Chances at National Achievement?

<p>I am a junior and I got a 197 on the PSAT, I was wondering if that was high enough for National Achievement?</p>

<p>It is. I think you need a 175.</p>

<ol>
<li>National Achievement doesn't exist?</li>
<li>It's not high enough for Semifinalist, but it might be high enough for Commended. Not sure though.</li>
</ol>

<p>viva are you serious that I won't be a semifinalist, where did you get that info?</p>

<p>The cutoff, on average, is around 210. But it depends where you live. If you live in New York, it's as high as 220, but if you live in, say, North Dakota...well, who knows?</p>

<p>Oh, and I know because I am a semifinalist.</p>

<p>are you talking about nation merit or national achievement?</p>

<p>My d had a 184 or so and was National achievement "referred" not semi.</p>

<p>i think what the op is trying to say is that does he or she qualify for national achievement, which is a program that rewards african americans, and not the national merit scholarship. if it is indeed for national achievement, then the op qualifies. but if it is for national merit, the op does not.</p>

<p>^ exactly . yea, dont worry, you made national achievement. a lot of schools give really good money for it too, so congratulations.</p>

<p>Thank THE LORD MOST HOLY, if HE blesses me to get this!</p>

<p>I want to bump this thread</p>

<p>^^^ hey thanks for starting this thread (we got the same score lol :))
I am pretty positive that the cut-off for SF- for any region shouldnt be 200+.</p>

<p>Depends on where you live.
And what is National Achievement? Because I got a 199 last year and I didn't get anything!</p>

<p>collegedreamer; See post # 8 above. It's sort of a program within national merit.</p>

<p>National</a> Merit Scholarship Corporation - National Achievement Scholarship Program</p>

<p>Sorry. Alright. Don't qualify. But thanks.</p>

<p>OK, to clarify an issue about the National Achievement Program. I am so frustrated that there isn't any legit information out on the net and these talk forums. Too many people keep repsonding to Achievement posts thinking they are responding to National Merit posts.</p>

<p>So here is what I learned by actually calling the NMSC and asking to speak to someone concerning the index scores for the National Achievement Scholars. First, the cutoff to be recoginized or referred to a college is 85%. This means that NMSC will notify their list of 1500 colleges of your child's high achievement. Then, based on Region, the next step is to be notified as a semi-finalist. The SF scores unlike the NM indexed scores, are not by state, but by region.</p>

<p>Please visit the NMSC website and click on the 2005 report to see the Achievement Regional Breakdown on page 23. I also highly recommend calling the NMSC and speaking directly with the professionals about your child's or your own score to establish where you stand currently in the index. Keep in mind, they are not going to tell you the actual cutoff numbers from previous years, since they protect these. We can only go by what is being posted on these forums to get an idea of each region.</p>

<p>Since I have been unable to learn what the Regional cutoff scores are for Achievement SFs, maybe we can start builing some information now. If anyone can assist with some knowledge of their child's scores within your region, then we may actually be able to build some substantial numbers just as the NM posts have.</p>

<p>The direct link to the rerport is below:
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My daughter's school said she was commended; never got anything official. Her PSAT from Fall 06 was about 184.</p>

<p>I must backup here and make a slight correction to my comment above. National Achievement recognizes students that received an 85% or above which should be around 4600 or so. Then out of this 4600, they will then refer about 3000 of those commended students to the 1500 colleges and 1600 will become SFs. So, just like the NM, NA students are recogized first before being "commended".</p>

<p>I have no idea why they use the term refered for the NAs and commended for the NMs, but those are their own words. Our Ds school announces ALL commended/refered NM, NA and NH (Hispanic) students as commended, which I believe helps to reduce confusion and give equal honor to all.</p>

<p>Shrinkrap, thank you so much for the information. The NM steps say that before the next "commended" cut of students, recognized students will be notified to select two schools in the Spring after taking the test. Yet, the steps skip this for the NAs. I know that they go from about 4500 to 3000, but they do not say how the 4500 are recognized. I thought that was strange, and I an not sure why the NMSC said "recognized" if they don't send out something official.</p>

<p>You know I don't think the school used the word commended. In fact the principal said rather sheepishly that she didn't know how to describe it...this was while she was directing traffic in the carpool lane...</p>

<p>Shrinkrap,</p>

<p>I have to be honest, I have read other threads about students and parents not trusting their school's admin or GCs to properly notify them about NM or NA information, and I can't say that I put 100% of my faith in our GC staying on top of this.</p>

<p>But, since we usually have at least one NA commended each year, I hope they know what they are doing. But to be on the safe side, I called the NMSC and I am going to follow up with our GC as soon as I can catch her in her office. No idea what response I will get, since the kids say our GCs just hate it when parents and students start bombarding them about the scores.</p>

<p>I just hope I don't get the IDK reaction that you got and the same with others. I can't believe that a program that has been around for years, is still so unknown. I learned about it years ago. How in the world does a parent discover this, yet a school administration, who is suppose to be more involved in these things, is oblivious about the program. I am sorry to hear you did not get better information.</p>