PSAT Scores

After tomorrow, all 10th and 11th grade students will have received their October 2012 PSAT scores. I spent time presenting to the 10th grade students in small groups and the 11th grade in a grade-wide assembly to make sure that the score report is as transparent as possible. Here are the key things to remember:

-- The PSAT is a normed test not a "percent right" test - so the scores are distributed among test takers with very few people scoring at the lowest and highest possible scores and most of the people scoring the middle. This means that often times the more meaningful thing to pay attention to is not the actual score, but the percentile. For example, a 60 out of 80 (the high score on each section is 80) sounds like you missed 20 points. But a 60 may represent the 88th percentile for that section, an indication that you actually did pretty well compared to your peers (since only 12% of them did better than you).

-- PSAT scores are correlated to real SAT scores (meaning you can usually predict your range of performance on the real thing based on the PSAT) but they are not perfect. You can definitely end up with a different final score on the real exam. At ElRo, our average PSAT score for juniors most years is a 164 (or about a 1640 on the real SAT) but our average SAT score is about an 1800 - an improvement of about 150 points.

-- Some people are ACT people. Don't fight it. If you are better on the ACT, take that test for submission to colleges.

-- Some people are not testing people. Again, don't fight it. Find some testing optional schools that you are interested in, honor your strengths and find colleges that will too.

-- No one sees your PSAT score besides you, your parents, and me. Colleges don't see it and it won't play a role in your college application.

Want more information about Standardized Testing? Join me for 'Demystifying Standardized Tests' an information session for students and families on Wednesday, January 9 at 5 pm in the auditorium.

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