Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 13:32     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?



The criteria for getting the School Recognition Award is on their website. Your DD qualified by getting the 5s on 3 APs and possibly also being in the top 10% of PSAT (college board has all the data on both).

There's no "winner" - literally everyone in the top 10% of psat takers at your kids' school AND everyone who took 2 or more APs by end of soph year is getting the same award. That's why it's a meaningless recognition since your kid will be compared to other kids at their school.


2 or more APs with a 3+ score by the end of soph year

How is it meaningless since, by definition, most kids won’t get the award?
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 13:27     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?



Ffs just read the description at the College Board
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 13:10     Subject: Re:College Board National Recognition Awards
Is this award better than Commended Scholar?
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 12:20     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.


You don't know, but college board knows because they are a monopoly.


College Board has a “monopoly” on the PSAT the same way Burger King has a monopoly on the Whopper. It’s their product. You don’t have to eat there. Even if you’re committed to a fast food burger, you can still choose McDonald’s (the ACT) or Wendy’s (the CLT) if you prefer.
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 12:08     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.


You don't know, but college board knows because they are a monopoly.
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 12:06     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?



The criteria for getting the School Recognition Award is on their website. Your DD qualified by getting the 5s on 3 APs and possibly also being in the top 10% of PSAT (college board has all the data on both).

There's no "winner" - literally everyone in the top 10% of psat takers at your kids' school AND everyone who took 2 or more APs by end of soph year is getting the same award. That's why it's a meaningless recognition since your kid will be compared to other kids at their school.
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 11:53     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
The fact that you need to "Claim Your Award" by June 27th - is evidence that this is intended as a data grab for college board to sell you data
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 11:50     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's a good shorthand for saying "I took a lot of AP classes and tests and did really well on most of them" if you don't want to list all the scores somewhere else on the app.

While it's possible to get a College Board National Recognition Program award with AP tests, most get the award for their PSAT score.


OP's question is confusing.

College Board has I think two or three awards based on how well you do on your AP tests. I think the highest is AP Honors with Distinction which is an average of 4 or higher on 5+ AP Tests. There are other similar awards. They don't come with any $$$s or any special recognition with colleges.

Then of course there are NMSF or NMF awards for PSAT Tests.

The College Board also recognizes anyone that scores a perfect score on an AP Test. I don't know exactly what they call it...but they definitely send a letter to anyone that achieves this.

But why do you need to fill this out - in the past it was on the college board website
Anonymous
Post 05/20/2025 11:31     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?

Anonymous
Post 05/16/2025 13:11     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.


I’m assuming my daughter qualified because of her PSAT score. Her FCPS school (one routinely bashed on here) is an IB school so she has not taken any AP classes.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2025 12:33     Subject: Re:College Board National Recognition Awards
Low bar for grades and getting a 3 on an AP point to nothing more than a data grab, fill out your profile in time for us to sell your data for the next admissions cycle.
Anonymous
Post 05/15/2025 20:25     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:I always though that if you identified as Hispanic (it is an ethnicity, after all) you can call yourself Hispanic?


this. nobody asks for "proof"
Anonymous
Post 05/15/2025 20:22     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.
Anonymous
Post 05/15/2025 18:35     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
A hispanic can be of any race. white, black, indigenous, even Asian (think Brazil, Peru, some Caribbean nations with notable asian immigrant communities)
Anonymous
Post 05/15/2025 18:35     Subject: College Board National Recognition Awards
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:And to just spell out the info re:APs in the last two links, you can either show that you are in the top 10% of the class OR submit 2 or more APs with a score of 3 or better. That’s after getting a qualifying PSAT score. So even folks choosing to use APs have a low bar to clear - colleges very likely do not take away a message that a student “took a lot of APs and did really well on them” from this designation.


Yes, the criteria here are set so that although facially neutral the award will be essentially meaningless for students at affluent suburban high schools, where a majority of the class will qualify based on AP scores, but significant at under-resourced schools where it’s rare to even take two APs by 10th grade.

Yep. That was my take as well. It may help bright kids who are FGLI, from rural areas, or from lower achieving high schools, with PSAT scores below the commended threshold but still relatively strong. It will do nothing for the kids who are already getting NMSF or commended awards or who are attending an average to high SES school.

My kid qualified for the school based recognition award. She's also going to earn NMSF. She's filling out the paperwork because there's no reason not to do so, but it's unlikely that this award will be useable in any way.