In my experience, most sophomores who take the test end up taking it again. There is a good reason why the PSAT in fall of Junior year is used for National Merit consideration.
Your son’s app will be assessed by the parameters set by his high school, not by comparing him to students at an entirely different school.
Again - he was junior standing.
I get it. Of course with TO he could have applied to any regardless.
For you it worked. And he took and then didn’t think about it.
OP took during first year and wants to practice. That’s very different. That’s why it’s too early.
That’s great because there is no way I could help him recreate the private school experience and reading the comments no reason to. We’ll focus on time management and his music. A lot of his peers took geometry before highschool and I had no idea that was a thing so we’ll also work on getting algebra done so he’s in the same classes as his friends in sophomore year.
I really appreciate all the advice everyone has shared. Going to college has changed a lot since I applied back in the 90s and it’s good to hear from other people who have dealt with it.
Agree, but wanted to keep it generic rather than commenting on OPs specific score.
Ok, so I actually did have my DS take the SAT for the first time in March of his sophomore year for several reasons. He did not have experience with rigorous standardized testing (went to private school for elementary and part of middle), so I thought taking it early would give him a chance to get used to the test before it ‘counted’. I would recommend waiting until your child is in trigonometry/precalc no matter the age. He did only a little prep and mostly got familiar with the format of the test and what to expect on test day. I found that this helped his anxiety when he took it a year later in his junior year. If your kid has taken regular state testing in public school, this is probably not so important.
My kid took three practice tests in the four weeks before his first test and his score was all over the place. Some were lower and some were higher than on the real test day. Taking the real test is under normal conditions is not the same as a practice test. We spent those few works working on his anxiety so he could show what he knew on test day.
I also didn’t trust this whole test-optional experiment and was worried about the pandemic continuing to close testing centers, impeding his ability to take it as a junior. Indeed, testing centers that year (2021-2022) were closed intermittently. I’m not aware of any closing this year near me.
If you don’t have to, I would recommend waiting until fall of Junior year at the earliest, and that is assuming that your student has already taken trig/precalc. If they are in that class as a junior, wait until the March test day.
This!
The PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, and PSAT/NMSQT are ideal for this. 10th grade SAT scores remain on a students’s record and will be viewed by the few schools that require all scores to be submitted.
PSAT before junior year is not universally available. Our school only offers the PSAT to juniors. So kids have just one chance to take it. And they do not even have enough capacity for all juniors at the school.
That was our experience. I spent hours calling around to other schools that were in-person asking if I could pay for a spot for my child to take the PSAT and they all said no. This was in 2021-2022 when testing was more restricted due to pandemic capacity limitations. I don’t know what it is like outside of that as DS24 is my oldest child.