For many students, the PSAT is the door that opens the long journey of test prep. So, unsurprisingly, I get a lot of questions about this mid-October milestone from my SAT/ACT tutoring clients.
Though most high schools in the U.S. automatically sign up their students for the PSAT—and a source of annoyance to many a junior—I promise that there are many ways you can work it to your advantage. To that end, today I’ll be demystifying a point of confusion for many students: if you score high on the PSAT, putting you in the running for the National Merit Scholarship, do you HAVE to also take the SAT in order to hang onto your NMS candidacy?
ARTICLE CONTENTS
1. Why Do I Have to Take the PSAT?
2. How the PSAT and NMS Used to Work
3. In 2024, Can High PSAT Scorers Take the ACT or the Digital SAT?
4. Conclusion
1. Why Do I Have to Take the PSAT?
As annoying as this hurdle may seem, the intent behind it is charitable. The PSAT is supposed to serve two purposes:
Give you a good sense of how you’d perform on the SAT, possibly making you lean towards that test over the ACT when the time comes; and
Give you the opportunity to participate in the National Merit Scholarship program, possibly bestowing you with honors or money or both! Helloooo college acceptance!
2. How the PSAT and NMS Used to Work
But until 2019, there was also a potential catch to the PSAT. If a student scored in the very upper percentage of their state’s performance, and were in the running to become a National Merit Scholar Semi-Finalist / Finalist / Winner, in order to actually WIN the title and the scholarship money, they’d have to “validate” their PSAT scores with an actual SAT test. In other words, they’d have to take an official SAT on one of the published test dates and score in the same range as they did in their stellar PSAT to prove the latter wasn’t just the product of a lucky day.
What this meant was that many top-performing students would have to take the SAT instead of the ACT in order to fulfill the requirement to become a National Merit Scholar. They couldn’t choose their test: the test would choose them.
Even worse, if a student really did perform better on the ACT, she would study for and take THAT test in order to achieve the top score she needed for her college apps list...and then have to study for and sit down to take an SAT in addition—solely so that she could validate her PSAT score and become a National Merit Scholar!
What an ironic twist, where getting an excellent test score means you have to sacrifice MORE of your time instead of LESS of it!
However, we had some breaking and amazing news a few years ago for the class of 2020 and beyond (in other words, anyone who took the October 2018 PSAT their Junior year and everyone after that). Drumroll please…
3. The National Merit Scholarship Program allows you to “validate” your PSAT score WITH THE ACT!
In other words: you can choose whichever test (the SAT or the ACT) you want to take based on which one truly plays to your strengths better—and either one can be used to validate a top PSAT score and help you land a National Merit Scholarship! Woohoo!
If you’re more likely to score higher on the ACT—yet you’re so high scoring in general that you make it above your state’s PSAT cut-off score for the National Merit Scholar contest—you can now take the ACT and not have to think twice!
You could kill two test prep birds with one stone (or one sharpened No 2 pencil). No SAT needed!
Conclusion: National Merit Finalists Can Take the ACT or the SAT
So, friends, don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to take the SAT because you did well on the PSAT. You still need to try out both tests and see which is better for you. (My free quiz Should you take the ACT or Digital SAT will also help point you in the right direction!)
I know my private SAT/ACT tutoring clients are all thanking their lucky stars about this one! And if you still need help choosing the right test for you (or your teenager), schedule an Ace The Test: Game Plan™, and I’ll do the big-picture thinking FOR you!
