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but as for the actual “National Merit Scholars” who win the NMSC award directly,
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There is no set rubric…however, when we made a thread to figure this out, it appeared that a high PSAT and high SAT seemed to be a dominating factor. But, in some cases, maybe because each state is supposed to have an equal number of boys and girl winners, there may be some “dips” in scores to achieve the balance.
That said, all NMFs who get a NMF award from any of the sources…college, corporate or NMCorp…are ALL NMScholars.