How important are the PSAT?

yes yes yes i highly recommend studying i think a lot of people don't realize how important the psat is, especially if this is your junior year. if you get national merit semifinalist status, which could be pretty easy or difficult depending on your state, it could mean lots of money in terms of scholarships at a lot of places. there's a wide variety of these colleges too from selective to non-selective and it just makes the whole college search a lot easier when you can also add these safeties that you know you'll get full rides/full tuition at, and a lot of these schools don't offer the same benefits for act/sat (ex. USC, Texas A&M). also unlike act/sat you only get ONE shot at this (if its your junior year) so please please please study!!!!

It depends on what PSAT you're taking. For example, the PSAT 8/9 (usually taken in ninth grade to acclimate students with the SAT format) isn't important at all, but the PSAT/NMSQT can potentially get you a National Merit Scholarship or recognition. You can find practice SATs on College Board's website, as well as practice on Khan Academy for studying.

Good luck!

You probably should. It can lead to good scholarships if you score well on it.

I purposely didn't study for the PSAT. I did this to see where my baseline knowledge is to help me study for the SAT. It really helped me to see my base score, so that I could find areas of improvement. I would recommend you study a bit, but don't study as much as you would for the SAT.

The PSAT is really good practice for the SATs take it from someone who didn’t take the PSATs and just took the SATs my friends who took the PSATs and studied did much better than me who just studied for the SATs. In short I think studying is a good idea because it’ll prepare you for the SATs.