Announcing National Merit Semi-Finalists

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's MD and VA 2026 NMSF courtesy of reddit (if these lists are fakes, they're definitely elaborate ones.) No DC posted unfortunately. The number of public school magnet students (TJ, Blair etc.) on these lists is incredible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/1ndby41/lists_of_semifinalists_by_state_2026/

Maryland 2026
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eH4WYg3mc8FIb9IhZGqvbIbcVIjXziJF/view
Virginia 2026
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xCdjpoXII9oTmu_hWYFqeWl5XWmTblSu/view

What is it in percentage of the entire class?

It's the top 1% of scorers per state. Except for DC which gets screwed where students have to earn the score of whatever the top scoring state is (225 in NJ and MA this year).

It's actually the top .5%

in DC

No, everywhere but DC. In DC it's just the number that get higher than the highest state's cutoff.

No, the DC threshold is automatically set to the threshold of the highest scoring state (NJ and MA this year) which is 225. It's not higher than the highest state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAES and Landon being higher than Sidwell is also pretty striking.

You have no idea what the DC numbers would be if they had the same 224 cutoff as MD and VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAES and Landon being higher than Sidwell is also pretty striking.

You have no idea what the DC numbers would be if they had the same 224 cutoff as MD and VA.

Wasn’t the DC cutoff 225? So your argument is Sidwell had a ton of kids with exactly 224?

[Anonymous]

The lists reflect the suburban schools dominating the DC schools and I don’t think the 224 vs 225 is the likely explanation.

[Anonymous]

No one knows how many students at each DC school scored 224. Just saying that it's not apples to apples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAES and Landon being higher than Sidwell is also pretty striking.

Yeah, I thought Landon didn't have much of an academic rep. But it is in MD, which had a lower score threshold than DC (Sidwell), right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one knows how many students at each DC school scored 224. Just saying that it's not apples to apples.

Cope

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAES and Landon being higher than Sidwell is also pretty striking.

Yeah, I thought Landon didn't have much of an academic rep. But it is in MD, which had a lower score threshold than DC (Sidwell), right?

MD threshold was 224. DC was 225. So the only difference would be kids scoring exactly 224.

[Anonymous]

Holton had more than the Big 3 combined.

[Anonymous]

Crossposting from the college forum...
FCPS and MCPS - Same Cut-Off

TJ 113
Richard Montgomery 37
Blair 36
Oakton 25
Langley 23
McLean 20
Chantilly 17
Poolesville 17
Marshall 15
Churchill 12
B-CC 11
Whitman 10
Madison 8
Woodson 8
Centreville 7
Walter Johnson 7
Wootton 7
Westfield 6
Fairfax 5
Lake Braddock 5
Springbrook 3
Wheaton 3
Edison 2
Einstein 2
Herndon 2
Northwest 2
West Springfield 2
Falls Church 1
Justice 1
Sherwood 1
South Lakes 1
West Potomac 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holton had more than the Big 3 combined.

And most years they have had 4 or less. These things go up and down depending on the strength of a particular class.

[Anonymous]

https://www.compassprep.com/psat-national-merit-faq/

Why do some states have more Semifinalists and Finalists than other states?

Although Commended Scholars are honored based on a single, national cutoff, NMSC distributes Semifinalists proportionally to states (and District of Columbia and U.S. Territories) based on the number of graduating students in the state. For example, California sees approximately 2,100 Semifinalists each year—the most in the country. It gets 13% of Semifinalists because it produces approximately 13% of high school graduates. Mississippi, on the other hand, typically sees about 135 National Merit Semifinalists, because the state produces a bit more than 0.8% of U.S. graduates. The distribution is completely unrelated to the number of students taking the PSAT in the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holton had more than the Big 3 combined.

And most years they have had 4 or less. These things go up and down depending on the strength
of a particular class.

The usual number for Holton is 5. This year is much higher, reflecting the strength of this particular class.

[Anonymous]

IAC Results:

Landon: 5
Prep: 4
SSSAS:4
Bullis: 3
STA: 2

At least STA still has soccer!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.compassprep.com/psat-national-merit-faq/

Why do some states have more Semifinalists and Finalists than other states?

Although Commended Scholars are honored based on a single, national cutoff, NMSC distributes Semifinalists proportionally to states (and District of Columbia and U.S. Territories) based on the number of graduating students in the state. For example, California sees approximately 2,100 Semifinalists each year—the most in the country. It gets 13% of Semifinalists because it produces approximately 13% of high school graduates. Mississippi, on the other hand, typically sees about 135 National Merit Semifinalists, because the state produces a bit more than 0.8% of U.S. graduates. The distribution is completely unrelated to the number of students taking the PSAT in the state.

Yes, we all know this. But for comparing DC vs MD/VA the only difference is MD/VA has a cutoff of 224 and DC was 225