I do try there, but so many kids there are coming from a different understanding. And I think for some they are only hearing about this as they are applying, when it is sorta too late.
But basically if I am ever responding to a kid with questions about how to be competitive for colleges like Stanford or MIT while they are still near the beginning of HS, odds are I will be directing them to that MIT Applying Sideways article and trying to point them to what they really need to understand. Because at that point it is not too late!
And I also really believe what that author said as well, which is even if it doesnât âworkâ in the sense of getting you into MIT, what it WILL be doing is helping you have a great HS experience, while getting you prepared to thrive in college as well. And so even if MIT doesnât admit you, other very good colleges will be very interested, because they all want kids who are well-prepared to thrive.
It is better to have 8 5s and nothing else than 8 5s plus a bunch of 3s and 4s. They might also look skeptically at applicants who took an AP course without taking the exam. So pick carefully.
Since A level scores are only predictions, they scrutinize GCSE results closely and UK applicants had better have a bunch of 9s in those. APs are more like GCSEs than A levels.
But also think about/play up your connections to the U.K. Oxford is more willing to give offers to Americans and accept that some wonât attend. Cambridge tends to be more insulted by that (they have something like a 98% yield from UK applicants) and (based on what the admissions tutor said at my college reunion) has found that Americans without any connection to the UK usually decide to stay in the US. If you have UK or European heritage then that makes you more likely to receive an offer. The fact you lived in the UK is a positive.
That approach sounds great. I should note another poster corrected me with how I classified Georgia Tech, but I would bet from what you are describing that for the same reasons the Air Force Academy might be a good fit, so would Georgia Tech (as that other poster is describing what they are looking for).
I note I do think with Cambridge and such, you have to decide whether you are comfortable being more or less locked into your specific course. Obviously that is just a given for kids in those systems, but in the US, SOOOO many kids end up switching majors, sometimes pretty dramatically. So I often wonder if more kids in the UK would in fact switch courses, if it was easy to do.
Which is not to say I wouldnât at least keep it as an option. I just know a lot of high academic qualification kids who have considered top UK unis thanks to not having to deal with all the other holistic review stuff, but then they ultimately balk at the relative lack of flexibility and choose to favor US colleges even if they are not quite so highly ranked nationally or globally or such.
This is great input. My son was ahead on maths in the UK so he took the Higher Maths GCSE at the end of Year 9 (8th grade) and scored a 9. He took the Further Maths GCSE at the end of year 10 (9th grade) and scored a 9 with a 98%. I donât have stats for Cambridge admits, but I imagine this puts him in the competitive range.
Noted on Georgia Tech. Iâll slide them in with MIT/Stanford/CMU, but maybe just a slight notch below in terms of selectivity.
Great point about getting locked into a major with UK unis. He son is only a Sophomore so getting more specific than Math/Physics/Comp Sci is probably not realistic right now. We can re-assess in a couple years whether he has better clarity on intended major or would gain from the flexibility afforded by US schools.
They would definitely join the conversation. I did not include them in the initial list because beyond âget National Meritâ, Iâm not sure there are any further unique criteria for getting into these schools.
Alabama, in particular, looks very appealing for National Merit winners.
Since there are relatively few NMFs, one shouldnât assume.
But I do think you are very premature and that the analysis is not necessary although Iâm not familiar with Cambridge and if someone wants to do an Academy, obviously more planning is involved. But that student can do ROTC too.
The thing about the 75th percentile is - 75% were there or below so being below doesnât preclude an admission.
Your first qualifier should actually be budget.
If, for example, you have no need and are limited in what you are willing to spend, you can immediately cull non merit schools off the list.
As an example, Iâm full pay but gave my daughter a $50k limit. After I learned at Georgetown they have no merit, that night in our hotel room I took it and other schools off her prospective list.
So unless you are willing to spend $400k, the first qualifier you need is to think of your max spend - and then you build a list from there of assured to hit price and may hit price.m
By doing early visits, you find out what type of school they like. CU and Mines are both great but they are different. Your son may like none, one, or both.
One factor with regards to SOME collegesâ admissions that can make a huge difference is athletic recruiting. If your son is in 10th grade and playing club soccer it is not too early to speak with the club coach to see if he thinks your son is recruitable, and if so, at what level. And if your son wants to play on a college team, the time to start reaching out is now.
I have to respectfully disagree with this statement.
I live in a region thatâs chock-full of high-performing kids where national merit finalists are a dime a dozen. They are not âfloodingâ to the schools you mentioned. The same holds true at other similar school districts where I have friends and family (northeast, NoVa and Bay Area), so I donât think thatâs a widespread experience.
Well if there are 16,000 semi finalists and 95% become finalists, thatâs a tad over 15K finalists - so when you have 1.5 to 2% alone at one college, to me thatâs a flood - but of course that word is subjective.
