Reply to 2020 National Merit semifinalists in DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is that a typical number for DC? I went to high school in Hawaii and there were 28 National Merit Semifinalists in my graduating class. [/quote]

The students whose scores are in the top 1% of all test takers in DC are named NMSF. If more students take the test, more total students will qualify.[/quote]

That's true elsewhere but not in DC. If you live in one of the 50 states and you score in the top 1% of your state you qualify. If you don't live in one of the 50 states you have to meet or beat the cutoff score in the state with the highest cutoff, which currently is a tie between MA and NJ. DC has about 7700 kids in each class so if we were a state we'd have about 77 semifinalists.

Even if DC were a state we would get dinged because for the purpose of NMS your state isn't determined by where you live but rather by where you go to school. [b]DC has a large number of private schools that serve the entire region, and many of those schools are highly selective and have test scores that are much higher than average. So even if we got our full 1% many of those spots would likely go to kids in the suburbs.[/b]

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This is it exactly.   At least 1/2 of this year's DC semi-finalists DON'T LIVE IN DC.  The DC privates they attend are highly competitive and enroll many of the brightest kids from MD and VA.  There's no other jurisdiction in the US which has this dynamic.  Kids don't cross states lines en mass to go to private school in CA, MA, NY, etc.  
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I know nothing about the Boston area, but there are definitely kids from CT and NJ in NYC privates. CA is a ridiculous comparison, it is a very large state. Nobody is able to commute to privates from outside the state.[/quote]

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