He will, of course. make NMSF and very likely NMF.
The question is what all this means for this year NMSF. Thanks to the alternative qualification, there will be many more NMSF than in the past years. SAT makes it easier to get higher subscores and unlike PSAT, SAT can be repeated if desired. Some states may also end up with a lower cutoff scores, especially California where very few students took PSAT.
If the number of NMF stays the same, then becoming a NMF may not be as automatic as it was in the past.
My daughter would likely have qualified for NMSF through alternate entry (she took SAT in December) but will not qualify using her PSAT score from January (our state has a very high cut off and her PSAT score was 50 points lower than her SAT score). It is much easier to score higher on the SAT assuming you are advanced in math (since the extra points are the harder questions) so it will be much easier this year for many kids to qualify for NMSF status using alternate entry. I wish I had understood this prior to having her take the PSAT at school in January. I donât know that I would have kept her from taking it, but it sure would have been tempting since had we calculated it we would have known her index score from the SAT would have qualified her (unless the cut off went over what itâs ever been before). Her PSAT index score is 6 points lower. Hopefully she will at least be commended. But itâs hard not to be a little bitter about alternate entry.
I could so see that happening @Juno16 I know of a few kids in the past years who got almost perfect SAT scores but didnât make NMSF. PSAT allows for only very few mistakes especially in a high cutoff states.
I too was questioning the wisdom of S22 taking PSAT when we found out about the NMSF alternative entry while waiting for his PSAT results. Luckily, he scored 224 on PSAT which is plenty, but he too would get a higher index (perfect score I believe) if his SAT was counted.
PSAT points are out of lower total , highest possible is 1520 on PSAT if adding verbal and math. So not sure one can validly make a statement like âmy daugterâs score was 50 points lower on the PSATâ
Also, Alternate entry wasnt created to allow students to pick and chose which approach to take, a lot of students were not able to take the PSAT exam.
Finally, I dont know why you assume there will be more qualifiers this year. The foundation can set the cut off where ever it needs to to get the number of students they desire to have per state. Given that the PSAT and SAT are quite similar and scores are very highly correlated between the two, this group of the top XXX students shouldnt be that different than in other years.
The index scores are calculated exactly the same for NMSF regardless of which test you take (although I believe they are capped at 38 on the SAT). In theory you will score more or less the same on either test, however, for an advanced student it is much easier to get a higher score on the SAT than on the PSAT since that is where the additional points are (esp. in math). My understanding is the number of NMSFs is only limited for the kids taking the PSAT, where are certain number of spots are allocated to each state (which sets their own qualifying score to get to that number). However, there is no limit on the number of kids who can qualify for NM based on alternate entry. Most years this is not an issue, since you have always needed a valid excuse not to qualify for through the PSAT (e.g., you were ill that day, or you truly couldnât take it for some other reason). This year, however, the college board implemented no excuse alternate entry. I agree that it would be somewhat dishonest to do alternate entry if your HS offered the PSAT, as my daughterâs did, and that alternate entry was not originally designed to allow you to pick & choose which test you take. However, it does make me a bit bitter that her index score using her December SAT is 222 (almost definite NMSF) and her index score using her January PSAT is 214 (not even close - I had said 6 points difference above using memory, having looked up her scores I see itâs actually an 8 point difference). You can say the scores arenât comparable, and I would agree with you based on her results, but they are used equivalently for this purpose. Her math score is actually a higher percentile on the PSAT than on the SAT, and she got fewer wrong in all sections, yet the SAT is just a much more forgiving test for this particular purpose.
You may want to read this article (mentioned on this very thread a few months ago).
It explains what @Juno16 and I have been saying. It is fully expected that there will be more NMSF or to quote the article âan abnormally high number of NMSFâ.
The article also compares SAT and PSAT. There is hardly any wiggle space on PSAT while one can make quite a few mistakes on SAT and still receive a high selection index (38+) To put it simply, itâs hard to be near perfect which is something that PSAT requires in high cutoff states.
The state cutoff is based on PSAT and the state quota. SAT results are not part of this equation. All the students who qualify via the alternative entry will be added to those who qualified via PSAT thus increasing the number of NMSF. And thatâs only a small part of the problem. Since fewer students took PSAT, the cutoffs are likely to end up lower than in the previous years, allowing even more students to qualify via SAT.
I dont believe the foundation has said what they are going to do. The author of the piece, while clearly very knowledgeable, is assuming they will set the cutoffs the same way as in every other year, then just add SAT qualifiers. Thatâs a pretty big assumption, since the organization has never been faced with a situation like this. I think his deep knowledge of how it has worked may be preventing him from seeing the forest here, because he knows every tree.
Iâd assume the NM organization ( and their customer, schools which award merit$ based on NM status) probably want to produce a relatively similar level of students this year as prior years at each level of commendation. As such the foundation could well to decide to just set the cutoffs in light of a mixed pool of SAT and PSAT takers, vs following the approach in prior years and then adding SAT.
As a note of correction to your comment about SAT taker getting â38+â on a section and getting a benefit there, the SAT selection index is capped at 38 per section, so you cannot get more points by scoring higher. My sonâs indexes were 39, 40, and 39.5 on the SAT which corresponded to 790 790. However, his selection index is only (38+38+38)*2 = 228. So for example, if a student scores lower on verbal, he couldnt have jacked it up by getting extra math points, its capped at 38 for all sections,.
I didnât say that 39 or 40 can be included in the PSAT index calculations. I said that itâs easier to achieve 38+ score on SAT than 38 on PSAT. Not to mention that one can retake the SAT unlike the PSAT.
The author of the piece is indeed very knowledgeable, and the go to person when it comes to NMSF. He has spent many years predicting state cut offs and analyzing PSAT results.
