<p>Keep in mind that you might also be receiving mail from certain colleges based on other information that you provided at the time of the test. As a sophomore in high school, I was fairly sure that I wanted to be an engineering major in college, and indicated this intention on my answer sheet. As a junior, my interests changed, and I instead selected social sciences (or something along those lines) on the answer sheet. I scored higher as a sophomore than I did as a junior, although both of my scores would probably attract the same attention from colleges in a given year, et ceteris paribus. I did notice that the mail that I received after taking the test as a sophomore, while obviously less in quantity than that that I received as a junior, was largely from schools known for their engineering departments. I had mail from some of the same schools after my junior-year test, although it was only then that I received attention from certain LACs and schools with heavier liberal arts-focused curricula. </p>
<p>This is all just something to chew on, though. As a supreme institution, MIT garners the best applicants from across the world. It’s highly unlikely that a student with a 178 on the PSAT would be MIT “material,” but it’s no skin off the university’s back to send mail to a wide range of test scores.</p>