Prep for the PSAT is just like Prepping for the SAT so you are really studying for two test at once.
Khan it’s free! https://www.khanacademy.org/mission/sat
There are only a few official practice tests. Look carefully at all the answers make sure she knows why she got the answers right and why she got answers wrong. Make sure she does timed tests and practice. I’ve asked ds18 to spend one hour a day on PSAT/SAT prep for the next two months I know he won’t have time when he starts school in the fall. He’ll be taking both the SAT and PSAT in October
@jjkmom, I have a D who is now a rising sophomore in college who was a NMF. She did what others are recommending here: she studied/prepped for the PSAT/SAT at the same time. She used the Collegeboard SAT prep book, and back then (old test) there were a lot of sample tests available to practice with. She saved many of the “real” practice tests for the weeks right before the real test(s). She then took both the SAT and PSAT in October of her junior year. My D18 will be doing the same thing. Make sure that when the kids take practice exams they do it under timed conditions, and as @3scoutsmom suggests, go over what they got wrong so they understood why they missed a particular question.
@1822mom , I hear you! It bothers both of us for the longest time for my DD’18 to at least decide on a major to apply, especially everyone tells her it’s ok not to know and apply undecided. I just encourage her to either follow her interest (arts, but she afraid there is no career or money) or her strength (math, computer, but she hates the word “engineering” and coding). Instead for the longest time she is willing to consider medicine and dentistry just to make DH happy despite her lack of interest in bio and chem. She likes USC so I told her to look into majors that’s available in USC and she found a dual-interest program. As long as the major has art/design aspects and plus Technology/computer in it she is fine now. Which means I can slowly turn her into Architecture engineering or landscape design, who knows.
Have your DD visit the Claremont colleges? Or Chapman, Biola, Pomona? I know they are private schools but they want to attract top tier UC students. CSU has smaller campus, but will she consider? I learned from another tread (parent of class 2020) that there are other universities out of state but we can pay in state tuition, you might want to look into that (sorry, I will post the link later).
Regarding big campus, my DD’18 doesn’t mind big campus but she doesn’t like old, dirty and ugly buildings, and she would prefer campus has views. She also hates cafeteria food cause it’s not healthy and too expensive. She would rather make ramen or spam musubi or sandwich. Since she just decided on the path & major a week ago, we haven’t look into which school has what she wants and the dorm requirement. Both my niece and nephew attended UCD and my brother-in-law told me their dorm is nice and clean and spacious; and out of campus apartment rental is cheap (compare with UCSD, UCI, UCSB, UCLA)… Since that’s the farthest UC, my DD’18 might consider that one, however she still likes UCSD and UCSB the most because of the views. Anyway, my DD’18 also consider UC and CSU for financial reasons. We live close enough to CSULB, CSUF, CSUDH so if she doesn’t get into a UC she wants she will need to live at home. I’m sure that’s a huge motivation for her to study hard and live on campus. I told her to love whichever school accepted her and make the best 4 years out of it. We don’t care about prestige and how other kids do, she doesn’t need to be a doctor to make us proud.
@1822mom, credited to @LKnomad who shared with me on the Western Undergraduate Exchange program: http://wiche.edu/wue
Now I know why few kids I knew went to those out of state schools and their parents didn’t complain about the tuition!
@jjkmom, it’s some relief for you now that your DD is narrowing her interests. I am kind of in similar situation, my D18 doesn’t know what she wants to major in but she is keeping her options open and wanting to go to LAC. she is not interested in visiting colleges, she doesn’t understand why she need to visit colleges even before getting admission. She is driving on her own now, what a freedom!
@3scoutsmom Quick question, how does your DS18 stay focused and motivated while doing prep. I’ve recently made a big change this week after taking both an SAT and ACT test. I have decided that I will be prepping for the ACT, rather than the SAT.
The motivation is that he wants to be able to go to the college of his choice debt free! He’s pretty set on UT-Dallas and when we toured the school we meet with people from the National Merit office who outlined their scholarship, it’s almost a full ride. Also his sister made National Merit and he’s very competitive and doesn’t want to be out done by his sister;-)
Staying focused is on him. I’ve asked that he spend an hour a day on PSAT/SAT prep. I think he should be able to stay focussed for an hour, if he can’t he can break it up to a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the afternoon.
My motivation is very similar, but I feel it isn’t working, in a way. I’m usually extremely self-motivated, but around April, that seemed to stop. It got to the point where I couldn’t concentrate and do any of my homework at home. I went to the library right after school since that was a better place for me to focus. I’ve been trying to find ways to combat this, but I can’t really seem to stop procrastinating. I wasn’t like this until April. I would say one big problem is that I take a “nap” right I get home from school, at 3:30m, and I’ll usually wake up at 9:30pm. I sometimes end up doing my homework until midnight and then going to bed until I have to wake up at 4:30am. I tried taking a two-hour nap instead of a six-hour one, but my alarm never woke me out of REM.
The only ways I’ve been able to combat this are:
Putting my phone away (Which didn't start to become a problem until April)
Trying to stay focused on the task at hand (Sometimes I'll literally think about one thing which will lead to thinking about something else.)
I thought maybe it was just end-of-year stress but now I feel it’s more than that. Like it might affect me during the school year. Do you think there might be anyway to help? I don’t know whether it’s a tiredness problem (maybe I’m working my body to its limit) or I just need a little more motivation. I’ve heard writing a list of why you are doing something, like prepping to go to a good college, and placing it near you is a good, but I’m a bit skeptical.
