I think that schools should let students know, but I wonder if it is that unusual not to do so. Are we sure that most schools alert their students? My my children’s prep schools (often mentioned on CC) mandate the PSAT in 11th and I think 10th grade as well. However, I know from my kids’ experience that those schools don’t tell students of their commended status nor do they alert kids who are eligible for the national recognition (hispanic, african-american, rural, or Native American) programs. I don’t know if they say anything to individual national merit semifinalists or not.
I I have never asked, but my impression is that their schools consider the PSAT to be a useful test to practice for the SAT, which most students do take their junior and senior year. So they mandate it as practice but they don’t care about the outcome. Or maybe they don’t care about the awards/commendations, but they care about the scores themselves because perhaps knowing the students’ past scores might help the college advising offices with their work with the junior class.
Actually even way back in the dark ages when I was in high school, I don’t think my public school told me that I was a national merit semifinalist. I’m pretty sure that I heard directly from the college board. But it was many years ago and fuzzy in my mind. Plus everything was by postal mail in those days! Maybe the school did mention it, but I don’t remember it. And that was a high school that was very invested in student’s performance on standardized testing.