Why Focus on the PSAT?
While colleges do not ask for PSAT scores, your status as a National Merist Semi-Finalist can give you many options when it comes to paying for college. The linked document lists all the colleges that give merit aid based solely upon a student's status as a NMSF, anywhere from a full-ride plus a stipend to a set amount annually. Check it out.
Grades vs Test Scores
Everyone knows that the safest position to be in when applying to college is to be a student who has BOTH high test scores and good grades from high school. What do colleges say about what they are looking for when they can't get both?
Over and over and over, what college admissions officers claim to look at most closely as the main admission factor is a student's "transcript." Note that the word is "transcript," NOT "grade average." A Yale admission officer says, "We will look holistically; we will look at everything in your application. . . . We look at how much challenge you have provided yourself." An MIT admission officer says, "What correlates best with grades in the junior and senior years of college is taking the toughest courses in high school. Most students admitted to MIT have a healthy mix of A's and B's." A Duke admission officer says, "Duke asks the question, 'How have you challenged yourself?'" A Harvard admission officer says, "The most important is high school courses and grades. Take good, tough courses. We can tell if you are not challenging yourself." The Harvard viewbook (page 47 of this year's edition) says, "The Admissions Committee recognizes that schools vary by size, academic program, and grading policies, so we do not have rigid grade requirements. There is no single academic path we expect all students to follow, but the strongest applicants take the most rigorous secondary school curricula available to them." Another Harvard admission officer says, "We're trying to understand your high school. A grade of B+ is not the end of the world. We want to know how you avail yourself of resources. It's our job to understand the different high schools in our area."
A high grade average is NOT impressive if it is gained by taking wimpy courses. One of the Harvard admission officers says, when asked about weighted versus unweighted grade averages, "When I see a grade average like 6.85, the first question I ask myself is, 'What does this really mean?' I look at the rest of the applicant's file and especially at the applicant's activities to find out if the applicant is the real deal." A Vanderbilt admission officer answering a similar question says, "The G.P.A. has become the most meaningless number in college admissions." Don't hunt for a high G.P.A. at the expense of avoiding intellectual challenge in your course selection and extracurricular involvements--that won't fool anyone.
If you are a high school senior, make sure you are keeping up in all your hardest courses. Senior year grades DO matter. If you are a junior, plan to take the most challenging courses you can and take those courses seriously. If you are younger, plan to meet the prerequisites for the toughest academic path at your school and look for opportunities to self-study or to take summer courses to get ready for tougher academics as you get older. All colleges expect all applicants to submit COMPLETE transcripts for all secondary level or college-level courses the applicant has taken anywhere. A college admission office will consider what courses you have taken even if you haven't had those courses recorded on your main high school transcript. If you have high grades, even if you have low test scores, consider retaking your tests, but meanwhile apply boldly to a range of colleges of varying selectivity.
Colleges look at standardized tests as the one thing that is comparable among all applicants. A Harvard admission officer says, "There are a lot of A's; test scores help us distinguish among applicants." Admission officers claim to consider your test scores in light of your family socioeconomic background and home language and other factors. If you have high test scores, even if you have low grades, work on building up your grades, but meanwhile apply boldly to a range of colleges of varying selectivity. See
SAT Score Frequencies and Freshman Class Sizes
and
How do top scorers on tests fail to gain admission to top schools?
for more about the role of standardized tests in college admission. "Superscoring" SAT scores or ACT scores (taking the highest section scores from different administrations of the test and combining those for admission consideration of each applicant) matters much less than students think. Superscoring is only beneficial if you have some ups and some downs on section scores between two sessions of the test. If you go up on all sections, your better scores are considered, period. NO college regards your lower scores more than your higher scores, whatever order your scores came in, if all the scores are from the same session of the test. Superscoring ONLY matters if a student has an increase on one section but a decrease on another as two sessions are compared. All colleges always give students the benefit of their highest scores, at least as to comparing sessions (in whatever order the test sessions occurred) and as to comparing brands of tests (the ACT is not preferred to the SAT, nor the other way around).