National Merit Semifinalist 2018
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Anonymous
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The PSAT Index Scores needed to be designated a National Merit Semifinalist for the Class of 2018 are now official. This is based on the PSAT scores that current Seniors achieved on the October 2017 PSAT exam.
DC: 223 MD: 222 VA: 222 VA: |
Anonymous
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NMSF designation is based on the location of the School the student attends, and not where the student actually lives.
If your School is located in DC (even if you live in Maryland or Virginia) you will need to attain a PSAT Index Score of 223 or higher. If your School is located in Maryland or Virginia (even if you live in DC) you will have to achieve a PSAT Index Score of 222 or higher. Many DC School students will earn a 222, and just miss NMSF status, although that score would have been high enough for NMSF status in both Maryland and Virginia Schools. That is also why one cannot compare the number of NMSFs in DC Schools to the number of NMSFs in Maryland and Virginia Schools, in order to assess strength of the School or student body. Although you can compare Maryland and Virginia Schools to each othet, as they have the same measure. |
Anonymous
The point of NMSF is not to compare schools to each other. And you can't compare MD and NoVA schools to each other because they have very different approaches to magnet schools which impacts the distribution of good test takers. The DC NMSFs are overwhelmingly in the private schools - this is hardly a disadvantaged bunch and the selection process is also heavily weighted to good test takers. So a one point difference is not unfair. I suspect there aren't that many 222s in the public schools who just missed the threshold. |
Anonymous
| Holy crap! Back in fall 1991, the qualifying PSAT score for MD was 204. Makes you wonder how much of this is (1) the test getting easier vs. (2) kids becoming better coached for it. |
Anonymous
You cannot even begin to compare southern Maryland/DC Suburbs back in 1991 with southern Maryland/DC Suburbs in 2017. Back then this area was smaller in population, more semi-rural, and very different demographically. The World has changed friend. |
Anonymous
| I am always interested in what sort of people are so invested in discussing this type of information. This is not a critique, really just curiosity. Do you have children? I have this idea that it is either people without kids, or parents whose children are far from being in this category (in college). |
Anonymous
It doesn't really matter - the qualifying score is set so that it captures the top 1/2% of test takers in each state. |
Anonymous
I will speak for myself. I have children in middle school, high school, and college, so this type of information is relevant, pertinent, and interesting to me. If all of my children were already in college I would not care about it anymore, and back when they were in elementary school I did not really know any of this. |
Anonymous
| Have the qualifying scores gone up similarly in other states as well, or just in MD? Or to put it differently, are there many (or any) states where the qualify score hasn't changed or even went down? |
Anonymous
"Three states (MA, NE, and TN) saw no change between 2017 and 2018. Rhode Island was the only state with a lower cutoff for the class of 2018 (-1 point)." http://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/ |
Anonymous
| How many people care about NMSF? My DC knew a long time ago he wasn't going to any college where it would mean merit aid (Bama, Ole Miss, Arizona etc.). He chose to take the SATs the same week as PSATs and we told him not to worry about the PSAT. Scored 1550+ on the SATs and below DC's cut-off for NMSF. I'm pretty sure his higher SAT score trumps a lower scoring NMSF student's PSAT, but there are a lot of other factors that will determine who gets into which schools. |
Anonymous
There will be more than a few students who both scored higher than 1550/60 on the SAT and met DC's cutoff for NMSF; it is not an either-or thing. I do not necessarily think that they are applying to Universities where it will result in merit aid awards for them either. However it will be nice an additional nice thing for them to be recognized as NMSF for their Schools and their States/District. |
Anonymous
But yes, if I had the choice of either having my child perform well on the SAT and/or ACT, or perform well on the PSAT, I would choose the former. |
Anonymous
Sorry, I meant between the early 1990s and late 2010s, not the last two years. |
Anonymous
Yes, every State and the District has seen the cutoff rise since the 1990s. For one thing the exam is scaled differently. I also personally think that International migration has made today's student pool more competitive. Immigration, Making America Great Again! |