Is the PSAT different from the SAT? If the PSAT is taken in October, when should my student take the SAT?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about this. The PSAT that is taken during the junior year is academically
equivalent to the SAT. College Board, the maker of both tests, publishes a topic list for both tests. And they are identical!
The PSAT is out of 1520 instead of 1600, and the test is slightly shorter. So the scoring is not perfectly one-for-one, but on a
percentile basis, they are comparable.
No here is where some strategy comes in. Both tests top out in terms of content at Algebra 2. Any student who has a realistic shot at National Merit,
which is roughly the top .8% of students, has likely already completed Algebra 2. So if we are prepping for the PSAT, we should also be
targeting an SAT date around the same time.
There are two ways to do this. First, we can target the early November SAT. It is roughly 2 1/2 weeks after the PSAT. This works great, and
we are essentially taking both tests at the end of the prep cycle. The other possibility, and this is favorable if the student has a relatively
free summer schedule, is to use the summer to prep for the late August SAT. This sounds strange to some students as they would be taking the
SAT before the PSAT, but this is actually quite common for our high-scoring students. The only downside is that we have about seven weeks
typically between the SAT and PSAT, so it may be advisable to throw in a few sessions between the tests.
Talking about this stuff is what we do, so give us a call at 866–210–4335 to run through which of these options is best for your student.
