NMSFs in DC 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody gives a shit about being a national merit semifinalist, and I'm speaking from experience. It's the most overrated award out there.

You have had an atypical experience.

It's a warmup for the SAT. However you do on the SAT is a million times more important.

Not anymore. Plenty of strong applicants are applying to top schools without submitting SAT scores and getting in, true since 2021. Even Harvard doesn't require SAT scores in admissions these days. If a kid isn't going to stand out by scoring high on the SATs, they're free to find another way. The PSAT as a warmup for the SATs just isn't as relevant as it was pre-Covid.

Mildly off topic but the performance of test optional kids is so bad most everyone has moved back to requiring a test, and I doubt there will be any holdouts in a decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody gives a shit about being a national merit semifinalist, and I'm speaking from experience. It's the most overrated award out there.

You have had an atypical experience.

It's a warmup for the SAT. However you do on the SAT is a million times more important.

Not anymore. Plenty of strong applicants are applying to top schools without submitting SAT scores and getting in, true since 2021. Even Harvard doesn't require SAT scores in admissions these days. If a kid isn't going to stand out by scoring high on the SATs, they're free to find another way. The PSAT as a warmup for the SATs just isn't as relevant as it was pre-Covid.

Harvard is test required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody gives a shit about being a national merit semifinalist, and I'm speaking from experience. It's the most overrated award out there.

You have had an atypical experience.

It's a warmup for the SAT. However you do on the SAT is a million times more important.

Not anymore. Plenty of strong applicants are applying to top schools without submitting SAT scores and getting in, true since 2021. Even Harvard doesn't require SAT scores in admissions these days. If a kid isn't going to stand out by scoring high on the SATs, they're free to find another way. The PSAT as a warmup for the SATs just isn't as relevant as it was pre-Covid.

This is reversing. A bunch of schools, including basically the entire Ivy League, that dropped the SAT have brought them back.

[Anonymous]

Also in DC this business of using NMF to signal academic skill without disclosing a mediocre SAT score won’t work. Kids with SAT scores in the top 25% of elite colleges routinely don’t get NMSF here, because the NMSF cut score is so high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody gives a shit about being a national merit semifinalist, and I'm speaking from experience. It's the most overrated award out there.

You have had an atypical experience.

It's a warmup for the SAT. However you do on the SAT is a million times more important.

Not anymore. Plenty of strong applicants are applying to top schools without submitting SAT scores and getting in, true since 2021. Even Harvard doesn't require SAT scores in admissions these days. If a kid isn't going to stand out by scoring high on the SATs, they're free to find another way. The PSAT as a warmup for the SATs just isn't as relevant as it was pre-Covid.

Harvard is test required.

Yale was one of the first to move back with a detailed discussion from the Dean about how test optional was (1) bad for academic performance and (2) worst for poor kids when admissions started moving to "safer" schools and profiles to make up for (1).