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Recommended College Admission Testing Timeline

• 10th Grade

Fall – PSAT (one national test date in October): See Meridianś website for details

       Spring - ACT Practice test (in College Readiness)

What is the difference between PSAT and SAT you may ask? They are almost identical except that the PSAT is 15 minutes shorter than the SAT and does not include an essay.  Check out https://blog.collegeboard.org/difference-between-sat-and-psat for more information. 

• 11th Grade

Fall – PSAT (one national test date in October)

Spring – ACT and SAT (multiple national test dates; students must register)

Meridian offers all 11th graders either the ACT or the SAT in the spring. Meridian usually rotates--one year, SAT, another year ACT.

• 12th Grade

Fall – ACT and/or SAT (repeat as needed)

What are these tests?

ACT - (registration information at: https://my.act.org/account/signin?location=https)

College admissions exam, offered 7 times yearly, September through July, at ACT testing centers

Content includes English, Math, Reading, Science, and Writing (Writing may be “optional" on test day, but is required by many colleges)

SAT - (registration information at: http://sat.collegeboard.org/register)

College admissions exam, offered 7 times yearly, August through June, at SAT testing centers

Content includes Reading, Language, Math, and Writing (Writing may be “optional" on test day, but is required by many colleges)

ACT Practice test

Practice test for the ACT is administered in the College Readiness class.

PSAT

Practice test for SAT

Offered once each fall, on a single date determined by College Board.

The score earned in the fall of the Junior year is used to determine qualification for the National Merit Scholarship Program.

SAT Subject Tests

These are hour-long, content-based tests in specific subjects. There are 20 tests available in five general areas: English, history, languages, math, and science. Subject Tests are used in several different ways:

• Admission – some selective colleges include Subject Tests as part of their admission requirements

• Placement – some colleges use these test scores to determine placement in the appropriate courses

• Credit – some colleges use these test scores to award credit for college courses

Note: Since all colleges do not use these tests, it is important for students to research their potential colleges to determine whether these are needed. Subject Tests are administered on all SAT testing dates, and are generally taken whenever a student completes the curriculum being tested.

National Merit Scholarship Program

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships based on PSAT scores. 

The top 50,000 scorers are identified for the PSAT.  National Merit semifinalists are the top 16,000 in that group, and are chosen on a state-representative basis so there is no single score for qualifying.  The other 34,000 are named as Commended Students.  These numbers change each year depending on student performance nationwide.

Here's a good synopsis of the National Merit program:

https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=424

ACT Warm Ups

Students will work through some ACT problems in class as Warm Ups before they take an actual practice test. 

Practice Test for Warm Ups: 2018-19

https://www.piqosity.com/free-act-official-practice-test-pdfs-and-answer-explanations/ 

https://www.piqosity.com/2020/11/18/sample-essay-explanations-to-the-previously-released-2020-act-writing-test/