October marks peak PSAT season for Bay Area students vying for college scholarships

Oakland, Calif. - The month of October is when millions of high school students across the country, including throughout the Bay Area, will take the PSAT, a precursor to the SAT used to determine eligibility for scholarships and college admission.

Dr. Shaan Patel, CEO and founder of Prep Expert and an expert on standardized testing, joined KTVU to discuss what he called a window of both stress and opportunity for high schoolers.

"The PSAT often gets overlooked and it's such an important exam because it's the only one that can qualify students for what's called National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test," Patel said.

Patel explained that more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide will automatically award half- or full-tuition scholarships to students who score high enough on the exam.

"There are over a hundred colleges and universities across the nation that if your student scores high enough on the PSAT, they will automatically qualify for half tuition and full tuition scholarships, which will eliminate the cost of college, which is amazing," Patel said.

For California students specifically, the bar is high. Patel said the National Merit cutoff typically requires scoring in the top 1% of PSAT test takers statewide.

"For California specifically, that typically ends up being around 1460 out of 1520. So that's what California students should be aiming for," Patel said.

Unlike the SAT and ACT, which students can take multiple times, the PSAT that counts toward National Merit consideration is administered only once, during a student's junior year.

"The PSAT is really a one shot deal. And that happens in October of your junior year," Patel said. "You can't take it in eighth, ninth and 10th grade, but that's only for practice. And it does not count towards national merit. The only one that counts is during 11th."

Patel said the PSAT is largely a scaled-down version of the SAT, with easier math and reading passages but the same digital, adaptive format. He recommends students begin SAT-style preparation well before junior year.

"What I would recommend is for parents and students to start doing some SAT style prep in eighth, ninth and tenth grade so they can knock the PSAT out of the park by the time they get to the 11th grade," Patel said.

He noted that some California schools even administer a PSAT 8/9 exam for younger students to build familiarity with the test format.

Asked about common mistakes on test day, Patel pointed to excessive caffeine consumption.

"The biggest mistake on test day is drinking too much caffeine, whether that's red bulls, coffee, it can cause your heart to race," Patel said. "It happened to me the first time I took my test and it was a total disaster. So when I had whole grain foods, no coffee as a high schooler, I got a perfect score."

In the final days before the exam, Patel recommends students use the College Board's official Blue Book application to complete practice tests.

"That'll give you a really good sense and hopefully a lot of confidence going into testing," Patel said.

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