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[quote=Anonymous][quote=SAM2]21:38, thanks for your comments.

(1) In the absence of better info, I'm inclined to stick with Washington Examiner data. The number that newspaper provided is consistent with the very high NMSF, Presidential Scholar Semifinalist, and Presidential Scholar Candidate numbers for the school. 
(2) Thanks for catching my typo. I had 702 for the reading score instead of 707. I believe my other numbers were correct. 
(3a) I'm pretty certain I do understand the Presidential Scholar program. I provided people with both Semifinalist and Candidate numbers. If you want to advocate on behalf of your favorite school by arguing why you think Candidate numbers are more significant, feel free. I'm just posting the data. 
(3b) I'm curious about your claims that "many candidates don't bother to pursue the next level" and "many candidates decide not to pursue further the scholarship." What support do you have for these statements? I'd think that any student smart and motivated enough to score 1570+ on her SATs (or whatever score was needed for Candidate status that year) would also be smart and motivated enough to submit materials for consideration as a Semifinalist. If you'd provide credible support for those claims, I'd be very interested to read it.

Thanks again for your comments.[/quote]

There are only 3000 Presidential Candidates per year and there are 16,000 NMSF. There are only 500 Presidential Semi-Finalists and there are 15,000 NMF. There are 130 Presidential Scholars (1 female, 1 male per state plus a handful more) while there are are 8,200 National Merit Scholars. So I hope you can understand that there are TWICE (nearly three times) as many National Merit Scholars than there are Presidential Candidates. Also, the Candidates are determined by the college boards purely on scores. My point is: don't let the "semi-finalist" label translate to think they are comparable levels of recognition. Why on earth would you leave off the Candidacy - if you're trying to provide real comparable data per school. You may as well, not list anything but National Merit Scholars and forget about the NMSF - because that is how you are treating the Presidential Candidates-  you are not acknowledging this group when it is much harder to earn the candidacy honors than to hear a National Merit Scholarship. There are five times more NMFs than there Presidential Candidates. You don't seem to understand the importance of what the honor it is to be a Presidential Candidate, but seem caught up in the semantics of "Semi-Finalist." And, honestly, your lack of understanding or even choosing to want to understand this point, concerns me. I feel you have an agenda or at least some sort of skewed perception and by not providing the Candidates which as I pointed out - Candidacy honors based soley on SATs/ACTs are harder to come by than National Merit Scholarships - is leaving out a significant piece of data.

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