<p>Commended is not state specific. It is usually around 200 or 201.<br>
To be honest it is only brownie points. Most schools take it as a sign to send you more mail and nothing more that that.</p>
<p>By knowing your state, the cut offs can be predicted as they usually do not vary much from year to year.</p>
<p>Monkonthemove,</p>
<p>Way to go! Congratulations to your dd! Can you tell me what an NAS is? I’m new to some of these abbreviations.</p>
<p>My son didn’t get anything in the mail. We did get his PSAT scores sent here so I hope nothing went wrong. I wonder if I can call the school where he took them or if it’s out of their hands. Also, my son said he marked the box “Puerto Rican” since he is 1/2 PR but I don’t know if there’s some sort of notification for an Hispanic NM or something like that?</p>
<p>I guess we’ll just keep waiting until next week’s mail.</p>
<p>Sbjdorlo,
NAS is the National Achievement Scholarship program. It is offered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and is specifically for African American students (we are an AA family). African American students can qualify to be both NMS and NAS based on their PSAT scores, but can only accept scholarship money, if finalist status is achieved, from one or the other.</p>
<p>I think the National Hispanic Scholar program is run by a different organization (maybe college board?) so I’m not sure what the cut-off scores and dates of notification are. </p>
<p>From what I’ve gleaned from these boards, the NMS cut-off for commended is usually around 201, so I’m sure you will receive your notification any day now. Best of luck… keep checking that mail!</p>
<p>sbjdorlo…If you don’t get anything on Monday, it would probably be worth a couple of phone calls to check. You should be able to call NMSC to check and see if a notification letter was sent out, and perhaps whether it was sent directly to your house or not. If they did send it to the school where he took the test for some reason, you can call them or better yet go in person to see if you can track it down. Quite a few schools don’t understand or appreciate the importance of the NM program and may or may not notice a letter from NMSC. I wouldn’t worry that your S’s fantastic accomplishments will get overlooked, but I’d be proactive about tracking down all the correspondence.</p>
<p>Regarding the SAT score for NMF, it’'s the same for all students regardless of PSAT score. I believe this year it was 1960. I remember a parent mentioning that her son had a 1950, but no dice, that is the one thing they will not accept an appeal regarding, even though it was 10 points. I remember when I got my PSAT back I was worries about beating it for SAT, but as long as it is above 1960 you should be good.</p>
<p>I got a 203, so hopefully ill be getting called down in school soon?!</p>
<p>Did anyone with a 201 get a notification letter? Thats what i got. And is the letter sent to the school or directly to the house?</p>
<p>I got a 203… but I’m not a permanent resident… Do I get at least any acknowledgment for my hard work?! :(</p>
<p>Thank-you all for the help. My son did get the College Plans Reporting Sevice document in the mail today so he’s on the radar screen. :-)</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you have to be a US citizen or permanent resident for the program.</p>
<p>There are exceptions for people who are not a permanent residence or citizen at this time but will get one soon. If you have not applied for a green card at this stage, you are out of luck.</p>
<p>The rules are given below
</p>
<p>Here is the box below
</p>
<p>I thought of another question regarding the notification (or not) to two schools. On the paper it says they will send the PSAT score to the two schools. Being that my son’s PSAT scores (80M, 67CR, 78W) were lower than his SAT scores (800M, 790CR, 730W single sitting in December), would it make sense not to send notification to two schools?</p>
<p>I just called the NMS. They said the College Plans Reporting Service (CPRS) letters which ask for two schools to report PSAT scores were mailed last Tuesday. They said the letters were sent to the high school, not the home address (I would assume except for home-schools). </p>
<p>I asked it it were odd that our D had not heard anything from our school yet on this, and they said it was not, that it sometimes takes a while.</p>
<p>So it sounds as if it will get there soon, Dramadad-good news!</p>
<p>What does anyone think? If the PSAT scores (in my son’s case, the 67 in CR) are lower than the SAT, will it be good to send it anyways or not? My son and I visited his top two choice schools but we had friends on campus and didn’t do “official” tours, so anything he could do to show interest would be good but…not if the scores aren’t top notch??</p>
<p>Definitely send the scores. But you have to be very strategic of what schools to send the scores to. Even if Princeton and Harvard are your two top choices, it might not be a good idea to send them there because honestly they won’t care. </p>
<p>My top schools are ivies, but after doing research i know that Brandeis, my safety school, offers a lot of $2500 scholarships if you list it as one of your top schools. Another one of my schools, Rice, also awards scholarships and waves the application fee if you indicate it as one of your top choices. You have to do a lot of research, because certain schools give a lot of scholarship $ to finalists. For example, I know that USC gives automatic half tuition scholarships to any finalist who indicates it as one of their top choices. There is also a huge list of schools on CC that offer full tuition scholarships to NM finalists</p>
<p>I agree with Tennuggler. If your S has a rough idea of what schools he might be interested in, surf their web pages a little and see which of them offer NMF money. Places like Alabama, Auburn, and Oklahoma will seek him out unsolicited so you won’t need to send them advance notice. Pick a couple others he’s interested in to make them aware early. It couldn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Ok, this is helpful. My son’s top two very favorite schools are Penn and Princeton, followed closely by Harvey Mudd and Vanderbilt, and UCSD as a local school. The only NMS school on his list right now is UTD but he already received a mailing from them based on his PSAT scores. Other schools possibly on his list include Harvard, Stanford, Davidson, U of Rochester, Texas A&M, and U of Richmond.</p>
<p>I heard (was it here??) that Penn tracks interest.</p>
<p>What schools should he send the scores to?</p>
<p>Thank-you.</p>
<p>To be very honest, it really does not matter. Texas A & M courts National Merit scholars but does not offer too much for out of state students. I would say the ones you should consider are Davidson, Texas A&M, and U of Richmond. No it does not hurt at all, but it is not something you need to agonize about.</p>
<p>Remember even commended students are allowed these choices. So school does not even know at this stage if you will make it to NMSF.</p>
<p>^Unless things have changed over the past three years, A&M gives a lot to OOS students. They waived our OOS tuition and gave us enough money to pay for virtually everything.</p>
<p>I guess we should find out which schools offer good money for OOS, specifically what Texas A&Ms policies are. UTD continues to be the #1 school on my son’s list of NMS schools. Because my son is a nationally ranked chess player, the school offers him that great chess program in addition to fairly strong academics in math and physics and a location which is agreeable to my son. In trying to find other NMS, it’s been a little more challenging finding schools that match (very strong math and physics-grad level most likely, strong music program, affordable, good weather, diverse community, strong Christian support, possibly baseball).</p>