This is a list of everything I plan to this summer (at least this month):
Summer School (Every weekday from 7:00am - 12:40pm until August 5th)
Summer Quest Volunteer Shift (Every Saturday From 12pm - 3pm until August 20th)
A list of things I am making myself do that I would rather not reschedule, but might take out:
Read Half Bad by Sally Green (Finish by Late July) (Reading 15 Pages per Day)
Read Diamond Boy by Williams (Start in Late July and Finish by Late August) (Reading 15 Pages Per Day)
Listen to The Dragonfly Effect by Gordon Korman on Audiobook (Finish by July 17th) (Listening 15 Minutes a Day)
Listen to I Will Always Write Back by Martin Ganda on Audiobook (Start on July 18th and Finish in Late August) (Listening 15 Minutes a Day)
Coding in Java (1 - Hour Every Week)
A list of things I must do, but am having trouble finding enough time for:
ACT Prep (1.5 Hours on Sundays)
Work On AP Chemistry Assignment (On Weekends)
Take ACT Practice Tests (Since I don't feel like sitting down for 3 hours to take a test, I decided to do different sections on different days)
Things I don’t really have to do, but I do anyway:
Go to Summer Quest Events (1 - Hour Programs Usually Held Once or Twice A Week) (I'll be going to a fun little one where we'll be stained glass CD Mandalas on Tuesday right after summer school and another one on the following Tuesday where we make BrushBots, a must-see event to a Robotics-enthusiast)
@ak2018 - you said it helped to go to the library after school to get your homework done. Can you go to the library and work on your ACT prep there?
It looks like you have a great plan of things to do this summer. I’d also suggest making sure you have some fun. Try to strike a balance while you can.
@KSMom1518 I’ve never really had a problem with my kids not doing what I ask them to do, at least since they were 5 years old. We homeschool until 9th grade so maybe they are just used to doing what I ask them to do. I don’t feel that asking DS to spend an hour a day for the next month in a half or so is asking too much. As for the eye rolling, if that were done in a disrespectful way it would not fly in our house. Different people have different parenting styles and that’s ok, just saying I could never imagine my kids rolling their eyes at me unless it was clearly in jest.
Another way to look at test prep is to think of it as a job, with potentially high paying commissions. Because of prepping for the PSAT/SAT DD16 was awarded a $124K National Merit scholarship from her school and $10,300 in private merit scholarships. Each of the merit scholarships had a component requiring a high SAT score. So far she has a total of $134,300 in scholarships that she would not have gotten with the scores that she had before she prepped. DD prepped for about 60 hours the summer before 11th grade. That’s well over $2K an hour! How long would it take a high school kid to make that kind of money working summers and after school?
Thanks @jjkmom & @mommdc ! I am familiar with WUE and have a few of those on the radar, including WWU (though I think their WUE program is competitive). My D, while not know exactly what she wants, is very certain of a few things she doesn’t want and high on that list is any school which has any religious affiliation, including catholic/jesuit schools. The Claremont schools are lovely, but don’t give much merit aid, the exception may be Scripps and that one is on my list as a financial reach for her. I’ll have to look more closely at SF State. Many of the CSUs have been elusive for me to research because there are just so darn many of them it’s hard to narrow the focus in properly. My main concern right off the bat would be housing. SF is notorious right now for it’s lack of housing. CSU Monterey Bay is on her radar though. She met a rep at a college fair and was pleased with what she heard. It’s a newer CSU, therefore smaller, not impacted (or at least not so badly that you can’t go in undecided and still get into your major of choice if you work hard). Even better, based on published stats it should be as near an auto-admit for her as she can get. We’re going to visit campus this summer (not ideal but a revisit can be done later if necessary), hopefully that will give us 1 financial safety!
As to UCs, she’s only interested in Santa Cruz & Davis, SC could be a safety, Davis is probably more of a match. Haven’t been to either campus yet. Though I hear SC is lovely @jjkmom so your D may like as well.
@KSMom1518@3scoutsmom Thank you so much for the encouraging words. I actually think just re-found my motivation. I was just doing some ACT math section prep and was the difference between the SAT Math questions and the ACT Math questions is astonishing. The ACT questions are so much more straightforward! I actually feel like I can get at least a 32 on the ACT. I’m so glad I made the switch.
@1822mom, we just visited UCSC few weeks ago and while the view is great, my DH doesn’t like that campus is so big, colleges are among forests/lots trees and require school shuttle to take you between buildings. Another main concern is DD’18 is our first girl going to college, we watched too mainly Criminal Minds and those redwood scared us as a hideout for criminals. (Don’t laugh, that’s what my DH first impression when he saw the woods, and it’s was bright afternoon!) However my DD’18 loves the view, they also had a great gaming design program, but we didn’t get the chance to visit. We will probably revising again senior year winter or spring break before we made final decision. Bye, we also spent a day in Monterey, didn’t visit CSUM but I will look into other CSUs in North California as my DD’18 really like North Cal! I personally think San Jose state will be a good option to land in a local job, or be a part of a startup company!
Btw, @1822mom, UCD feels small but it’s big and it’s in a nice quiet small college town. My niece and nephew (also my sister & brother in laws really like UCD and thought they made a great choice going there). UCSC might be smaller but feels big and it’s on hills… However the view is astonishing!
