There’s only one opportunity to take the PSAT and make it count. That’s October of your junior year. The prospect of obtaining National Merit Semi-Finalist status intrigues students each year who believe that this is the first step toward cementing their chances of getting into any school they want. Calm down. It’s not as big of a deal as people would have you believe. Is it nice? Sure. Anytime someone says you’re in the top bracket it’s nice. However, we see plenty of students miss the mark on the PSAT but conquer the ACT or SAT later on in the year. These people get into the same great schools as those semi-finalists. We also see semi-finalists get rejected from great schools. Such is life. There are no guarantees, and all we can do is strive for improvement!