<p>Damn people who make these rules for NM. Someone has to ammend the whole process. It does not take into your GPA, rank, or other SAT subject test scores or AP scores. WTH, this one is called us National Merit? Why cant we call it something else? A merit scolarship should look at your holistically, not just the PSAT score and say good bye. For God sake, drop the percentile cutoff to 95% and then screen the applicants from the pool using their academics and award the damn scholarships. They are leaving out very talented people based on PSAT score alone. No one gives any credit to my AP, SAT subject scores, school rank, GPA etc. What a joke!!! Only in USA, we see this ancient way of testing and meriting the students. Imagine you suck at your school in terms of GPA and you pull a fast one in PSAT (by luck or good exam taking ability) and you become a National Merit Scholar. Do you deserve to be there? I don't think so. We need to leran from Europe and other Asian countries about what merit scholarship means. They consider Advanced Math and Science into account for merit scholarships. I have to wirte to some one in DC to revisit the whole NM business. I shun this whole process. I understand this is not everything. Still it is part of every students' life. Start throwing darts on my face if you disagree with me. Argue with some valid points.</p>
<p>Dude you need to calm down and educate yourself. UPON reaching the cutoff, they select National Merit Scholarship winners BASED ON AN APPLICATION concerning your SAT scores, GPA, extracurriculars etc. They DO judge you holistically, however in terms of PSAT scores, they cannot give a scholarship to everyone, so they are forced to set the bar quite high.</p>
<p>The fact that you did not get it is not the end of the world, and it will most likely not affect your chances at colleges. Its only 2500 dollars anyway, your angry energy is better spent applying for other merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I was a national merit scholar with a 3.45 UW GPA. I don’t care whether you think I deserve the money that I have for scholarships; I get $10,000/yr at my school for my achievement and your opinion means squat. </p>
<p>Stop being bitter because you couldn’t score highly enough and move on. It’s kind of lame.</p>
<p>All I am saying lower the bar on dumb PSAT exam and raise the bar on GPA and other key factors. PSAT is just an entrance ticket and why do they put the cutoff at 99 percentile? That is the sticky point. If you miss 4 qns in the stupid PSAT and you are not worthy of scholarship. What if someone is not gifted in exam taking or tensed on that day? Call me a whiner. LOL!</p>
<p>You’d be silly to think that America is one of the most test-focused nations in the world, the entire continents you compare the USA to emphasize test scores more than we do.</p>
<p>Get into Harvard then, they’ll cover you-they promise.</p>
<p>People with GPA less than 3.8 do not deserve any NM scholarship based on PSAT score alone. It is a joke. Hell with the people who invented the process. That is why we suck in Science and Math and subpar with Chinese and Indians. Let’s keep importing Engineers and Scientists while we excel in perfecting the dumb English. Great for unemployment numbers. Let us stand in the uneployment line with perfect PSAT/SAT scores. Am I going to get a Ph.D in English by proofing myself in PSAT? Total nonsense.</p>
<p>Can you prove it to me that someone is better than me by scoring high on PSAT alone? I have seen some genius kids who do not make the NM cutoff with 4.5 GPA and perfect SAT /SAT Subject Test scores. They can embarass some people who have scored more than 220+ in PSAT. Do not boast yourself since you got better PSAT score than some of us did. Life is unfair, what can we do about it.</p>
<p>My gpa is 3.6- be careful, you are hurting some people’s feelings here…
I know you are angry and i know how you feel but you are too caustic right now. Cry about it (I did) then calm down.</p>
<p>gaginang - you are right and wrong. They do emphasize test scores but not so much on language. I have friends and families who live there. They have better systems to measure your merit. Trust me.</p>
<p>I do not care about the PSAT scores any more. My arguments does not make any difference to the community. My final observation would be, if the cut-off scores keep going up every year, what would be the cutoff score 10-15 years from now? 240 for California? LOL! Damn!!!</p>
<p>Dude, no need to get angry just cause you didn’t make the cutoff for NM. Chill, about a million and a half other Juniors didn’t either.</p>
<p>Harambee, you are funny! I am relaxed and cool. My school rank and AP and SAT subject scores are like 99.9999 percentile when compared to other juniors. Since I did not make the 99 percentile in PSAT, I am messed up. That too 4 qns decide a major event in my life based on one exam. Time to buckle down for the SAT nonsense soon. Taking a cold shower now…</p>
<p>i’ve noticed the upward trend kinda fell back to normal last year. Anyway, don’t worry about the PSAT, even if you don’t make commended you could still get into a great school. They know its just one test.</p>
<p>In the end, it’s your fault for not scoring high enough on the PSAT… while the cutoff is quite high for California (I’m assuming you live in California…) it’s essentially the same as Virginia, where I live. I made it a goal to get my score (219) because my GPA isn’t very good (only a 4.0 weighted) and I scored a 175 on the PSAT last year. </p>
<p>Plus, PSAT is only one part of the admissions process and actually doesn’t even matter very much. The only thing it really helps with is the scholarship money, but honestly if you require need because your family doesn’t make enough money, your stats (high GPA + class rank) should help you get enough money.</p>
<p>And you also make the point that English is emphasized too much on the PSAT, I would agree (I scored 70CR/79M/70CW, so you can see the difference) but honestly the CR/CW stuff is basically common sense and can be studied for.</p>
<p>*EDIT: Saw the other thead (you live in Florida)… the cutoff is only around 211, and that’s one of the lower cutoff states… you should have been able to score AT LEAST 211.</p>
<p>Plus, PSAT is only one part of the admissions process and actually doesn’t even matter very much</p>
<p>It’s not a part of the admissions process.</p>
<p>
These standardized tests are partially meant to gauge grade inflation.</p>
<p>Don’t worry. Rant on. We’re all used to seeing bitter “unqualifiers” around here. It provides some nice entertainment :rolleyes:</p>
<p>By making 4 mistakes, it sucks to see that I am missing out on $7500 per year scholarships from my Dad and Mom companies. Silly mistakes cost me a bundle.</p>
<p>Missing only four questions qualifies one for National Merit Semifinalist in any state.</p>
<p>^ Unless he also skipped some questions. