National Merit and Early Graduation

tokenadult
Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:48:56 +0000

I don’t have the email I saw at hand, but I think the states where the cut-off score fluctuates most wildly would be those with the very fewest high-scoring students, because they are low-population states (think Wyoming or Alaska). Anyhow, there is some definite date by which high school students have to make their drop-dead last decision about what year they will graduate, and based on what the students say on that issue, the National Merit people count up students, and set cut scores for qualifying for semifinalist designation. I’ve not seen any verifiable Web-based source that describes this part of the process in such detail, but I trust the person who mentioned the issue as an exceptionally knowledgeable observer of the process.