| Only the junior year PSAT is used to determine who is a scholar. Current juniors are now receiving letters telling them that they will either be commended or semi-finalists. Those that are later told they are semi-finalists have to meet some additional requirements to become finalists, and about 15,000 out of the 16,000 semi-finalists do so. The PSAT is not taken in the senior year. Rather, most students will take the SAT in the spring of the junior year, and again in the fall of senior year, if needed. It is my understanding that a much lower SAT score is one of the things that might result in somebody not becoming a finalist, but I have also heard that most of those who don't make it are those who don't turn in the application. |