NMSFs in DC 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DCPS DC would’ve made the NMSF cutoff in 45 states the year they took the exam. That’s life. In the end it really doesn’t matter except for bragging rights. I’d actually be more curious to see the commended numbers as an overall better comparison.

It is very disappointing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DCPS DC would’ve made the NMSF cutoff in 45 states the year they took the exam. That’s life. In the end it really doesn’t matter except for bragging rights. I’d actually be more curious to see the commended numbers as an overall better comparison.

267 commended + semi finalists in DC. (You have to add them together to get the comparable numbers.)

Data here, if you want to look at other states: https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/guide_to_the_national_merit_scholarship_program.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DCPS DC would’ve made the NMSF cutoff in 45 states the year they took the exam. That’s life. In the end it really doesn’t matter except for bragging rights. I’d actually be more curious to see the commended numbers as an overall better comparison.

I'm sorry, that is a bummer!

for me, the only benefit (there were no bragging rights bc none of the other kids at my school had any idea what it meant and deeply didn't care) was that it really does improve your college outcomes and there are a few colleges that give out scholarships or instant admits to NMSFs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DCPS DC would’ve made the NMSF cutoff in 45 states the year they took the exam. That’s life. In the end it really doesn’t matter except for bragging rights. I’d actually be more curious to see the commended numbers as an overall better comparison.

267 commended + semi finalists in DC. (You have to add them together to get the comparable numbers.)

Data here, if you want to look at other states: https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/guide_to_the_national_merit_scholarship_program.pdf

Interesting to compare these numbers to small states where the cut-offs are much lower:

State/Cutoff/#NMSF/#commended
Alaska/215/31/24
Delaware/220/47/84
Montana/213/48/8
North Dakota/210/26/0
Rhode Island/219/50/96
South Dakota/211/46/6
Vermont/216/27/27
Wyoming/210/20/0
DC/225/37/230

DC’s number of semi-finalists is impressive—but look at those commended numbers!

230 is off the charts compared to the small states. DC had more commended scholars than Wisconsin (216), which has 6M people. This might actually justify DC having the highest cut-off; the number of high scorers in this city is disproportionate to its size.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the real reason DC takes the cutoff of the highest state is that there are too many high-scoring kids in DC. If we had our own cutoff, it would sometimes be the highest cutoff in the nation, and it would be politically inconvenient to admit that a city (horrors!) had the highest cut score.

[Anonymous]

Looks like commended was 210 this year? Both Wyoming and North Dakota had 0 commended students but had a 210 cut off. South Dakota had a 212 cut off plus 6 commended students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents do not send their children to private for one output that you consider “little”. They send their kids to private because of tradition, a rite of passage, for the experience, to be surrounded by peers of similar backgrounds, for classroom management and better academics overall, structure and conformity, to network and PR, and so on and so forth..
it is the public school mindset that addresses things in such a way: If I put X-money in, I have to get one output.

Not buying it. They mostly send their kids to private schools for smaller classes and a cocoon environment, where teens are closely monitored and sheltered. Better academics overall? Better than DCPS and DCPCS, yes. But in the burbs, better academics are mainly found in test-in public magnets (TJ, Montgomery Blair STEM etc.) and IB Diploma programs where students need to clear an academic bar to qualify for Diploma classes (BCC, Washington-Liberty, Fairfax etc.). TJ has more NMSFs than any private school in the area by a long shot. Sidwell will get 8-12% NMSFs while TJ still gets 20-25%, even with the watering down of admission standards 4 or 5 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Why is there a post debating private vs suburban schools on the DCPS/PCS board? You’re way off topic.

[Anonymous]

Speak for yourself. I'm interested in where the NMSFs amalgamate in the DMV. SWW does the best in DC. Then maybe BASIS. But in the big picture, Sidwell and TJ destroy them all by a long shot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speak for yourself. I'm interested in where the NMSFs amalgamate in the DMV. SWW does the best in DC. Then maybe BASIS. But in the big picture, Sidwell and TJ destroy them all by a long shot.

TJ is NOT a DC public school and by default a STEM high school. Sidwell is a private religious DC school with 60K yearly tuition. You can move to VA and send your kids to TJ or Sidwell and go to the private schools board.

However, this is about DC public schools. Let’s keep it about our schools.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sad by the lack of information in DC around this -- every other county in the country has announced this on the local news. We just don't have local news anymore?

This feels indicative of some kind of breakdown in the city. No one is watching and no one cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sad by the lack of information in DC around this -- every other county in the country has announced this on the local news. We just don't have local news anymore?

This feels indicative of some kind of breakdown in the city. No one is watching and no one cares.

Yes, we don't have a local newspaper. Results were once announced by the NW Current and then the DC Patch but neither exist anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sad by the lack of information in DC around this -- every other county in the country has announced this on the local news. We just don't have local news anymore?

This feels indicative of some kind of breakdown in the city. No one is watching and no one cares.

Yes, we don't have a local newspaper. Results were once announced by the NW Current and then the DC Patch but neither exist anymore.

I am also sad about this. Maybe Jeff can ask for the results since no one else cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sad by the lack of information in DC around this -- every other county in the country has announced this on the local news. We just don't have local news anymore?

This feels indicative of some kind of breakdown in the city. No one is watching and no one cares.

+1 😞
Our public schools students deserve to be celebrated!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sad by the lack of information in DC around this -- every other county in the country has announced this on the local news. We just don't have local news anymore?

This feels indicative of some kind of breakdown in the city. No one is watching and no one cares.

Yes, we don't have a local newspaper. Results were once announced by the NW Current and then the DC Patch but neither exist anymore.

I am also sad about this. Maybe Jeff can ask for the results since no one else cares.

My understanding is that results are available upon request to those in the local press (and perhaps are automatically sent if the publication has a history of publishing them).
Then a PDF of the state's results or a full booklet of all the US results are also sent to each high school. When DC results have been made public in recent years (and were posted on DCUM) it's because a Reddit poster had access to the full booklet and took photographs of the pages by state OR someone local knew someone in the administrative office at a high school or central office and got their hands on the DC PDF.