Iâm pretty sure they have. I believe Art posted confirmation from NMC in a previous posting, which is why itâs an assumption for the linked article.
AE scores donât even need to be received until October 15, a month after the initial list of SFs are announced. They canât be part of the cutoff calculation if they havenât been received.
According to College Board, PSAT and SAT are of equivalent difficult outside of the floor and ceiling areas. So identical performance on both tests at the same time would yield the same score, with the exception that students who would score 770-800 donât have the opportunity to demonstrate this through the 3-4 extra high-difficulty questions on the SAT. So while students canât score above 38 on a section of the PSAT, the same students would have a 38 for the purpose of Alternate Entry.
Where using the SAT for AE has an advantage is that it can be taken later (student score better on average, with additional testing through a third test, and they have additional schooling/learning) and they have multiple opportunities, given the inherent inter-test variation of a single test-taker. Someone with an âabilityâ to score 1450 will have a better highest score from multiple tests in the 1390-1510 range than a person taking it only once.
Interesting. Your point about multiple attempts at the SAT is of course vaild. His practices SATs were all over the 1500 range, so had he come in the actual exam with a 1520 instead of 1580, he could redo to increase chances (althogh he would not have bothered, our deal was that 1500+ was reasonable given his pratice test outcomes, and he would roll with any score over 1500âŠ
Moreso, at least in my sonâs case, there havent been opportunities to take more than once. His school let current Junior year kids sign up for March or April admin, and thatâs been it since all this mayhem started. Perhaps there would be a chance in the fall. Of course, the NMF could decide to just take the first test a student takes (since closest in development time to PSAT) or they could decide to average if a student takes multiple times.
In the end, I find people whining about Alternate Entry a bit off putting. Their child had the chance at the PSAT and didnt score high enough. Thatâs pretty much it. If no Covid, their scores likely were still not high enough, the article from Compass indicates that cutoffs are likely to come down vs up. The fact that some other kids are taking the SAT and are getting NM status doesnt change the fact their kid didnt reach the threshold when they took the PSAT.
Would they argue its more fair to just exclude kids who were not offered a chance to take the PSAT?
Personally, I am offended by your comment about people âwhiningâ about alternate entry. While I have not said anything on this topic about it, I will now. My son took the PSAT in October 2021 in person near the height of COVID locally. He scored a 215 on the SI. He will be a commended scholar. Whether he is NMSF depends. His school required that he take the PSAT in person in October. He did. Those that attempt to become NMSF through alternate entry, as you note, have multiple opportunities (my son did not), do not necessarily have to take at the height of COVID (my son did), may have more in person school under their belt, etc. So yes, I am a bit upset. There does need to be some fairness here to recognize those that did well under historically stressful circumstances. If my son, and others like him, do not make the cut, then so be it. But, understand the circumstances under which they performed. It wasnât because they were not good enough, which is what you imply. That is just plain rude.
I agree with you about the whining comment. I am the parent and aunt of NMF. And my niece will probably be named NMSF through Alternate Entry, She missed the PSAT due to a documented illness and took the November SAT. She has a 228 with a number wrong on the SAT, unlike on the PSAT. I am worried that if there is a significantly larger number of NMSF due to Alternate Entry, schools like UTD, Alabama, UCF, FSU, TAMU, etc. will no longer offer the large automatic scholarships. At Alabama itâs close to 1/4 million dollars per full ride kid. How many âextraâ NMâs will be too much? Merit awards are already disappearing . Alternate Entry may cause more opportunities to go away.
And letâs not forget that Florida schools may be off the table Benacquisto may no longer be available for the high school class of 2022.
I think the important question is how many NMF will be there. The same as every year? Proportional to the number of NMSF? Many college award merit to NMF only.
I really donât think it will be that big an increase in NMSF. Even in states that are more open where the PSAT and SAT are available, many students see that many colleges are not requiring test scores. That leads to less taking the tests even if available, less prep for the SAT, and taking it less seriously. Plus, I have to imagine the stress of the last year was not conducive to good test performance.
+1 on the whining front. I have no issue with those that were legitimately ill on the day of the PSAT or were not able to take due to the pandemic. National Merit needs to find a way to make it equitable and I hope that they do. What does torque me, though, is the number of my sonâs peers whose parents decided to play the long game and call their kids in sick on the day of the PSAT so that they could enter through AE. My son scored a 220 qualifying score on the PSAT which puts him on the bubble in Illinois but went in already having a 1580 SAT - both with perfect scores on math and a similar number of incorrect on EBRW. The devil on my shoulder wonders whether I should have also called him in sick the day of the PSAT but that would not have been the right thing to do and what message does that send to your kid? I just hope that those that get NMSF/NMF through AE were legitimately unable to take the PSAT. And shame on those that gamed the system.
The PSAT/NMSQT booklet states âhigh school principals are asked in April to identify any errors/changes of their high scorers (students whose scores will qualify them in the fall of 2021.)â
Have any principals shared with you what the cut-off is? It should be two hundred and somethingâŠ
The commended cutoff will be known much sooner, but I donât think it has been released yet. We homeschool, and as such I receive all the âprincipalâ information. At least thatâs how it worked with S20. I havenât received anything for S22 yet.
Kinda late to the convo oops. I got a 1520 in October; that automatically qualifies me for Semifinalist status, right? Is the application for Finalist status completely different, or does it still factor in your PSAT score?
@blondednikes , if that 1520 was your PSAT score, yes you are going to be named a NMSF with no additional action by you. In the fall, your HS will receive an application for Finalist status. Youâll have to write short essay and provide some other info and your HS will send a transcript. As long as you answer the essay questions seriously, donât have more than one C on your transcript, and have no disciplinary issues, most advance to NMF.
Benacquisto may no longer be available for the high school class of 2022.