Letter: Prepare for PSAT

The Preliminary SAT part is a standardized test, with mostly multiple-choice questions, to determine a student’s likely no-study SAT score. Each year about 3.6 million students take the PSAT/NMSQT test. However, for the 50,000 top scorers the PSAT could be the most important test they will ever take, because the NMSQT part of the test COULD get them into the National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSP), which HAS offered about 4.500 scholarships at about 450 colleges throughout the USA for semifinalists and finalists. Last year it took a raw score of 93% to be a semi-finalist.
But nobody gets into the NMSP program by just walking in and taking the PSAT (well maybe a few “geniuses’). Everyone else needs to study very hard for the test in order to score high enough to just qualify. And guess what? There are even a lot of “unofficial” colleges, which offer scholarships to NMSQT semifinalists and finalists – some even “full-ride” all-expenses-paid scholarships. Semifinalist and finalists comprise about 16,000 of the total 50,000 NMSP students.
And the PSAT is NOT the whole thing, it’s just the key to getting into the NMSP. A high GPA, a high Redesigned-SAT score, leadership, student activities, community service, etc. are all part of the final selection process.
If students are serious, then they should buy at least one PSAT study guide and spend the rest of the summer getting sharp on the test. There are only a couple of “new” PSAT study guides out there (Kaplan and Barron’s). Students should be spending at least 40-60 hours with these guides (and on the Internet) right up to the Oct. 14 PSAT/NMSQT test date.
Eugene Lucas, Hollister