map with interests and I know he will land in his feet. I’m just concerned about the finances and him accepting where the money works out. With colleges struggling with budgets, his lower grades means even less Tuition Exchange or Fachex options.
Thanks! A high school friend of mine who lives in CA just got a giant box of UTZ crab flavored potato chips mailed to her as a gift. She was as happy as a clam.
Yes, my son has always scored high on the verbal section of standardized tests. I’m an English teacher so that makes me happy. He used to read a lot but now like many boys, he loves gaming. Right now, it’s the only interaction he has with his friends but he no longer reads for fun. Maybe that should be his New Year’s resolution.
He likes computers. He is on his school’s cybersecurity team. He doesn’t have the math ability for computer science but maybe something else like IT.
He used to read a lot but now like many boys, he loves gaming. Right now, it’s the only interaction he has with his friends but he no longer reads for fun. Maybe that should be his New Year’s resolution.