I am a parent of a Class of 2020 NMSF and I’ll share I’ll our experience. The CB doesn’t automatically send scores to colleges. Colleges can receive PSAT scores from the CB but the colleges need to request (pay) for reports that meet their specified criteria. For example, they might pay for a list of all students with PSAT scores over 1400 or might look for kids in certain regions or with certain interests.
As far as the higher tier colleges, the first school my child heard from was Yale with info about applying to YYGS. Many of the top schools will send marketing materials about their summer programs but I don’t know if that is based off of PSAT scores, early (Nov- Feb) SAT scores or just general marketing. The big surge of NM related emails came after the NMSF press release.
My biggest piece of advice is to go onto College Board NOW (before the lists get purchased) and change your email address so that it isn’t a parent’s account and isn’t your student’s primary email address. Create a new account that is just for college marketing (ex. MarySmith.2021@gmail). My child received over 2500 marketing emails from colleges this year (sometimes over 20/day) and it was nice not having them mixed up with high school emails. When the college application process started, we created a third account (MarySmith.2025@gmail) that was only for applications. The marketing materials are click bait and will say things like “Thank you for your interest. What to do next.” They look important but aren’t. If your student has a designated email account that only goes to colleges he/she is applying to, then he/she knows that any communication to that account is important.
Congratulations to your kiddos. Best of luck in this journey.