National Merit Commended and test optional
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| My commended psat taker (1450) will likely go TO several places with a 1480. Hopefully putting commended down allows AOs to infer the SAT was likely high-ish, not terrible. |
Anonymous
| When do we hear about commended? I'm sure that DD made the commended cutoff and we haven't heard a thing (FCPS). |
Anonymous
Our FCPS school notified us 9/22 but College Board told kid well before that. |
Anonymous
We got more than one email from a counselor (parents and student) asking us to confirm having been notified. |
Anonymous
| It shows the school that you got a good score, but it may be slightly below their average. So it's a win for both parties. Kid shows they did well (but not great) on psat and it doesn't bring the school's average down. |
Anonymous
| Commended is not an honor. You have got to remember this from high school. |
Anonymous
| It depends on the school. 1440 is a low score for many schools. |
Anonymous
It represents being in the top 2% nationally. https://research.collegeboard.org/reports/sat-suite/understanding-scores/sat It's crazy you people don't understand the concentrated affluent educated nature of your communities. It's not really a low score in any kind of way that should reflect negatively on the achiever. Commended is an honor. That's why they notify your school about it. But a lot of schools don't pay attention to the letter. |
Anonymous
You need to look at the User percentile group, which is 95 for 1440. The National percentile is irrelevant (old pre-2016 data that includes non-college-bound students). Still, 1440 is a good score and I'd probably submit it to most schools. |
Anonymous
| our HS says commended doesn't even always go on your awards section. only if you dont have anything else. I assume it's not that impressive to top 25 colleges/ |
Anonymous
If you have 10 more impressive academic honors, sure. But for most kids this would make the cut. It’s better than subjective awards unless they’re also national. |
Anonymous
| only 5 spots for honors |
Anonymous
PP. I wasn't going to get into that. But just stop and think about your comment. How it could be an insufficiently impressive achievement to be in the top 5% of SAT takers? There is a lot of snobbery on this board because of the bubble people in the DMV live in. That's actually why I moved away to raise kids. You've got kids that would be top of the class a few states away feeling like runners-up and losers. Only "good" at what they do. Mainly based on how well they absorbed elementary math and whether they enjoy reading long books. To me, those are the key skills that lead to preppable success. (I am a PA National Merit Finalist from long ago.) |
Anonymous
It is a low school depending upon the stats expected at the target school. A 1440 is below the median for UVA. This fall the 75th percentile had a 1540 and median had a 1470. If you are unhooked, you need to be aiming for that 75th percentile |
Anonymous
PP. If you look at UVA's 24-25 common data set, even adding ACT, it seems about 40% of students did not submit a test score at all. The SAT stats reflect slightly less than half of the admitted students. The true stats are likely much different than what is revealed. And I believe UVA could actually purchase or do research with the true statistics (data matched and identity kept blind through processing by College Board). Dartmouth did. They may know their true distribution. But I agree they can't publish it. Point is, a 1440 at UVA will be a far more typical student at UVA than the data suggests. But they might strategically go TO while absorbing the "less than" mentality this forum promotes. That's a sad way to begin an exciting stage of life. |