<p>suzy100: Whoa! Yikes! Ouch! I’ve been pushing D to do PSAT prep before she gets snowed under with schoolwork (her 1st full day of school is on Monday) and she’s been resistant. Her last practice test (a month ago) was 4 points lower than our state’s lowest score in recent years. </p>
<p>She asked me last night “Will you be mad at me if I don’t make NMSF?” I’ve been telling her that she’s within striking distance, she still has time, and that it’s worth the effort. I tried to reassure her that I won’t be mad if I see that she’s tried her hardest with the review, that anyone can have a bad test day, but I couldn’t hold back from saying that I would be mad if I saw her just doing her nails and playing games on her phone all the time instead of studying. I don’t want to pressure her and maybe I should have bitten my tongue but I hate to see her maybe losing out on a possible opportunity. It feels like one of those “damned-if-you-do/damned if you don’t” parenting moments.</p>
<p>It’s very hard to decide how hard to push when you know that your kid is within striking distance of NMSF. My older one wasn’t, so I used the PSAT purely for practice and did not make it an issue. This one can, but yet I did not want to put too much pressure on her during the summer because she needed a break and is already hard on herself. She took two practice tests and got through one vocabulary book, but that’s about it. She will study on the weekends, start some tutoring, and do her best. I doubt she will get much SAT work done during the week once school begins- it will be weekends only. I have this vision of her never leaving the kitchen table!</p>
<p>Of course! One year D and I made our own covers out of old gift bags, dog food bags, etc. That was fun. This year at our local thrift shop there was an entire bag of those stretchy covers for $1 so she is using those. Not the same though, for sure!</p>
<p>Please make your high achieving students aware that if they don’t qualify for NMSF it is not the end of the world. D1 was disappointed she didn’t qualify. As I said before she would have qualified with her sophomore year score, but her scored went down her Junior year. </p>
<p>Roll on to her college applications and her SAT and ACT score were in the range to put her in the running for merit scholarships. She had considerable $'s offered in merit money from 4 schools. She has long forgotten the disappointment over NMSF.</p>
<p>^ I agree Sally, and I don’t put pressure on her at all. It’s very very hard to be a NMSF- if it happens that’s great, and if not we will be just fine without it.</p>
<p>Thanks Sally22 and twogirls for the reality check. No, it’s not the end of the world at all if she ends up going to one of our state schools. My frustration is that she herself wants a bigger name than those schools so I’m not sure why she’s not studying more. Of course, there’s still time for her to do well on the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>“Bigger names” don’t care about NMSF status AT ALL, and they won’t pay for it. NM is a directionally accurate but deeply flawed program based on one test on one day. If your kid does well on it, that opens up some financial safeties and, perhaps, a modest scholarship from your employer. If not, march on to the SAT and remember that there are way more kids – even at the “lottery” schools – who aren’t NMSF than who are. That one day in October doesn’t define your child’s college profile.</p>
<p>@Crepes, do we have the same kid or what?! OMG I feel EXACTLY the same as you. Like you said, I won’t get mad if my S doesn’t get NMSF, but I will be mad if he spends too much time watching YouTube! Same with school choices. Nothing wrong with state school ( I am a proud Longhorn), but he wants fancy school and yet don’t show motivation to work for it. Oh, ACT is coming up in 3 weeks…talking about parental anxiety!</p>
<p>SameOld is right about NMF. My daughter also wants a big ( or bigger) name school rather than our state school, but I am hoping that her GPA and test scores ( not PSAT) get her there. She works very hard all year to maintain her GPA, and I have no doubt that she will study for her SAT/ACT as much as she possibly can once school starts and reality hits. She knows that if some money is not thrown her way, she will most likely be going to our state school. I think the reason I have not really pushed more PSAT studying is because there are really not many schools on her radar that would give her money for it. The only school that comes to mind is Northeastern and she crossed that one off her list after visiting last March. This summer she did some studying but she really really needed a break so I tried not to push her much.</p>
<p>I am more concerned about Sept ACT than PSAT at the moment. This is D’s first ACT so not sure how well she will do but we are going to give it a shot… Her practice test scores are flatlined at this point so I don’t except last minute improvements before the test. </p>
<p>A lot of nervous parents/kids on NMSF thread. It looks like scores are showing upward trend this year. Hope this means next year’s cutoff will be lower… </p>
<p>Week 2 of school this week. Got the courses she sgined up for and she thinks her teachers are all pretty good. She had a few late nights already… It’s going to be a tough year.</p>
<p>FromMD, Best of luck to your D! My D has never even thought about ACT, even though her school counselor has once suggested that she might give it a try. We haven’t even looked at an ACT test.
My D did a sample test. (FromMD - we got it following your suggestions. Thanks again!) She did okay. If she does this well in the real test, she’ll have a shot. Otherwise, it’s still okay, not the end of the world as we know it. :)</p>
<p>Do you all find it’s getting hard to study for SAT, etc. now that school started? Homework already gets serious. But of course, school work help them get ready. D. has 40 vocabs to study. Out of these 40, 30 are self chosen. The teacher gave them ten. D. chose words that she is not very good at from a SAT prep book.</p>
<p>@Max - At some point, you may want to give it a try with ACT. Some kids are better at “knowledge” based test (ACT) than an apitute test (SAT). It’s always helpful to know your kid’s (test) type as far as ACT/SAT is concern, IMHO. </p>
<p>@H&HMom - the lack of studying time is exactly the reason we decided to go with Sept test. We considered later dates but we didn’t think D will have time to study once the school work picks up. At least with September test, she was able to do some test prep over the summer.</p>
<p>FromMD, Thanks for the idea. Honestly, I know nothing about ACT myself. have to take a look at it. So people study for ACT like they study for the SAT? I know it’s a stupid question.
