qwertythejedi

I want to apply to Princeton but I only got National Merit Commended. Will they look down upon that?

hobbes344

they wont care.

koala717

nah, SAT's are way more important than anything to do with national merit, so don't worry

Of course, that sucks for me, cuz my PSAT's were definitely way higher than my SAT's

jaz1

Hey qwertythejedi, did you find out what is the NM for AZ this year?

qwertythejedi

Thanks guys, I guess I was a little concerned.

I think it might be a 212 because I have a friend who got a 211, but she got a note saying she was Commended. That means it went up a point. I'll have the official number on Thursday because I made a counselor's appointment for Thursday.

koala717

It sounds like a lot of states went up a point. I have a friend with a 221 who only got commended.

<--- (300th post! yay! )

qwertythejedi

Well if go to the Collegeboard site under the counselor's section, you can see the state reports for PSAT from this years seniors and from previous years. The results are pretty interesting, because the number of people getting at least a 70 on the Critical Reading went down (a lot) but for the Math and Writing it went up (a lot more). So that might explain how the numbers are going up.

qwertythejedi

sorry, that was supposed to be if you go . . .

shrek2004

they dont really care about national merit. if you look at the number of students they accept from new england, now all of them couldnt possible be national merit considering states like connecticut and massachusetts haave cutoffs at around 222. national merit really means nothing. essentially u get 2000 bucks deducted from ur financial aid. =P

panic

Does anyone know what New Jersey's cutoff is?

ICargirl

Last year it was 221, the year before it was 222.

jmarsh2006

that's so unfair. people from underrepresented states already get a slight boost in admission, so why should it ALSO be easier for them to get national merit scholarships? It doesn't make much sense to me...

mzhang23

National Merit Commended/Scholar status means nothing to Princeton admissions. I got in with Commended status - it certainly didn't harm me at all. However, the scholarship money does mean something to many students. Just don't worry about admissions prospects because of the Commended status.

Prefontaine

I too got in after only garnering the commended thin slip. Don't fret, it might also vary in significance based on the specific state in which you reside maybe?

jmarsh2006

I hope so..

But I'm not bitter