PSAT Success: A Walkthrough
by James
National Merit Scholar
If you’ve decided to take the PSAT/NMSQT and try for
a National Merit Scholarship (hereafter abbreviated NMS), or
you’re just a high school sophomore or junior confused
about the purpose of the upcoming PSAT, this article is for
you and anyone in between these two extremes.
First, an introduction to the PSAT: this test is traditionally
administered junior year of high school, in “Preparation”
for the SAT which is traditionally taken senior year. Of course,
those of you on the accelerated schedules that are needed to
apply for the elite schools, especially Early Action or Early
Decision, should be taking the SAT junior year as well. Thus,
the junior-year PSAT serves another purpose for the talented:
it is also known as the NMSQT, the National Merit Scholarship
Qualifying Test.
If you’re lucky, your high school will give you an experimental
round of PSAT testing sophomore year for guidance purposes.
There, you will learn about the format of the test. There are
three sections: Verbal, Math, and Writing, and the entire test
is approximately 2/3 shorter in length than the actual SAT I
(three-hour) test. The Verbal and Math sections strongly resemble
the standard SAT I sections, so you will see sentence completions,
analogies, and reading comprehension in the former, and general
middle-school-level math questions with some quantitative comparisons
in the latter. The Writing section will resemble the non-written
parts of the SAT II: Writing subject test, so you can expect
sentence corrections, paragraph corrections, and passage corrections.
Scoring is from 20 to 80 points in each section, for a maximum
possible score of 240. This score is also known as the “Selection
Index” for NMS purposes.
The PSAT generally appears either the Tuesday or Saturday after
the October round of SAT testing, so it would behoove you to
take the SAT I that will count for your college application
in the October of your junior year. Sure, you will be banking
on two tests a few days apart, but you will only have to study
for them once; I did the same and got 1600 on one and 240 on
the other, within 7 days of each other, so it can be done. Note
that because the PSAT is shorter, there is less margin of error
in getting a higher score; also, questions on the PSAT tend
to be slightly more difficult than those on the SAT, though
it could simply be psychological.
At the very first stage of the NMS competition, your junior-year
PSAT score is the only thing that counts. The scores (or Selection
Indexes) from all students in every state are tallied, and those
above a certain percentile advance in the competition to become
NMS “Semi-Finalists”. For reference, the 2001 cutoff
for New Jersey was 222. Once you reach that status, you will
be notified by your guidance counselor and given an application
form much like the ones you will be filling out for college
later. Your transcript and any other SAT or AP test scores will
be the part your guidance counselor contributes; you will have
to tell them about your activities and write (or type and then
paste) a personal statement.
I will only attempt to give the broadest advice for these two
tasks, since everyone’s experience varies. It would be
best if you already know how to write a resume, but that’s
a bit extreme to expect from high-school-age students. However,
every activity in which you participate should be included,
and even the smallest leadership position should headline its
corresponding activity. Your personal statement will be on a
topic of some importance, generally asking a question like,
what inspires you? Such an open-ended target will give you the
courage to write about a topic that surely interests you—yourself—while
allowing 750 words of freedom to express yourself in a unique
way. Anything interesting or compelling about you is the perfect
target; the real goal is not simply to answer the question posed,
but to answer it with an exposition to the reader concerning
what makes you the person you are.
After you complete and return this application, you will be
notified after a period of time entirely too long for impatient,
ambitious young minds whether or not you have advanced to the
next round of selections and are now a NMS “Finalist.”
This means that your application has passed a general-level
browse by the NMS staff in Evanston, but NOT that you are entitled
for money yet.
Depending on the university at which you enroll and the company
at which either of your parents works, you will be eligible
for certain NMS Scholarships. Colleges and corporations both
sponsor Special Scholarships, while NMS has its own award for
those students ineligible for either. For example: I wanted
to enroll at Princeton, so I was ineligible for a university
award (all Ivies are ineligible). My mother works at a subsidiary
of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), so
I WAS eligible for the SAIC special scholarship. Therefore,
I did not need to be eligible for the NMS award.
Once your award eligibility is decided, as a Finalist, you
will be subjected to the Award round of selections, since universities
and corporations have their own criteria (usually a limit on
the number of winners) with which to judge you from that same
application you filled out earlier. Thus, the application is
just as crucial as that initial PSAT score. If you win the award
round, you will have yourself a very prestigious scholarship,
not to mention the honor of being a National Merit Scholar,
with no “Finalist” strings attached, and possibly
a plug on your parents’ company newsletter.