But your D. will also need to take the SAT too if she has hope for NMF, right?</p>
<p>Yes Max. Kids prep for ACT like they prep for SAT… I read it somewhere that if you have “goes by the book” kid, then go with ACT… If you have “reads between the line” kid, go with SAT. </p>
<p>“IF” she makes the cut, she will have to take SAT at some point. The validation score for NMSF to NMF is around 2000 (1960?) so she should be ok.</p>
<p>I agree that the PSAT is not a make or break it test, but it may provide some options for my D that she might otherwise not consider - including Northeastern, Fordham and yes, Alabama. She has been prepping for the SAT and the PSAT prep that comes with it is just a bonus for her. (And honestly her prep has not been extensive - she is not inclined to spend much time on these tests.) She has also begun prepping for the ACT. I am really hoping we can be one and done for those tests and have everything (except SAT subject tests) over in October. </p>
<p>School is in full swing and she is getting crushed in her AP English class which is typically one of her best classes. She says that everyone’s grades are terrible. I’m not sure how much of that is true - I will assume it is. If so, that’s frustrating.</p>
<p>If your kid leans toward math, it is likely the ACT will prove easier. It has a ‘science’ section, but you don’t need to know any science to do well. What you do need is ability to read unusually constructed graphs and charts. You don’t have to read the long science passages at all in most cases, just look at the questions then try to understand the graphs to answer them. </p>
<p>I just went through this with my D13, who was very self-motivated to master these tests. With the ACT, time management is essential. You race through the questions to get done, but there aren’t any tricky ones. With ACT, practice helps a lot, since you can build speed that way, and one can figure out strategies to ‘beat the test.’ The nature of the reading/writing questions is in general much easier than SAT, and vocab deficiencies won’t drag your score down.</p>
<p>For my S15, I’m thinking based on sample tests and other work he did in a summer prep class, that unless he has a good day on PSAT Saturday, then he can just stick with the ACT, to which he seems suited. I don’t see that SAT CR yielding much. Though he aces the math sections, not a very balanced kid.</p>
<p>Darn, it’s too bad, but have to be realistic about it. My D is at one of the big NMF scholarship schools, which hugely eases our finances. Son does not seem to be interested in any of those schools, but even our local state school,UW-Madison, has a one-time $7,000 scholarship for in-state NMF freshmen.</p>
<p>The PSAT is definitely not a make-it-or-break-it test but Sally, I have to admit that making the cut off as a sophomore and not making it as a junior would have been frustrating, at least at first. I can so easily see that happening…</p>
<p>I can’t speak for many or even most schools but I looked up USC, which offers 1/2 tuition scholarships to those who make NMSF and list USC as their top choice school. Given the ever increasing prep for the PSAT and increasing numbers of NMSF applicants to the school, I’m kind of surprised that this grant is still intact. (Of course not every NMSF applicant is admitted.) It seems that they also offer this scholarship to 200 applicants who score highly on the SAT and their most generous full tuition scholarship is awarded based on factors that don’t include the PSAT. I think it’s pretty similar to other merit scholarship schools: a high SAT and compelling resume has the same effect as NMSF for merit aid purposes and takes you a lot farther in all other respects.</p>
<p>Good luck to all taking the ACT this month. I asked D when she’d like to take the SAT (meaning October or November). She looked at me blankly and decided that next spring would be good. She is so overly concerned about that stupid essay that she doesn’t want to deal with the test at all. It’s going to be a long year.</p>
<p>FromMD, it didn’t occur to me that this year’s high cutoffs might mean next year’s are lower, hoping you’re right!
suzy100, Fordham and Northeastern are precisely the reasons I’m hoping for NMSF. Someolgguy, these are the “bigger names” I was thinking of.
If our state school were U of Virginia or U of Michigan or another “public Ivy” it wouldn’t be as big a deal. I know that it’s ok if D ends up at SUNY but as a Fordham grad myself I would like those 2 schools to be on the table–which they won’t be without the kind of merit she would get with NMSF.
realchk, D is doing her share of watching Youtube too. She painted her nails gray, battleship gray, yesterday. Not my favorite shade but probably would look better on your S than the sparkly gold she had last week ;-)</p>
<p>It’s only frustrating if it continues. There are still some old-school teachers around who like to use the first couple of weeks to get everyone’s attention about expectations and workload. (I used to TA this way back in the Dark Ages and rarely gave A’s on the first assignment to my college freshmen.) As long as the teacher gives everyone plenty of graded opportunities to show improvement over the course of the quarter, the grades should shake out.</p>
I read it somewhere that if you have “goes by the book” kid, then go with ACT… If you have “reads between the line” kid, go with SAT. </p>