<p>So I recently took the PSAT as a junior aaaand I got my scores back and I made the 99th percentile of PSAT people, and I’m pretty sure this qualifies me for program recognition (probably not the scholarship though), and I’m wondering how big of a deal it would be for college admission chances (particularly at NU) if I sent them one of the two recommendation letters the NSF sends for like, getting a good psat</p>
<p>Not sure I totally understand all parts of the question. I don’t think Northwestern is as focused as some other schools (USC for example) on NMSF however it certainly doesn’t hurt. My daughter was admitted and she was only National Merit-Commended. It is a “holistic” process. There are likely MANY NMSF amongst the admitted.</p>
<p>Last year, out of 36 people who applied from my school, 6 got in, and every single one of them was National Merit Semifinalist. Of course, there is correlation between being a NMSF and being an overall good student (Good GPA, Good SAT, Good ECs…). But this year, a person got in without even being a commended student. It def. helps, but not so much.</p>
<p>yea, its sort of odd circumstances, because im from california and we have the highest NSF standards in the US, and i got a 2130, but thats not enough to be a finalist (if only i was from kansas) besides, my poor freshman year would disqualify me (i got a 1.3 freshmen year because my brother had cancer, now i have a 4.5)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about it. We also live in California and 4 kids were accepted ED at our school and only one was a NMSF. My daughter had a score close to yours and was accepted.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s great! Thanks! I come from a pretty low academics backwoods school too so I’m hoping that’ll work in my favor</p>