When you look at a Tulsa, they have 2500 students. I canât find the breakdown by year (no CDS) but letâs say 20% of those are first year. So itâs like 150-175 are NMSF/F - so thatâs more than 1%. We know, at least based on what Tulsa provides, they easily have the higher per capita - 25%+ of their student body (is NMSF but there are few NMSF vs. NMF).
I guess what Iâm saying is - if you had two really smart kids that werenât NMF, the chances are the higher ranked school is going to win them at a much higher percentage than if you had two NMFs in that same situationâŠif that makes sense.
The offers are just too great for many to turn away.
Hence I used the word floodâŠbut yes, itâs a subjective word.
My sonâs graduating class from a NE prep school had 128 kids and 37 NMF. Not one kid in the entire class went to any of the schools mentioned. More than half the class went to Ivy plus and tippy top LACs.
These kids simply donât look at the NMF auto merit schools as academically elite schools. Local public schools do send some kids south but typically it is not the best students.
CMU has an acceptance rate of 11.5% across ED1, ED2 and RD. I donât have the numbers broken down across these plans but their ED1 rate is estimated to be close to 20%
At Georgia Tech, the OOS EA acceptance rate was 9%, and RD was 10%. So it is more selective than CMU, not less.
When you look at #s, you need to look in aggregate - not at one school which will skew- whether NMF or even college selectivity.
Ga Tech may have a lower acceptance rate than CMU based on # of applicants. But statistically CMU students are much stronger (although they have many students who are TO vs Ga Tech which doesnât have TO).
But often time selectivity is based on # of applicants vs quality of applicants.
Agreed we shouldnât extrapolate from small sample sizes. Similarly we shouldnât use our kids âone offâ individual experiences as examples. Letâs all stop doing that.
Fair point, but I do not think acceptance rate by itself tells the entire story of selectivity.
By two other measures (SAT scores and class rank), Iâd come to the opposite conclusion.
From the CDSs
SAT: CMU has substantially higher SAT scores at each quartile:
25th - 1500 vs 1370
50th - 1540 vs 1470
75th - 1560 vs 1530
Class Rank
CMU has 92.2% in top tenth of class
GT has 86.51% in top tenth of class
I get that GT is probably dragged down on the lower end by in-state admissions, but Iâm not sure how to break that out further. Iâm actually not sure that this distinction matters much (or at all), but thought Iâd provide the counterpoint.
I can guarantee you that there are many schools with more NMF than Alabama. Like every Ivy school, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Cal, Michigan, etc. But they donât give merit for it and donât publicize it because they donât need to.
Also worth a reminder that NMF is based on PSAT scores (10/11th grade) and has various cutoffs by state. Those thresholds can be significantly different with states like NJ/ NY/MA/CA cutoffs being much higher than other lower scoring states.
This means that there are a lot of students in these higher cutoff states who have out performed other students in lower threshold states that arenât NMF.
I am not diminishing NMF (my kid was one although his college didnât track) but it certainly is flawed as an indicator of the best and the brightest based on the egalitarian award methodology. On the bright side this methodology spreads merit access across the country based on geography not academic performance to students that might not otherwise be able to afford some schools.
Here is some recent dataâŠ
The National Merit Scholarship Programâs (NMSP) cutoffs for becoming a Semifinalist vary by state and year:
Highest cutoffs: For the Class of 2024, Massachusetts and New Jersey had the highest cutoffs at 220 or higher. Washington, DC had a particularly high cutoff of 223.
Lowest cutoffs: For the Class of 2024, North Dakota, New Mexico, and West Virginia had the lowest cutoffs at 207.
Average cutoff: For the Class of 2024, the average cutoff for all states was 214
Thereâs 15k or so total - so Iâll disagree that there are many. And some of those schools, like MIT and Harvard are high on the top list but with less - but as a percentage higher.
These are the facts.
There are many schools with many and likely lots with tens. 15k isnât that many to the point that many have more - sorry. The math simply wouldnât work.
There are literally thousands of kids in high threshold states whose scores would make them NMF if they lived in a low threshold state. Not saying they are smarter but if we are holding up NMF school populations as meaningful we should consider this flawed approach. The 207 scorer from NM is being held up as a scholar versus the 218 from NJ.
By calibrating lower thresholds across the country and capping the total at roughly 16,000 NMF by definition doesnât indicate the top students and is nothing more than a talking point gimmick for some schools.
The (full and accurate) size of those populations isnât ever calculated at the most prestigious schools. (My kid didnât even report it to his schools and this is not unusual). They simply donât care and there is no financial incentive. Ivy plus schools have no idea what their NMF population looks like because it is meaningless to them as a measure of anything.
Add to this the fact that not all schools even offer the PSAT. For example, many schools in the CA Bay area do not offer the PSAT or the SAT. So there are many of CAâs best and brightest who arenât even on the NM radar. The reason, in part, is that between the top schools where many of these kids apply donât care about NMSF/NMF and the strong CA college system that also doesnât care about NM, there seems little need to offer it.