<p>marshcat: congratulations! I guess you will certainly make the cut-off!</p>
<p>I hope!</p>
<p>What are the chances of my getting a National Merit scholarship? It would be amazing if I got it.</p>
<p>Well, there's no question you'll be a semi-finalist, and most semi-finalists do become finalists. In any case, congratulations again - what a great early holiday gift for you. :)</p>
<p>(My S1 also happens to be a day student at a boarding school, though we're in NY. But I'm not counting on his seeing his score any time soon. Their college counselor is notorious for doling the scores out s l o w w w l y.)</p>
<p>I know that there is a special grouping of boarding school students for eligibility for National Merit Scholarship program awards, but I don't know how that works. But, yeah, the score is outstanding, and it's good news to know that now scores are being sent out.</p>
<p>My son's school says we won't get them until the last week in January. So, y'all are saying they'll have had them for weeks and just don't want to hand them over?</p>
<p>Schools are advised by College Board to prepare to explain to students what the test results mean. Presumably, some schools have more practice in presenting the results to students, and get the scores out earlier.</p>
<p>Tokenadult (as always) has given you an accurate, professional, and diplomatic answer. Also, some schools give the juniors their scores sooner than they give them to the sophomores, because in theory and/or practice, they've already done the explaining, when the now-juniors took the test last year.</p>
<p>Then there are those schools where the college counseling department is a little fiefdom within the kingdom, and the students and families are somewhat at the mercy of the ruler. :)</p>
<p>OK, let's look at what the high schools have to do -
1. When they get the score reports, they also have to match them with the test booklets (which they have kept).
2. December is usually one of the busiest times of year for both counselors (all those recommendation letters) and students (concerts, etc).
3. As tokenadult states above, College Board wants schools to have a meeting with parents to "explain the scores".</p>
<p>So don't assume the counselors are evil for not distributing the score reports earlier. It's just as much a PITA for them as it is for you to wait.</p>
<p>Just talked to the CB PSAT office to try to get some time frame on when the scores are mailed, and if there is some system as to the sequence in which they're sent. No dice. Apparently some have already been mailed and the plan is to get all of the scores into the hands of the hs's by mid-December. Mailing is supposedly not state by state but somehow related to when the schools sent their test materials materials back for scoring, but when I reflected back the first come first serve idea, the CB guy said no, that it was possible for the tests to sit in a trailer for days after arriving for scoring. And there is no way to know where a particular school is in the queue. Because this info is not consistent with what I heard the first time I asked for info (Mass mailing starts Dec. 3.), I'm not sure what to make of it.</p>
<p>Another thing they're doing is walking us through the PSAT interpretation, but not letting kids/parents see the scores first. Is that common practice?</p>
<p>No explanation for us...the scores and test booklets were waiting in our student mailboxes.</p>
<p>Our college office is usually pretty on top of it, but this particular punctuality pleased me a lot.</p>
<p>I have my online login with cb.com that I have my SAT II scores on. The PSAT was not part of that particular account. (all set up by school)</p>
<p>Is there anything I have to do to make sure that my PSAT and SAT come together...so I qualify for finalist?</p>
<p>BTW...there was a big discrepancy between scores at my school. Since the scores drop so fast (my 2 math questions wrong cost 7 pts), people did either really well or really poorly. There weren't too many middle scores.</p>
<p>YouDon'tSay - it's not unusual for schools to follow College Board's instructions (to explain the process) fairly closely with sophomores and their families. So far we've experienced it both ways - D's school simply delivered the scores and booklets; S1's school insisted that each sophomore (and, if possible, a parent) come in for a conference/explanation session. </p>
<p>Marshcat - No idea what the boarding vs. day student makeup of your school is, but I did just talk to CB, and apparently if no more than 40% of your school's population boards, then you and your fellow students are grouped with the state your school is located in. If the population of boarders is higher than 40%, then you are grouped with the northeast boarding schools.</p>
<p>FFscout - You are so very right. There is a huge amount for guidance counselors and college counseling departments to do, and for the most part, they do it really well. I honestly wasn't slagging the profession as a group, or meaning to generalize about them. I was carping a little bit about S1's school specifically.</p>
<p>I'm so nervous!</p>
<p>Well, patience is a virtue, right?</p>
<p>I love my son's counselor (who also is the lead counselor) and know she's overworked, so I didn't mean to sound negative about her. It's just interesting to hear the different ways it's handled.</p>
<p>Marshcat, if you do make the cutoff (whether you're up against CT's, or the one for northeast boarding schools), you'll be officially notified by your school late next summer or very early next fall. They'll provide you with the application, and your college counselor will help you attach all the relevant score reports, official transcripts, and so on. </p>
<p>At this point, there isn't anything you need to do to coordinate scores, etc. And according to the college board site, 2007 PSAT scores should be up on My College QuickStart or whatever they're calling it now "the first week of December." (Even so, they'll remain separate from your SAT I and SAT II scores.)</p>
<p>If you qualify for semifinalist, one of the things you will need to do is have your SAT scores officially sent to National Merit (just another way College Board nickels and dimes you).</p>
<p>Hmmmm...OK</p>
<p>My friend (a junior last year with a 224 PSAT) knew what he was National Merit sometime last year. He filled out some sheet with two colleges on it from NM.</p>
<p>Do I have this righjt or am I confused?</p>
<p>How do the scholarships work, BTW? Do they just mail you a check? :P</p>
<p>marshcat, before you get too excited about actual $$$, check the NMS website (or even Wikipedia) and take a look at all the details.</p>
<p>My GPA unweighted is around a 3.5 (which is probably top 10% of class)</p>
<p>Is that high enough for finalist? I read somewhere that someone with a 3.4 got denied.</p>
<p>My school is very hard (and my classes even harder)!</p>
<p>lol marshcat ur fine
FINE
and plus, national merit semifinalists dont come out until next september!
at least for your year.</p>
<p>good luck.</p>