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PSAT - how to take this for an international student and is it really necessary?


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I went onto the College Board's website and found every school within a 4 hour drive that they say offers the PSAT. I've contacted all six of them. Two I still have to hear back from, but all the others say that they offer the SAT but not the PSAT. Is there some other way for an American citizen living in the UK to take the PSAT other than flying back to the US for a few days, which seems a bit extreme? Is it offered on military bases perhaps? Anyone else have experience with this?

 

And if there is no way for ds to take the exam here, should I worry about it? How necessary is the PSAT?

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If there is a U.S. accredited school near you, contact them and ask if they give it or know where it can be taken. DD was in a U.S. accredited school here, in K4, K5 and First grade and I am hoping that when she is older that they give it. GL

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We do the PSAT with an eye towards academic scholarships. We won't qualify for need-based, so I'm doing all I can otherwise.

 

A friend of mine decided not to do it because they qualify for need-based scholarships and her children are more average in their abilities. They do fine in college, but none of the older ones qualified for academic scholarships. So she decided to skip the PSAT for the younger ones because their standardized test scores are similar to their siblings, and she doesn't feel like the PSAT does anything for her.

 

In other words, not everyone needs the PSAT.

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One purpose of the PSAT is that it acts as the primary qualifier for the National Merit Scholarship. That's really only a consideration though if your student is likely to score extremely high on the exam. So, a first step might be to have him or her take a practice test and home and see how they score. The cutoff for international students is one of the higher cut off numbers. If it seems like it will be in National Merit range, it might be worth contacting the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to tell them of your student's difficulty finding a place to take the exam and to ask about alternative means of qualifying. Sometimes they will allow the substitution of an SAT score if events prevented a student from taking the PSAT junior year. If on a sample test your student doesn't seem like they will be in the ballpark I'd just let it go and focus on the SAT or ACT.

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You *might* be able to give your student the PLAN test yourself (pre-ACT), if the ACT is where you could be heading. I know the PLAN is given at a few homeschool co-ops around here, so I think the rules for administering it must be more lenient than the PSAT administers.

 

Julie

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Good idea, Barbara. I'll give him a practice test to help me decide how important it is for him to pursue taking the proper test.

 

Julie, I don't know anything about the ACT and was just going to go with the PSAT and SAT exams as that's what I'm familiar with. I will look into the ACT. Thanks.

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