[PorscheGAL]

Originally Posted by McLovin

Good luck to your daughter!

My son is a high school senior. I've spent the last 3 years intensely studying the ACT/SAT, and the college admission process in general. It became a fairly serious hobby for me. I find it fascinating. I've read dozens of books and studies, contacted experts, conducted experiments, etc. Strange!

I have all sorts of thoughts on the (for example, are they "biased?"), but one thing is sure: They are very coachable and learnable.

That is not to say that with enough coaching and effort, anyone can get a 36/2400 (because they can't), but scores can be maximized and moved up, significantly, for anyone, through a variety of methods.

The other thing is the importance of these tests, for anyone aspiring to go to an elite or highly selective college, cannot be overstated. For highly selective colleges*, it's the single most important factor on the college application.

With a lot of thought and 2 years of hard work, I was able to help my son raise his ACT 5 points, which put his score in the top 1% and made him academically eligible at every college in the country. (He's also a recruited athlete so he had his grades and test scores "pre-read" this summer/fall by the admissions departments at half of the Top 10 schools on the Forbes America's Top Colleges list. He ended up getting offers to most of them, and others, and committed to one of them this week).

Taking the PSAT as a sophomore is a good start if she has high academic ambitions. Hopefully she does well. But if not, don't worry too much. There is still plenty of time, if you use it wisely. My son also took the PSAT as a sophomore and didn't do very well (probably around 75th percentile or so). With the right training, big improvements are pretty much guaranteed.

Let me know if you have any questions or would like any additional info, I'd love to help maximize her score.



*(The good thing, though, is of the approx. 4,000 colleges in the US, only around 30 or so are "highly selective" - admission rates of less than 15% - maybe 200 out of 4,000 are moderately selective, and 3,800 out of 4,000 are not very selective at all - 50-70%+ acceptance rates. So there's a college for everyone).

Lee, sounds like your questions have been answered.

McLovin: I am so glad to see this post. I read it off to my son and husband to illustrate that I am not the only one. I have thrown myself into the college process like this. The family jokes that I have my son's entire life planned out. My son is a sophomore so a few more years to obsess.