I have three high school kids - one freshman and two sophomores. They have recently taken the PSAT 8/9 or PSAT 10 through their school. All have scores that look promising for admission to their target colleges. I have one who scored in the 99th percentile overall and his national merit index was 201. Apparently you needed a 219 in Texas last year. It seems that he ought to be able to bridge that gap next year as a Junior with the help of a good prep class. Can any of you experienced parents recommend the best prep class available these days? We are open to either in person or online.

We have heard good things about the free prep from Khan academy. Our daughter uses Khan academy as extra help with biology when she needs help on a concept.

We are still waiting on our daughter's junior year PSAT score to see if she needs more intervention than that program and we would do a pay course. Your school guidance counselor should recommend good courses as well.

We were in a similar situation last year. Our son used prep scholar and we thought it was helpful in pushing him well above the cutoff for National merit semifinalist. Will find out about finalist in the spring.

I should clarify that he did start a little closer to NM his sophomore year than your oldest, but I think the extra work is what pushed him over the top. ~3-4 hours per week of study makes a big difference.

imo there's no better time to prepare for SAT(and PSAT) than the summer before junior year instead of trying to cram it into everything else going on in school during the year.

I think working through all of the free Khan Academy SAT prep is a great way to start in order to provide a solid foundation for all of the subjects on the SAT. After that, decide if you need a paid course based on how they do on a couple of the official College Board practice tests.

For high performing kids, a lot of the group classes don't provide a lot of value imo as they'll waste lots of time working on stuff they already know. We used PrepScholar which is an online adaptive program based on their strengths and weaknesses so they can work at their own pace and focus on their specific weak areas. If the kid isn't really motivated to work on it solo, then a group class may be the better option.

Finally, if they are within reach of their goals but just struggling to get over the hump in a few areas a little 1 on 1 tutoring can be invaluable. We used Wyzant to find a reasonably affordable tutor that my son has been meeting w 1 time per week over the past 4-6 weeks leading up to his PSAT which he took 2 weeks ago and first SAT coming up this Saturday.

Remind me where you guys are located? Are you in College Station or Houston?

We're located in College Station.

Double B - my junior did well on the PSAT, and hopefully will be a NMSF. I've been trying to find out what SAT score he needs to qualify. Do you have an idea of what the minimum SAT score needed is?
Thank you.

NMSF is based on PSAT score not SAT score. Then they take the PSAT score and convert it to what is called the Selection Index. In Texas you probably need a Selection Index of 220 which is calculated by:

(2x PSAT reading score + 1x PSAT math score) / 10

So if they got a 700 reading and a 700 math on the PSAT the score would be: (700 x 2 / 10) + (700/10) = 210

The 220 number is not set in stone as it can change from year to year but over the past few years it has been in the 219-220 range each year.

If they got a perfect score on reading they could possibly get NMSF w a 1430-1440 overall score since reading counts twice as much as math in the NMS scoring system. Not sure why they have to make it so confusing instead of just using an overall score cutoff.

That is helpful. I did not know they doubled the verbal score. Not sure why they do that. Probably to achieve some sort of "diversity" goals.

How likely is it to get the index up by 19?

combat wombat said:

---

How likely is it to get the index up by 19?

---

that's really not unlikely at all. A 100 point score increase in reading would do that or a little more if it was a combo of math and reading. Most SAT prep programs guarantee that sort of increase or your money back.