Recently,
the College Board modified their scoring system such that the PSAT score is now
an estimate of your SAT score. There are numerous tables available to
help you convert the SAT to an ACT or CLT score. With this information,
there is a lot that can be done.
1.
Identify Prospective Colleges
2.
Identify Possible Academic Merit
Scholarships
3.
Strategically plan out your testing
schedule for the rest of high school
4.
Set Goals for SAT & ACT &CLT
scores
5.
Decide when and whether to take SAT
subject tests
6.
Decide whether or not to take AP
courses in the future
For now, we’ll focus on:
How to you use test scores to look for scholarships
There
are two major types of scholarships.
First there are private scholarships, which are those scholarships
offered by private organizations like Coca Cola, Walmart, etc. Most of these scholarships require essays or
projects to be prepared and submitted along with an application. Careful research to identify and track these
opportunities needs to be done. Tracking
the scholarships you may be eligible for you will be key to accumulating funds
for college. Be aware, however, that
private scholarships are considered resources by the financial aid eligibility
calculators; they reduce need based aid dollar for dollar. Consequently, determination of that impact
needs to be done first.
The
other type of scholarship is called institutional scholarships. These scholarhsips
come from the colleges and universities themselves. The good news is that they comprise 93% of
the scholarship dollars and, since they are the colleges’ own funds, can be
distributed as the colleges wish.
Remember
the middle 50% of test scores we discussed earlier? Let’s take a look at a few examples from Every
Catholic’s Guide to College, a college guide I compiled for practicing
Catholics (available on Amazon.com).
Like all college guides, it includes a great deal of information for
each college, including the middle 50% of the test scores.
Arizona State University
510-630/520-640 or 23-28
Drake University 520-670/550-
690 or 24-30
Ferris State University 19-24
or 910–1110 combined SAT
New York University
610–710/630–740 or 28-32
The
evidence based reading & writing score is always listed first, followed by
the math score. Be aware that some
places are still using the old CR/M notation.
When the College Board revised the SAT, the critical reading section was
renamed evidence based reading and writing.
Since there is no good abbreviation for that, some still use CR to
denote that score.
At
Arizona State, 25% of the accepted students scored higher than 630 on the
reading and writing test and higher than 640 on the math portion of the test. At most colleges and universities,
scholarships are given to the top 10% of the accepted student pool. Therefore, without doing any other research,
a student with a 710/710 may be offered scholarships. For a first pass at identifying colleges and
universities likely to offer your student academic scholarships, ASU would be
included. From the above list, Ferris
State would also be included, with a high likelihood of being awarded
scholarships.
The
second step, once you have created a list of potentially generous colleges for
your student, is to investigate their financial aid websites in search of
further information. Some scholarships
also have a need component. This means
that, in order to qualify for those scholarships, the student must have both
academic merit and financial need. Most
financial aid pages include information on scholarships.
Here
are a few examples of colleges that offer guaranteed scholarships based on test
scores. These schools award students
with certain scores a set amount of scholarships, most of which are renewable
if the student has satisfactory academic progress. Some also require certain grade point
averages or class ranks. For the first
few, I have included the details as they were recently posted on their
websites. A list of other colleges and
universities follows. This is by no
means an exhaustive list; it is a sampling to provide examples of what some
schools offer as “guaranteed scholarships.”
These awards are given to all qualifying students.
Baylor
University
Clemson
University
Colorado
State University
Florida
A & M University
Florida
Gulf Coast University
Georgia
State University
Louisiana
State University
Texas Tech
University
of Arizona
University
of Mississippi
University
of Nevada at Las Vegas
University
of Oregon
University
of Tennessee
University
of Texas at Arlington
Utah State University
Given
the fact that selecting a college is a $150,000 - $300,000 proposition, many
families seek professional guidance on their journey to college. With so many factors to be considered in the
areas of student selection, college selection, funding, scholarships, and
application, college prep is both complex and time consuming. Selecting a college consultant can be
challenging. Since it’s a relatively new
field, many families are unfamiliar with the options available, the types of
training college consultants might have, and how much it might cost. To answer just these questions, I wrote The
Ultimate Guide to Top Quality College Planning, available on Amazon. For Catholics, I’ve also compiled Every
Catholic’s Guide to College: The 315 Best US Colleges & Universities for
Practicing Catholics, also available on Amazon.
How will you use your PSAT score report?
(If you'd like the entire e-book teaching how to use PSAT Scores to get Scholarships, go here: goo.gl/HgviTr)
