The Commended Student cutoff for the class of 2026 is confirmed at 210.

Anonymous wrote:I had no idea what this letter meant! Figured it was to say DD would at least be NM commended - she’s got 222 index in MD and is on the cusp for semi finalist. Why would any college care that’s she’s in the top 10% of her high school class? Is this for kids who don’t make commended to have something to put in the honors section?

Well my daughter is on the cusp of being commended, so she was thrilled to to receive it. All that matters is how your student stacks up with others in their school, and this award is going to make her stand out in her small limited AP private school where few ever get commended yet 20% matriculate to fantastic top 25 schools.

Hopefully your daughter's commended award will also make her stand out. If her school has many commended students, it probably won't matter. It really depends on the school!

^ not list scores

For a kid who qualified w 2 AP scores of 3, this is a great time to include award and not lost scores.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So annoyed our private school in DC strongly discouraged kids from taking the PSAT and made it optional this year. Said the National Merit cut off in DC is so high it is a waste of time.

Private schools hate it when public school kids paying nothing beat their students. Better to not participate and sniff disdainfully at the merit recognition as being for the plebes.

For the schools like the PP’s school, it’s a combination of not prioritizing the few kids they have who need scholarship money and might benefit from having a good score and avoiding comparisons of NMSFs with other area schools. Same reasons for dropping APs.

I had no idea what this letter meant! Figured it was to say DD would at least be NM commended - she’s got 222 index in MD and is on the cusp for semi finalist. Why would any college care that’s she’s in the top 10% of her high school class? Is this for kids who don’t make commended to have something to put in the honors section?

Anonymous wrote:Many colleges don’t necessarily want to see your actual SAT score. This award is a way for students with high but not-high-enough scores to assure colleges that their scores are pretty high, at least in context, while still applying test optional to keep their stats out of the school’s profile.

This is what I was thinking, too. Her public high school doesn't offer AP classes, so I think she must have scored in the top 10% for the PSAT. Her school does not have any National Merit Semifinalists. I know that colleges review applications in the context of the applicant's high school, but I don't think that necessarily applies to SAT scores because they don't want their overall average SAT scores to go down. Even though my kids have scored high relative to their high school peers, sometimes their scores are too low to be used in an application. I think this will be another data point for colleges to consider.

Seems meaningless when you consider it across schools. The top 10% of scorers in the PSAT for my kids' school would be 3 kids. Meanwhile, the average for the class is 97th percentile.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So annoyed our private school in DC strongly discouraged kids from taking the PSAT and made it optional this year. Said the National Merit cut off in DC is so high it is a waste of time.

WTF? This is crazy. Your private school is doing a huge disservice to its students - basically not allowing students to qualify for certain merit scholarships. This would be enough reason for me to withdraw younger kids from that school.

How many private school parents do you think want their kids to attend UT Dallas or U Alabama?

So so many. You would be surprised at the expectations once you get beyond the fancy private schools. That seems clear, given the PP’s school’s lower standards.

Anonymous wrote:So annoyed our private school in DC strongly discouraged kids from taking the PSAT and made it optional this year. Said the National Merit cut off in DC is so high it is a waste of time.

There is an alternate entry process if a student is unable tonight take the PSAT for qualifying reasons. For example, if you are not able to get your child into another test location, sounds like that is often an approved reason

https://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-alternate-entry/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So annoyed our private school in DC strongly discouraged kids from taking the PSAT and made it optional this year. Said the National Merit cut off in DC is so high it is a waste of time.

Private schools hate it when public school kids paying nothing beat their students. Better to not participate and sniff disdainfully at the merit recognition as being for the plebes.

The only reason public schools "beat their students" is because of the discrepancy in number of students. When you have a senior class of 500 students vs. less than 100, you are going to increase the odds significantly.

Anonymous wrote:So annoyed our private school in DC strongly discouraged kids from taking the PSAT and made it optional this year. Said the National Merit cut off in DC is so high it is a waste of time.

Private schools hate it when public school kids paying nothing beat their students. Better to not participate and sniff disdainfully at the merit recognition as being for the plebes.

Will you be getting emails from random colleges once you claim this award? We didn't want such emails, so I told DC to opt out the student search service thing upon signing up for the SATs/PSAT and he hasn't received any marketing emails from a bunch of different colleges.

Anonymous wrote:It’s a way to rank students without actually ranking. Our private doesn’t have any students with APs until junior year, so it is purely psat score driven. I think including the AP scores confuses things honestly.

Right, as another poster said, it’s a way to “rank” students from private and rural schools. For affluent public schools, which have abundance of AP courses, it’s simply a prize for taking 2 AP classes early.

It’s a way to rank students without actually ranking. Our private doesn’t have any students with APs until junior year, so it is purely psat score driven. I think including the AP scores confuses things honestly.