A passport isn’t as easy to cart around, for starters.
Also, some systems for our state’s government assume a drivers license (or state identification card) number, and don’t work with other things.
2 Likes
D25 did the pre act as its part of the school day. Not suprised she tanked it again with a 19. Thankful for test optional schools
2 Likes
Our school used to have 9th and 10th graders take it. Now it’s just for juniors. If my S25 he would absolutely tank as well. He’s a test blind/optional student too. So glad there have always been options, and now there are even more. One less thing to worry about.
My S25’s school administered the Pre-ACT as well. Curious to see how he did. He went in without any test prep, not that I even thought you needed any, but many of his peers reported studying for it. Without much data for him yet, I’m hopeful he leans more test optional/blind as well.
D25 took the psat today. It was nice to have a test where there was absolutely no pressure! She hasn’t finished Alg II, so I reminded her ahead of time that there would be things she hadn’t covered on the test and to not worry about it. She said it was a good experience. Hurray!
1 Like
Our school district doesn’t offer the PSAT to 10th graders. I find it really annoying, but S25 doesn’t mind one fewer test in his year.
I let the PSAT go. She had enough going on without another test.
PreACT is April for us. She will be done with precalc by then, so the tentative plan is to take regular the ACT at roughly the same time. Hopefully get a good overall score, but I’m mostly wanting her to bank a math score.
S19 and D21 were both capable of 36s in math, but got 30s because they had a big gap between precalc and taking the ACT. S19 didn’t really put much effort into refreshing his math knowledge. D21 did, but then had 3 tests canceled because of Covid. But the time she finally took it, she had forgotten it again, and had lost interest in test prep understandably.
D25 was supposed to take the PSAT yesterday. The school said the company didn’t send enough test booklets, so sophomores have to take it in February now. 
Sheesh! That sucks. D25 took it yesterday. No prep, the idea being to see what areas she should study for the junior year PSAT and SAT.
1 Like
Oh dear. I’m glad they are at least giving them the option to do it in Feb as opposed to just telling them to just take it next year. (I also didn’t realize there was a Feb date!)
S25 took the PSAT on Wednesday. He got his time and a half accommodation, which meant he was able to finish. Last year he didn’t get extended time on the Pre-ACT, and he scored a lot lower than he did the previous year (on the Pre-ACT 8/9) when extended time was given for qualifying students.
Today is the last day of the first quarter for S25. Time is flying! I hope everyone has a good weekend!
4 Likes
I found out last week my the school has psat scheduled for next week. I found out today that it’s given free to every sophomore in the school and there’s no sign up, it’s mandatory. Juniors can register for it and pay $20 cash to the office if they want to take it. I imagine the only juniors who do are trying for national merit or for practice for high scores. This is NJ so extremely competitive. My D will likely be one and done with the psat and move on from there for future act/sat. It is really nice that I didn’t have to do anything to get her to start this process and the school just took it completely out of my hands lol!
Truly the educational disparities across the country are laid bare by the different PSAT experiences we all have.
2 Likes
Absolutely! I grew up in Portland, Oregon and that was definitely not how it was done but now living in the poorest county in NJ mine and everyone else in my district have so much more opportunity with regard to college prep than I had in the wealthiest county in Oregon. We had free all day preschool with bus service from 3 years old because of the poverty level but now pretty much the entire state has it. My friends back home were stunned about the preschool.
Mine likely will not take the psat. I am planning for her to take the ACT in the summer to get an idea of where she is and what schools to target then she will do serious prep to retake in fall of senior year.
My son is taking the Pre-ACT tomorrow. Took the PSAT last week. Will see which he prefers.
1 Like
He liked the Pre-ACT better. Said it was easy 
2 Likes
PSAT done and according to my D it was the most boring day ever. She was mad one section was 47 questions long lol. She feels she did ok on some things but couldn’t remember how to do some of the math problems or when to use a semi-colon. So looks like she’ll maaaaybe be open to actual test prep for the SAT/ACT in the future. On a side note she couldn’t remember the email I set up for college stuff so she didn’t put down any email address only our home address. I expect to start getting mailers very soon!
You can log onto the College Board website and change it.
2 Likes
Has anyone looked into summer college programs for their 25? D25 has been talking about the idea since she returned from her study abroad program last summer. She loves biology and chemistry and is potentially looking at a premed or science research track in the future. I know that a lot of universities offer summer programming for HS students, but some are pay to play and others more competitive with real research opportunities. Applications seem to open up in Dec-Jan. Does anyone have any experience here? How do we know which are actually worth exploring and which are just over priced summer camps?