Would 1580-->1600 SAT make a difference? & other UChicago admissions questions

bluebayou
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 18:58:47 +0000

clipper1301:

Not related to the topic of this thread but how much of a difference does National Merit Scholarship make on college applications? I sort of screwed myself by not studying extensively for the PSAT/NMSQT (got a 1410) and only began studying for the SAT after I took it.

Like everything in college admissions, ‘it depends.’ For the Ivies, National Merit apps are a dime-a-dozen as my dad used to day. In other words, they could care less.

OTOH, many colleges down the food chain love to brag about how many NM scholars they have, so for them, it matters. (Such colleges may also give automatic merit scholarships to NM winners. As an example, for years, USC gave auto merit money to NM winners, to raise their Frosh test scores to move up the rankings.)