Can senior student retake PSAT

Answer 1

No. A student can take the PSAT only once and that is on the one day per year in October that it is given. The purpose of the PSAT is: (1) to help a student prepare for the SAT, and (2) to serve as the screening test for selection of National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists. It would serve no purpose for a senior student to retake the PSAT. From the standpoint of standardized testing, a senior should be focused on preparing for the SAT, which is a much longer version of the SAT.

A senior who was not selected as a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists certainly should not be worried about that. Over 99% of the students who take the PSAT are not selected as National Merit Semifinalists. The National Merit Scholarship program is a nationwide scholarship program in the United States in which students who score in the top half of one percent of PSAT test takers in their state become eligible to compete for special National Merit scholarships offered by universities, businesses, and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation itself. The PSAT is only the first hurdle in this scholarship competition but the other three hurdles -- a B or better average, endorsement by the student's school, and completion of an application form and essay -- are not difficult to achieve. The Ivy League schools do not offer National Merit scholarships and many other large and better known schools now offer relatively small National Merit scholarships, usually in the range of $2000 a year. However, some excellent national universities, including USC, SMU, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma University, still offer very generous scholarships to National Merit Finalists accepted into those schools. But there is plenty of scholarship money available for top students with competitive GPAs and high SAT or ACT scores and good extracurricular activities and a student's PSAT score is not considered in awarding those scholarships.