Ready or not, it’s time to take the PSAT. Next Wednesday, Oct. 12, the Pre-SAT will be held at Robinson.

Upon arrival, students will head to their homerooms where they will be seated and wait for the PSAT testing process to begin. The test is 2 hours and 45 minutes and students are given two five-minute breaks. After the PSAT is completed, IB students will remain in their homerooms for the rest of the day, aside from lunch. Traditional students will have a modified schedule of short classes.

The PSAT is very significant for freshmen, sophomores and especially juniors. It is important for everyone because it allows administration to gauge where students are academically and place them in corresponding classes. The PSAT is also good practice for freshmen and sophomores to get used to standardized testing and understand what to expect on the PSAT that they will take junior year. The PSAT is more important for juniors, as opposed to the other grade levels, due to its influence on the National Merit Scholarship.

“For our juniors it’s huge because it’s a National Merit Scholarship qualifying test. So, if they do well on that they can qualify for a National Merit Scholarship… which is a lot of money,” Principal Dave Brown said.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation honors around 50,000 students each year. From there about 16,000 students from across the United States advance to become semifinalists. Finally, after submitting their high school records, as well as recommendations from teachers and a personal essay, about half of the semifinalists are chosen to become finalists and around half of the finalists will be awarded with scholarships.

In past years, seniors generally skip PSAT day (as students are barred from taking the exam after their junior year); however, this year, Oct.12 is senior class picture day.

Any juniors or underclassmen who arrive late on Wednesday will have to stay in the auditorium until the PSAT is over and make it up on Tuesday, Oct. 25.