<p>Anyone else in the class of 2012 recently getting letters from Ivies inviting them to take a look at their school? My S has not gotten any notification from his school or National Merit about PSAT status, but he has a 217 NY, which would definitely make commended. Just wondering if the 50.000 is what "kicks off" the Ivy letters, or if they look at scores that are high enough to reasonably make Semi-Finalist, based on historical data. He is right on the cutoff point for NY for the last 4 years, so we are pretty nervous about finding out the cutoff in the fall!</p>
<p>My son (227 PSAT) has received a number of them over the past few weeks and I have seen some others mention that they have received some as well. I know I saw Yale and Princeton, not sure what else he has recently received.</p>
<p>I don’t believe they send these just to people who qualify for National Merit. I received one from Princeton and Yale a few days ago and I only scored a 171. I’m pretty sure it’s just like all the other college mail.</p>
<p>Colleges get names from various sources, College Board being one of them. There is a whole industry that generates names for colleges based on different inputs. It could be that attended a seminar, you signed up for some service, did well on AP’s exams, did well on the PSAT.</p>
<p>Colleges want more people to apply, however unqualified, as this helps make them more selective (acceptance rate is 6% instead of 7% last year). Once the package has been mailed, they forget about it and instead only look at your application. So do not read anything into this. Do your best with your application and that is the only thing you can do.</p>