National Merit Semifinalist Cut-off Scores for High School Class of 2016

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are there different cutoffs for different states? The test is a national test.

Is this regional affirmative action in practice?

If a national cutoff score is used, most of the winners will come from the high cutoff states - NJ, MD, CA, and Mass. You will see many states with no NMSF.

So kids are penalized for where they live? Sounds like affirmative action to me.

Seems like this policy hurts URMs as well.

http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/04/not-so-national-merit/

"Troublesomely, I also found that states with larger minority populations tend to have higher cutoffs."

Looks like the policy is designed for flyover whites.

This discussion happens every year. I wouldn't characterize it as kids are being "penalized" per se but state based cutoff approach has inherent sense of unfairness. Keep it mind, however, resources available to kids vary widely state-to-state and district-to-district. Some states just don't have educational resources to match high cutoff states. Also, the national cutoff approach will result in NMC losing its national appeal since most states will become non-players.

every year it seems that education in this country is becoming more about social engineering over finding and nurturing excellence.

Asians will make up at least 90% of the NMSF if there were national cut off.

we must protect white hegemony, right?

90% seems reasonable looking at the names of NMSF in fairfax county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MD historically has 1-2 pts higher cutoff scores than VA. Just because VA "matched" MD for one year, it doesn't mean VA is as good as MD. Abnormalities do happen after all.

Not only "match" the cutoff score, one school (TJ) had more NMSF than the Blair magnet program (100), Blair CAP program (80) and Poolesville prgram (400) combined. Maybe TJ had more NMSF than the entire MCPS schools combined?

The entire county having fewer NMSF than just one school in VA is shameful.

Haw many nmsf winners did Montgomery County have?

[Anonymous]

Finally got my child's letter from Sidwell confirming semifinalist status. Still have no idea who the other 15 are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finally got my child's letter from Sidwell confirming semifinalist status. Still have no idea who the other 15 are.

Let us know if Malia is one. Chelsea was one when she was at Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

Has nobody posted a DC list? Shouldn't it have been sent to local media outlets?

[Anonymous]

I haven't been able to find a DC list. I'm sure the Post and the Northwest Current have it by now. Georgetown Patch, too.

[Anonymous]

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation doesn't send a list to the media. Individual schools are free to share the information as they see fit. What's the big deal about sending the list to the media?

[Anonymous]

Actually NM does send out press releases to various media outlets but only with local names. There's not one big list available to the public. Google 2016 national merit semifinalists for examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finally got my child's letter from Sidwell confirming semifinalist status. Still have no idea who the other 15 are.

How do you knowmthere are 16?

[Anonymous]

I have the the list

Here are some tallies:

DC
Georgetown Day - 3
Georgetown Visitation - 1
Maret - 3
NCS - 4
Sidwell - 16
St Albans - 6
St. John's - 4
Wash International - 2
Woodrow Wilson - 2

VA
TJ - 163
Potomac - 5

MARYLAND
BCC - 6
Holton Arms - 2
Walter Johnson - 2
Walt Whitman - 9
Churchill - 8
Montgomery - 41
Wootton - 10
Blair - 41

BALTIMORE
Bryn Mawr - 2
Calvert Hall - 1
Gilman - 2
RPCS - 2
Park - 1
St. Paul's - 2
SPSG - 2
McDonogh - 3
Loyola - 3

This was posted awhile back and has proven to be accurate for the schools whose results have been made public.

[Anonymous]

THIS is the list for 2015 DC NMSF (Note: NOT what has previously been posted on here. Please keep in mind that the class sizes of the schools vary tremendously. For example Wilson obviously has a very large class. Visitation, Gonzaga, Sidwelll (120 students) and GDS (130 students) are about 40% larger than NCS STA which have about 80 seniors each.

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1310966/d-c-semifinalists-in-2015-national-merit.pdf

EDMUND BURKE: 1
GDS: 11
GEORGETOWN VISITATION: 3
GONZAGA: 6
NCS: 4
MARET: 1
STA: 8
SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS: 1
SIDWELL: 6
ST. ANSELM'S: 1
WIS: 1
WILSON: 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:THIS is the list for 2015 DC NMSF (Note: NOT what has previously been posted on here. Please keep in mind that the class sizes of the schools vary tremendously. For example Wilson obviously has a very large class. Visitation, Gonzaga, Sidwelll (120 students) and GDS (130 students) are about 40% larger than NCS STA which have about 80 seniors each.

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1310966/d-c-semifinalists-in-2015-national-merit.pdf

EDMUND BURKE: 1
GDS: 11
GEORGETOWN VISITATION: 3
GONZAGA: 6
NCS: 4
MARET: 1
STA: 8
SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS: 1
SIDWELL: 6
ST. ANSELM'S: 1
WIS: 1
WILSON: 1

Last September says thanks for the breaking news. This is LAST YEAR'S list. The list that was posted here for 2016 is 100% accurate.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the person who has the list would be willing to share the names here. At this point, everyone has been notified. The local news agencies don't seem to be inclined to publish. I for one would really appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the person who has the list would be willing to share the names here. At this point, everyone has been notified. The local news agencies don't seem to be inclined to publish. I for one would really appreciate it.

Even easier, the person with the list could simply snap a pic with her cell phone, and upload to this anonymous site -- http://postimage.org/ -- then share here the link to the image.

[Anonymous]

Hey, I'm the person with the list. Not going to post a pic or anything, just because of all the geotag identifiers and those kinds of things that I don't even know about.

Also, I'm not really inclined to put out individual students' names. I was fine with posting overall school results but anonymously sharing information about teenage kids online is not something I feel great about.