Bad question I know, but I cannot seem to find the answer. I have a particular relative who seems to feel the need to tell my children she is smarter than them because she was a NMS in the early 60’s out of South Dakota. NOW, I know the population was much lower then, so you could be in a lower percentile to get the NMS. Plus, SD always has the lowest cut off score possible. I know, there are plenty of opinions on this nasty relative, but I would love to have this information for my children the next time she starts in on them. We only see her at family functions.
PSAT wasn’t adopted as the qualifying test until 1971.
This brief history is interesting but doesn’t explain when the state-specific cut offs were created.
Even though the PSAT was first used in 1971 the National Merit Scholar program existed before then.
http://collegeadmissions.testmasters.com/psat-nmsqt-history/
I suspect the state-specific cutoffs are a fairly recent invention as a way of increasing fairness. I doubt very much that there were state-specific cutoffs at the beginning.
Well that’s a rather slanted article.
A lot has changed over the years. For example when I took the test in 1986 neither I nor any of my junior classmates had prepped for it. I qualified in California with a 230, which presumably would still qualify. But noone seemed to know much about what that meant. My parents didn’t l didn’t. The high school didn’t publicize.
A little more info on the history with more context:
http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=451
How often do you have family functions? How many times has she brought this up? I’d let it go. If she finished high school in the early 60’s, I assume your relative is now over 70? Soon your kids will be out of the age group where NM means anything to them. If NMS is the best thing your relative has on her resume after all these decades, well, that is sad. I feel sorry for her. Let it go. Let her have her (now pathetic) moment of pride. You/your kids don’t need to try to discredit this old lady or do a lot of research to try to prove her scores weren’t really so hot. For you to do that would be even sadder. (I’m not sure if the information is available/comparable anyway.)
(We have 5 NMSs in our immediate family–nothing against it. We’ve collected some great scholarships. But I don’t brag about it to the relatives.)
Not that many colleges in California offered National Merit scholarships. In the pre-internet days, it was not as easy to find out about out-of-area colleges and their scholarships, so it was harder for National Merit scholarships at out-of-area colleges to be on the radar of students and counselors at a high school.
I ended up being recruited strongly by Williamette who gave me a near full ride. But it was hard to find info back then.
I graduated from HS in 1971, and we took a non-PSAT NMSQT. IIRC, there were something like 5 sections/subscores, and the content of some was more “factual” than the PSAT. Possibly it was more like the ACT, but I’ve never taken that one, so I don’t know.
There was, AFAIK, no possibility of prepping for it. You just went in one Saturday and took it. Of course, prepping for the PSAT/SAT was unheard of then, at least in my circles.
I think we may have been the last class to take the separate test. I do recall that there were different cut-off scores by state.
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I took the PSAT in the early 70s and no one prepped for it. We took it at school.
Similarly, I don’t think anyone prepped for the SAT or ACT. We’d go to a football game the night before, maybe a party, and roll out of bed and take the test with 2 #2 pencils in hand.
Oh just have your kids say “gee…I guess you are smarter than I am”. That should end the discussion and blow the wind out of this relatives sails.
I tell my kids I was a better standardized test taker than they are but they are learning more than i did at school. And that being good at standardiced tests is nice for one aspect of life but in the end, not all that important. So tell them to tell the aunt that!
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who seems to feel the need to tell my children she is smarter than them
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I guess she doesn’t care that she has worse manners than they.
Or, better yet assume responsibility yourself, “yeah, unfortunately, the kids got half of my genes, and they are doing the best with what I gave them.”
I was NMS (1982) and I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what I got on the PSAT! Like everyone else upthread, you didn’t prep for it. And you only took your SATs once – unless you were a poor student, then you took them twice.
You only see this woman at family functions. Do you really think that “oh, yeah, you only got an XX and my kids got YY, so they indeed ARE smarter” is going to be a productive conversation? Do you think you will convince her of anything? Just have your kids tell her that gosh, she really is indeed smarter (they can cross their fingers behind their backs) and move on. I agree with the posters above – it’s more pathetic to try to rebut her.
I lived in a wealthy suburb. No one took the SAT twice. It was always one and done. Most went to public universities in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. There were a smattering of kids who went to college on the east coast. I personally knew no one who went to college in CA. So…no one took the ACT at all.
My school had sometimes up to 20 NMS winners…back when that actually netted you some $$. My class had 1100 students in it.
It was called the NMSQT (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test) back in the Stone Age.
It would have been considered embarrassing to take the SAT twice in those days (unless something terrible had befallen you, you suddenly came down with the flu in the middle of the first one and collapsed). It meant you were stupid enough that you had to try twice.
I graduated HS in 1980, so probably took the PSAT 2 years before that. I remember the total score was calculated by doubling the verbal score and adding the math. I scored higher on the verbal portion, so qualified for NMF with a 206-ish score, while a friend of mine who had a better math score did not make the cut-off (she was pretty upset about that). I think I got $1500 per year scholarship, which was a much higher percentage of the tuition than the amounts many schools award today to NMF’s.
For those of us who can refrain from being judgemental, re-taking the SAT meant that you didn’t perform as well as you knew you could. One of my friends got a disappointing score, took it again, and did much better. Got a PhD from MIT, yes, clearly a stupid person.
I just don’t even remember thinking taking it twice iwas an option. I was in California and I don’t even think I knew what the ACT was. I was a first-generation college student so my parents didn’t really know the process and my guidance counselor was someone I saw once a year at registration.