Last Friday, on Oct. 4 Convent and Stuart Hall High School held the annual Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) for freshman, sophomores and juniors and the SAT for the seniors. All students arrived at their assigned locations at 8:45 a.m. or earlier based on their learning accommodations.
The students sat for approximately two hours and 14 minutes. After students made their way into their classroom, the hallways that are normally filled with students switching classrooms or corrosion campuses, were empty according to Junior Lily Liao.
“I believe that the PSAT is a more formal way of expressing my academic understandings onto a digital format, but did stress a lot leading up to the test,” Liao said. “It was a huge relief, however, finishing the test and being able to not have to stress about it anymore,”
This year was the College Board’s second year of officially taking the PSAT and the SAT to a digital platform. In previous years, these tests would be administered for about three and a half hours and the test would be taken with paper and pencil according to junior Eugenia Jackson.
“Taking the PSAT was not as difficult as I remember it from last year,” Jackson said. “I feel like I’ve been learning a lot throughout my years at Convent which made it a lot easier to take the PSAT.”
The purpose of the PSAT is to provide students with practice before taking the SAT, which is a standardized test often used as a supplement for the college admission process. Annually required for all Convent and Stuart Hall students, it is also an opportunity for students to earn merit based scholarships towards their college education, according to senior Maddy Aldecoa,
“I think it’s great how Convent has us take the PSAT each year,” Aldecoa said. “It helped me feel more prepared and ready for when I had to take the SAT in senior year for college applications.”
The PSAT is taken in preparation for the SAT, which is typically taken at the end of junior year or beginning of senior year. In addition to the SAT, seniors may also decide to take another standardized test called the ACT. The ACT has many similarities to the SAT, however it also includes a science section of the test.
“I definitely appreciated all of the faculty and staff’s contributions towards making these tests run as smoothly as possible,” Liao said. “It makes the whole experience a lot less stressful.”
