The PSAT is Amazing: How a Practice Test Can Be That Good

Now’s a good time to write about the PSAT, as many schools are returning PSAT test results to students around now. (Schools receive the score reports and distribute on a timeline of their own discretion.) The PSAT allows students to prepare for the real SAT, see how their scores lines up against college admission standards, and start receiving marketing information from colleges that they might want to attend. As a school-based test, all students at each participating school are engaged, not only the most advantaged or academically motivated. The irony of the PSAT is that because it is school-based and all-inclusive, more students take it than the SAT, the test that it prepares students for and that actually counts in the college admissions game. I’ll explore more about the PSAT at a later point. (How’s that for a tease?)