What is a good PSAT score for a junior?

For college readiness, College Board's 11th-grade PSAT/NMSQT benchmarks are 460 in Reading and Writing and 510 in Math; meeting both means you're considered on track. For National Merit, what matters is the Selection Index: last cycle, 208 earned Commended status nationally, and state Semifinalist cutoffs ran from 208 to 223.

What PSAT score do you need for National Merit?

National Merit uses the Selection Index (2 x Reading and Writing + Math, divided by 10), not the total score. For the Class of 2027, the national Commended cutoff was 208 and state Semifinalist cutoffs ranged from 208 to 223. Class of 2028 cutoffs will be set in September 2027.

What Is a Good PSAT Score? Benchmarks, Percentiles and National Merit Levels

What is a good PSAT score? There are really three answers, depending on what you want the score to do: show you're on track for college, compare you with other test takers, or qualify you for National Merit. They set very different bars, and the PSAT/NMSQT score report gives you a number for each.

The PSAT score scale

Score	Range	What it is
Reading and Writing	160-760	Section score
Math	160-760	Section score
Total	320-1520	The two sections added together
NMSC Selection Index	48-228	(2 x Reading and Writing + Math) / 10 -- the number National Merit uses

The PSAT/NMSQT is on the same scale as the SAT, just with a lower top end (1520 vs. 1600). College Board's own example: a student who scores 500 in Math on the PSAT/NMSQT would be expected to score about 500 on the SAT if they took it the same day.

A good PSAT score for college readiness: the benchmarks

College Board's grade-level benchmarks mark whether a student is on track to be college-ready by the time they take the SAT:

Grade	Reading and Writing	Math
10th	430	480
11th	460	510

Meeting both benchmarks is a good score in the plainest sense: you're on track. College Board says the benchmarks shouldn't be used to keep students out of challenging courses.

A good PSAT score compared with other students: percentiles

Your score report's All Tester Percentile compares you with students in your own grade who took the PSAT/NMSQT over the past three years. If you're in the 75th percentile, you scored as well as or better than 75% of them.

College Board's sample report shows how this plays out: an 11th grader with 620 Reading and Writing and 500 Math (1120 total) lands in the 60th percentile for Reading and Writing, the 70th for Math and the 75th for the total. If you sign in at studentscores.collegeboard.org, you also get percentiles by country and by state.

A good PSAT score for National Merit: the Selection Index

National Merit ignores your total score. It ranks students by Selection Index, which counts Reading and Writing twice -- see how the Selection Index is calculated. Only about 50,000 of the roughly 1.3 million entrants are recognized, around the top 4%:

Commended Student (about 34,000 students): a single national cutoff. For the Class of 2027 it was 208.
Semifinalist (more than 16,000): a separate cutoff for each state. For the Class of 2027 they ran from 208 (Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming) to 223 (New Jersey, D.C.).

Because Reading and Writing counts double, two students with the same total score can have very different Selection Indexes. For the Class of 2028, the lines will be set in September 2027. Until then, compare yours with last year's cutoff in your state, or run your scores through the Selection Index calculator.

What this means for you

Decide which "good" you mean. A score comfortably above the benchmarks can still be far from National Merit territory, and that's fine for most students' goals.
For National Merit, look at the Selection Index, not the total. A strong Reading and Writing score helps twice as much as the same gain in Math.
Only one test counts for National Merit. The junior-year PSAT/NMSQT, usually -- see which PSAT counts for National Merit.
Waiting on your score? Here's when PSAT scores come out in 2026.