National Merit Semifinalists 2024
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Anonymous
🙄 |
Anonymous
Isn't Potomac class over 150 students? |
Anonymous
According to the most recent school profile, Potomac has 475 students in the US. So, that’s almost 120 students/grade. That means about 7.5% of the seniors are NMSFs. |
Anonymous
That is not what I am asking: The allocations are proportional to students in each state/district and the cutoffs are proportional to top 1% of each jurisdiction. What I am asking is why do the top private schools in Texas get larger CLUSTERS of NMSF than their comparable schools in DC area. In Dallas, St. Mark's School of Texas had 29 this year out of a class of about 100 (30% of class). Hockaday 13 out of 125 (10% of class). I don't think the cutoffs explain all of it. Basically you need around a 1486 PSAT in DC/VA and 1460 in Texas to make the corresponding cutoffs, and both of those scores are still 99th percentile nationally. So that can't explain all of the different distribution nor does the allocation of spots because those are proportional. My guess reading through the thread is that TJ is taking up 99th percentile kids that would probably otherwise cluster in the top privates whereas Dallas doesn't have anything public quite as comparable as TJ. Dallas Academy for Talented and Gifted (closest public to TJ) had 16 out of a lower hundreds class size. |
Anonymous
No. TJ is in VA, it doesn’t take from the top private schools in the area. It has nothing to do with that. |
Anonymous
No I think 130? |
Anonymous
Some of it is the cut-off. I have a kid who would have made it in Texas but not in DC (PSAT score of 1470). His closest friend is the same. 1486 to 1460 is actually a pretty big gap--i means you go from getting maybe 2-3 questions wrong to twice that number. It's kind of a big gap. Then you look at the NMSF names at St. Marks, most are Asian or South Asian. The DC schools just don't draw many of either. The numbers are really small. Why? Very, very few Asians live in DC proper and few commute in from suburbia in for high school. |
Anonymous
They don't. Many of them were known to be high scorers on tests coming into 9th. A lot of these top schools take "sure bets" at 9th to boost lists like these and college admissions. |
Anonymous
When posters are comparing MCPS to privates they are usually talking about the magnets. They are comparing special programs that are 100-125 at places like Poolesville, RMIB, and Blair magnet kids v the larger competitive privates that have classes of about the same size. In MCPS magnets, 20-40% are NMSFs depending on the program. |
Anonymous
That is how it goes in life. IVYs then pick up these “sure bets” based on test scores. And the test scores then get these “sure bets” to T-14 schools and to Big Law and big money …yada yada yada. So no, schools don’t recruit high achievers to boost lists like these… |
Anonymous
Sidwell is an application based program. Kids are selected from a large pool to attend. Blair and RM magnets are application based programs. Kids are selected from an even larger pool to attend. I think the fair denominator is the size of the magnets. |
Anonymous
You sound pretty ignorant about how admissions work. |
Anonymous
It does actually. Every year, at each private, usually 1-2 or more turn down the private after TJ admissions are out. I can name more than a few in older DC's TJ class that we saw at the admissions events for top privates. That's not even counting the ones that decide not to go because of Moco programs which release invites before the private school deadlines. |
Anonymous
Yeah, PP’s comment that Potomac isn’t that big is hilarious. It literally has the biggest senior class on that list for Virginia, except maybe Flint Hill. Potomac has several times (in some cases almost 10x) the class size that some of the other schools on that list with 1 or 2 NMSF have. |
Anonymous
When I was at TJ it was about 120, but yeah. It's only 81 there this year! |