Names of National Merit Semifinalists in DC Released: Sidwell -16. St. Albans - 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, if you do the math, generally SAT 1500 is too low to qualify PSAT 224. You need to have SAT around 1500+ to get PSAT cut off 224.

Typo 1550+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, if you do the math, generally SAT 1500 is too low to qualify PSAT 224. You need to have SAT around 1500+ to get PSAT cut off 224.

No, 76*2 + 74, 75*2 + 75, and 74*2 + 76 = 1500 and will all get to 224.

The lowest score that could qualify would be 1480 (76*2 + 72), but since math scores, in general, are higher than RW, I suspect that few of the qualifiers had 1480 or 1490.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a former NMSF myself, I can’t figure out for the life of me why anyone cares about this.

Lots of corporate scholarships available to those who meet the cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This list makes no sense if you compare it to previous years. Sidwell has more finalists than it normally would. St. Albans only one. GDS only one. None for Gonzaga (which typically has 5ish). Nothing for Walls.

My kids don't go to any of these schools, but, I wonder what the deal is. This isn't something I'd be bragging about over at Sidwell. I think this list is really weird and possibly incomplete or manipulated in some way.

Sidewall had 13 last year and 15 this year. Are you implying that these strong results are something g the kids should be proud of because it must have been some kind of weird fluke to increase by, gasp, 2 student semi-finalists, and that that indicates some kind of manipulation. What’s “weird” about that? Like the posters who suggested sone kind of push by Sidwell for students to provide SAT scores, even though that would not have been available as the school had host a psat test last year. Could you possibly simply offer recognition if a job well done by these kids? And I haven’t seen any bragging by Sidwell. But to imply that the kids gain the award through some nefarious process such that they and their parents shouldn’t be proud us simply inappropriate. Kind of like arguing that am election is “rigged”, and implicating the prevailing party, just because some people didn’t get the result they want.

I counted 16 for Sidwell.

Patch updated the list last night to add 1 more to Sidwell and 1 more to NCS. Thus Sidwell from 15 to 16 and NCS from 3 to 4. People do care about who made to list.

[Anonymous]

the cut-off score if SAT was used was 1480 or 1490.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By the way, if you do the math, generally SAT 1500 is too low to qualify PSAT 224. You need to have SAT around 1500+ to get PSAT cut off 224.

No, 76*2 + 74, 75*2 + 75, and 74*2 + 76 = 1500 and will all get to 224.

The lowest score that could qualify would be 1480 (76*2 + 72), but since math scores, in general, are higher than RW, I suspect that few of the qualifiers had 1480 or 1490.

Sorry, I meant PSAT scores to get to 224, not SAT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This list makes no sense if you compare it to previous years. Sidwell has more finalists than it normally would. St. Albans only one. GDS only one. None for Gonzaga (which typically has 5ish). Nothing for Walls.

My kids don't go to any of these schools, but, I wonder what the deal is. This isn't something I'd be bragging about over at Sidwell. I think this list is really weird and possibly incomplete or manipulated in some way.

Has anyone considered that the parents of the top public school students transferred them to open private schools during the pandemic and Sidwell got the top crop (maybe because they had more open seats, maybe because they answered the phone calls first, maybe because they were more accommodating).

You'd of course have to ask a Sidwell parent if most of these 16 Semifinalists were transfers but regardless I think this is a job well done and should be celebrated.

Congrats to Sidwell! (And if my pandemic theory is right - they should start poaching star students every year )

LOL, none of those Sidwell kids were post-pandemic admits. Many of them are lifers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the cut-off score if SAT was used was 1480 or 1490.

Most with 1480 would not qualify - only 760RW/720M.

720RW/760M, 730/750, 740/740, and 750/730 would all be too low.

[Anonymous]

Do we know the gender break down? Were there more girls vs boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do we know the gender break down? Were there more girls vs boys?

4 NCS vs 1 STA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a former NMSF myself, I can’t figure out for the life of me why anyone cares about this.

Same. Except I just LOVE boasting about my NMSF days of yore. My colleagues do too. I can tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do we know the gender break down? Were there more girls vs boys?

I think there are usually more boys on the DC list, but not always. Consistent with boys doing better nationwide at the very high end of scores (especially math).

[Anonymous]

Weird year & some kids found out about the alternate SAT route, others didn't and either didn't take PSAT at all or only got the one chance with an even higher cutoff than usual because of the SAT entries skewing it higher.

If 1550+ SAT were the usual standard instead of 222-224 on PSAT, most of the private schools around here would have 2-3x the number of NMSF they usually have. Much more common to have 1550+ on SAT than to be at 224 with one shot on PSAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird year & some kids found out about the alternate SAT route, others didn't and either didn't take PSAT at all or only got the one chance with an even higher cutoff than usual because of the SAT entries skewing it higher.

If 1550+ SAT were the usual standard instead of 222-224 on PSAT, most of the private schools around here would have 2-3x the number of NMSF they usually have. Much more common to have 1550+ on SAT than to be at 224 with one shot on PSAT.

It's not even 1550 that was needed but 1480. That's 40% of the class at the Big3 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former NMSF myself, I can’t figure out for the life of me why anyone cares about this.

Lots of corporate scholarships available to those who meet the cutoff.

Right. The parents of SFS lifers who’ve spent $600,000 are in it for the merit scholarship. Definitely not for the ego boost. Definitely not.