Every year, Kingswood Oxford school juniors take the Pre-SAT test, which is also the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Seven of last year’s juniors, who are currently seniors, earned a Letter of Commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for their outstanding performances on the PSAT.
These students are seniors Matt Bzowyckyj, Geethika Chandragiri, Tommy Dan, Felix Fei, Braden Flowers, Emma Henry, and Jane Liang. This means that these students placed in the top 50,000 among the 1.5 million test takers. Senior Braeden Rose qualified as a semifinalist, meaning that he scored high in the approximately 16,000 of all test takers. Students were notified in September that they were qualified as a commended student or a semifinalist.
In order to qualify as a commended student or a semifinalist, students have to score higher than a cutoff score, which is based on how well students in each state did. The cutoff is different in each state.
According to Director of College Advising Jami Silver, the best way to prepare is to take challenging courses and do well in school. “The best prep for the PSAT is the college prep curriculum, doing well in school, taking rigorous courses,” she said.
Ms. Silver also added that many students do well because they have taken similar tests, such as the SSAT when they applied for KO. “We didn’t necessarily prepare kids for tests, but a lot of our students have taken the SSAT’s or other types of exams,” she said. “Students who test well in the SSAT’s, the entry level tests, oftentimes test well in the PSAT’s and the SAT.”
Senior Braeden Rose shared his techniques in preparing to take the PSAT. “I prepared a little bit by reading about test strategies and reviewing my errors on the practice PSAT from sophomore year, but I didn’t do any practice problems or practice tests to prepare,” he said.
Braeden said that he thinks that the KO curriculum helped him succeed on the test. “The PSAT tests three skills – writing, reading, and math,” he said. “I think that in each of those areas, KO teachers have taught me how to analyse a specific text, or how to solve a trigonometric equation. All KO classes teach these skills.”
Felix took the SAT before he took the PSAT. He felt that it helped him do well on the PSAT because he felt very confident, as he was already familiar with similar types of questions. “The experience from the SAT definitely helped me, but I think it was important to keep a relaxed state of mind and have confidence,” he said. “I was confident because I had already taken the SAT.”
Congratulations to these eight seniors on their outstanding performances on this challenging test.
