9th & 10th grade college center meeting
TRANSCRIPT
Bellaire High School
9th & 10th Grade College Center Meeting
January 22, 2015
This presentation is available online
at
www.bellaire.org
UNDERSTANDING YOUR
PSAT/NMSQT RESULTS
4 Major Parts of Your PSAT/NMSQT Results
Your Scores
Your Skills
Your Answers
Next Steps
3 Test Sections
Critical Reading
Mathematics
Writing Skills
Score
You can see your projected SAT
score online in My College QuickStart
(www.collegeboard.org/quickstart).
Your Scores
National Merit Scholarship Corporation Information (cont.)
The Percentile compares your performance to that of other college-bound juniors.
Your Skills (cont.)
See how you did on each skill. The same skills are tested on the SAT.
You can try hundreds of practice questions, organized by skill, online in My College QuickStart (www.collegeboard.org/quickstart).
Next Steps (cont.)
What’s next?
Use the access code on your report to log in to My College QuickStart, a personalized college and career planning kit. There you can:
•Search for colleges•Get a personalized SAT study plan•Take a personality test to find majors and careers that fit you•See your AP Potential
www.collegeboard.org/quickstart
My College QuickStart
My College QuickStart
The shading of the steps icons illustrates your potential
My College QuickStart
My SAT Study Plan™
• An official SAT practice test
My College QuickStart
Log in to your personalized account at
www.collegeboard.org/quickstart
FREE Test Prep Opportunities other than the SAT online course
1. 8th Period PSAT/SAT Tutoring
Math: Tues & Thurs room 125
Verbal: Mon & Wed room 353
2. PrepMe on Naviance (all students have access)
3. Kaplan and Princeton Review offers free weekend mock tests
www.Kaplan.com
www.princetonreview.com
Paid Test Prep Opportunities
Classroom and online tutoring
1. Testmasters
2. Kaplan
3. Princeton Review
4. Cram Crew
5. Private tutors
College Preparation9th and 10th graders
Naviance
Online college portal for students and parents
1. Receive communication about college visits, scholarships, summer & volunteer opportunities, career interest inventories, search colleges, PrepMe, my #1 way to communicate to students and parents.
2. All students have automatic login
3. I have to give parents their registration codes in person
4. Send your student to the College Center at lunch or after school or your codes
1. Take Challenging Courses & Grades
Your academic record is the most important part of your college application. Colleges want to see more than good grades; they also want to see that you have pushed yourself and taken the most challenging courses offered at your school. Set yourself up so that you can take full advantage of whatever AP and upper-level courses your school offers.
Grades matter in your freshman year. College may seem like it's a long way off, but bad freshman grades can hurt your chances of getting into a selective college.
2. Get Help If Needed
If you find you're struggling in a subject, don't ignore the issue. You don't want your difficulties with math or a language in 9th grade to create difficulties for you later in high school. Seek out extra help and tutoring to get your skills up.
3. Get InvolvedColleges are looking for students with varied interests and evidence of leadership potential; your involvement in activities outside of the classroom often reveal this information to the college admissions folks.
By the time you apply to colleges, you should be able to demonstrate depth and leadership in an extracurricular area. Colleges will be more impressed with the applicant who played first-chair clarinet in the All-State Band than the applicant who took a year of music, a year of dance, three months of chess club and a weekend volunteering at a soup kitchen. A long but shallow list of extracurricular involvement really doesn't amount to anything meaningful.
4. SAT II Subject Tests & AP Exams
You usually don't have to worry about SAT II subject tests in 9th grade, but if you end up taking a biology or history class that covers SAT II material, consider taking the exam while the material is fresh in your mind, you can easily withhold a low score from colleges.
You're more likely to take these exams in your junior and senior years, but more and more students are taking them earlier, especially as high schools increase their AP offerings. A 4 or 5 on an AP exam can earn you course credit and give you more options in college.
5. Visit Colleges & Browse the Web
Your sophomore year is a good time to do some low-pressure exploration of the college options out there. If you find yourself near a campus, stop by and take the tour. If you have more than an hour, follow these college visit tips to get the most out of your time on campus. Also, lots of schools offer informative virtual tours on their websites. This preliminary research will help you make good decisions in your junior and senior years.
6. Keep Reading
This is good advice for any grade. The more you read, the stronger your verbal, writing and critical thinking abilities will be. Reading beyond your homework will help you do well in school, on the ACT and SAT, and in college. You’ll be improving your vocabulary, training your ear to recognize strong language, and introducing yourself to new ideas.
7. Have a Summer Plan
There's no formula for what defines a productive summer, but you should make sure you do something that leads to personal growth and valuable experiences. The options are many: volunteer work, a summer music program at a local college, a bike tour down the West Coast, apprenticing with a local politician, living with a host family abroad, working in the family business... Whatever your passions and interests, try to plan your summer to tap into them.
We will be emailing you a short 5
question survey. Please help us
improve the work we are doing and
submit your feedback.
