Art Sawyer of Compass Education Group just published a report on a precipitous drop in PSAT scores for those who took the October 2019 administration of the test. Compass found that the average score for juniors dropped 10 points, as compared to 1 or 2 points in previous years. College Board has not explained the reason for the drop in scores, but Sawyer concludes that the most obvious explanation is that the 2019 Form A PSAT was flawed.

The number of juniors scoring 1400 or above (out of the 1600 points possible) dropped 30 percent; the number of sophomores scoring at that level dropped 36 percent. Students scoring above 1200 dropped by 15 percent for juniors and 21 percent for sophomores.

Eighty-six percent of the PSAT tests were administered on Wednesday, October 16. Many school districts pay for all of their sophomores and juniors to take the test on a school day. If you or your child took the PSAT this year, the score may not be accurate.

As of now, College Board, which owns the PSAT as well as the ACT (and AP, and CLEP) has not responded to Compass Education’s call to explain the discrepancy. To read the full report, click on this link: https://www.compassprep.com/major-drop-in-psat-scores/