Sharing Results
Help families benefit fully from their child's PSAT/NMSQT results
In December, your school will receive each student's PSAT/NMSQT score report. However, without some context for understanding their reports, students will probably rush to look at their scores and stop there.
Information session
We recommend setting up an information session for students, perhaps during a class meeting. Discuss the score report, its meaning, and its interpretation—before you hand out individual reports and test books. Make sure to give students the test books they used.
To help students understand the information without the distraction of their own scores, we included a sample score report with the Official Educator Guide to the PSAT/NMSQT (.pdf/3.36MB). Requires Adobe Reader (latest version recommended). We've also provided a ready-made Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, Understanding Results from the PSAT/NMSQT, which you can download here (.ppt/1.66MB).
Younger students
The information session is also a chance to reassure younger students who may be discouraged by scores that seem low. Remind them that their scores will improve as they continue to study and grow. To help you make this point, use the Score Report Tutorial flyer. One version is designed for students in the ninth and tenth grades (.pdf/190K) while the other is intended for middle school students (.pdf/600K).
My College QuickStart™
You can use your information session to let students know about My College QuickStart, free for all students who take the PSAT/NMSQT. With My College QuickStart, students can:
- Sort questions by difficulty and type
- View complete answer explanations
- Learn their projected SAT® score ranges and state percentiles (for high school students)
- Prepare for the SAT with a customized study plan (for high school students)
- View personalized lists of colleges, majors, and careers
- Explore majors and careers on MyRoad™
All students need to sign up for My College QuickStart is the access code on their score report. You can learn more by taking the My College QuickStart tour.
Parents
To guarantee that parents see the score report and can discuss it with their children, some schools mail parents a copy, along with a letter of explanation. If parents have questions about the test results, they can bring their copy when they meet with you or a teacher. Other materials for parents include:
- Parent flyer: You may want to include the flyer, A Parent Tutorial for Understanding 2009 PSAT/NMSQT Results, in your mailing. You can download it in English (.pdf/548K) and Spanish (.pdf/555K) here.
- Parent letter: Also available for download is a template for a letter to parents (.doc/34.5K) about My College QuickStart.
- Parent text for newsletters: Similar content to the parent letter is provided for inclusion in newsletters or email communication to parents (.pdf/48).