My D got the same Yale letter. SI 213 FL
She has a letter from all the Ivies except Princeton plus Rice, Duke, Vandy, Emory, Williams and many others.
Also NMF schools like Oklahoma, Kentucky UCF …
She even got one one from Oberlin congratulating her for being a good test taker before her PSAT score was even released!
These letters and emails mean nothing, they are sent by the tens of thousands.
@dallaspiano …I agree 100%!! Just let me pay to find out. We need to be doing some planning not waiting around. Ugh
I wonder how many kids/parents are actually focused on this issue. There are a group of kids who are almost certainly/certainly in (even with the uncertainty of a new test/scoring scale). And the vast majority of kids have no shot at all. So how many people are in the middle? And how many of those folks are actually thinking about it. I have a friend who doesn’t want to talk about it or hear anything about projections, cutoffs, etc. She is content to wait until September. And ultimately the answer to my question is unknowable just like the cutoffs are right now.
I have no skin in the game at all but find it interesting to follow this thread. I am rooting for all you guys!
Subj: OU letter
I got specific answer from Lydia Batchelor (OU Admissions Counselor, Nat. Scholars Programs)
Briefly, she said since the score system changed she 's not sure 100% but based on my provided info (GPA, ranking, course load, 2015 PSAT scores and old SAT scores, TX resident) She ESTIMATED my chance a shot at NMF program at OU
If you want OU chance your kids, pls contact natlscholars@ou.edu
@dallaspiano…What does that mean? Does she think you have a “shot” at getting NMF? Did you get the OU email? If you did then I would say, you have a great chance to be NMF.
Yes, yes. Just shoot an email I provided
@dallaspiano If you don’t mind, please remind me what your SI score was again. It’s been so long since all of this has started. lol
So it is now March 1st - we can all be on the lookout for any news about the National Merit commended score cut offs - if anyone hears about it, please report here! Imagine GCs might be first to get word on it.
They should have a pretty good handle on upcoming NMSF’s. Must be privy to SI’s by state for top-performing students.
“The University of Oklahoma is No. 1 among all public and private universities in the enrollment of freshman National Merit Scholars. OU is home to over 750 currently enrolled National Merit Scholars.”
Colleges don’t know any more than we do.
S and I got a good chuckle because he received a snail mail from Yale. He was pleased and then recycled it. He also received the OU email. And I don’t think that we will start hearing about cutoff sores from HS’s or the home school crew until April. We didn’t hear until 04-12-2014 from a home schooling “principal” what the commended cutoff score was (my D15’s year for NM stress).
Commended cut has typically been in April, I wouldn’t get too excited just yet.
OU does not have any information. No college does. Every year people speculate about this and every year it is debunked.
So I will admit I have not read all 200+ pages of this thread; I’ve dabbled here and there over the last few months. But, new piece of information that might be helpful, or might just kick off another round of speculation/extrapolation… We are in Maryland. My Junior DD was told today by her AP English teacher that she likely made the cut for NMSF on her PSAT, because in the teacher report that came with the test scores, scores above 218 had “yes” next to them; scores below 218 had “no”. Last year the cutoff for MD was 222. DD scored a 220; I had told her she was likely close – either just over or just under the cutoff, but we’d have to wait until Sept. to find out. So, this additional information seems to increase the likelihood that she made the cutoff; whether the real cutoff will be 218 or not, we won’t know until September. So, let the speculation begin ;-).
@ailinsh1 thanks for this info – no doubt we will engage in some speculation and conduct further due diligence with school GCs/staff we can reach out to. I am not sure if in the past there were reports this early in the year with yes/no at various score levels that indicate NMSF. Wonder if the teacher will state if the report was from the college board or NM corp. – and has any description of what the “yes” means. 218 would along the lines of Test Masters prediction: http://collegeadmissions.testmasters.com/update-psat-scores-cut-national-merit-2016/ Thanks for sharing and congrats to your daughter for a great score!!
@ailinsh1 Which teacher report had the yes? Was it something that came in January with the paper reports?
NM annual report (2013-2014)
MD had 43,907 test takers and 318 NMSF ==> 318/43907 = 0.00724 or 0.0724% or 99.276%tile of MD state
MD Mean is lower Nat Mean (2013-2014) by ~2points
Base on 2015 data (M 148, SD 26, P (X<x) 0.99276) then associated SI will be 211.573/228. Then why 218 is in teacher report?
People at KY GSP had to make a call to CB regional office to get number 211. Then why does an AP English teacher -Howard County, MD high schools - has a report?
My Mom, a teacher, considered be in Inner Circle of my HS. Her Radar is up (for me), and she does not hear or see any report
@ailinsh1 That is consistent with the Compass prediction for Maryland.
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/
I have no idea – that’s what I assume; just passing on what DD told me. I’ll see if she has additional details when she gets home. Keep in mind that CB completely screwed up the timeline for our county in terms of score release. Our tests were supposedly still being scored after the national score release in January. I have yet to see a paper report, but it did finally show up in her CB account in late January or early February. We’ve known her score from having looked online, but we hadn’t heard anything from the school about it until now. So my guess is that the info the teacher has is whatever was sent with the paper reports … which I’m guessing they finally received and distributed to the students today. What I’m saying is that because CB so totally screwed up our county, we are late to the party in terms of getting any information; the fact that the teacher has a report now vs. a month ago probably just means they finally got the stuff from CB that was supposed to be out in January, rather than it meaning that any new information is available.