<p>Hi all!</p>
<p>Im a sophomore and Im signed up to take the PSAT Oct 16th. Should I put any effort in to study? Will colleges see my PSAT score considering Im just a sophomore? I'm super busy and have no time to study, but should I make time? I plan on studying hardcore from December to May for my SAT. Will getting a bad score on the PSAT hurt me?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>you only really need to study if you want national merit</p>
<p>The Sophomore PSAT is just practice… if you want to study for it, go ahead, I imagine it’d be a pretty good gauge of how you’d perform on the actual SAT at your age, but it’s not going to impact colleges.</p>
<p>Studying in general never really hurts, lol. :)</p>
<p>Since you’re a sophomore, I’d say don’t study for it too much. Just take the test and see what your “cold” score without any prep is. If that score is above, oh, 180 or so, then study super hard for the PSAT junior year (when it really counts) so you can try for National Merit.</p>
<p>Okay thanks guys! Will colleges see my psat score? Im scared that it will be extremely low and turn off good colleges if I have to list it as one of my scores</p>
<p>Your PSAT score, whether taking it as a Freshman, Sophomore, or Junior is never seen by colleges.</p>
<p>Colleges do not see your PSAT score at any point. Just take the test cold this year and don’t worry about it. Study over the summer for next year’s PSAT, that is the one that counts for National Merit.</p>
<p>Other dude wondering the same thing, how correlated is your PSAT score to your SAT scores?</p>
<p>Well, the general rule is to add a 0 on to the end of your PSAT score to get your potential SAT score. (ie a 180 on the PSAT would be an 1800 on the SAT)
I actually did much better on the sophomore PSAT than on the SAT that I took during May of soph year.</p>
<p>What WOULD you study if you want national merit?</p>
<p>It’s basically the only test that would actually get you any money if you do well enough. For one S1 it meant $4k (would have been $8k if we had qualified for financial aid). For S2 it meant $20k. Not bad for a Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone! Im basically taking the psat to prep myself for the real sat im taking this may. I got 1300 on my first ever practice test, so i really need to study hard core.</p>
<p>If you can’t study, if you’re super busy, you should do at least one practice test, to familiarize yourself with the setup and the kind of questions. It’s only a few hours, and it will help on test day if you know what’s going on and you have a sense of how you’ll need to pace yourself.</p>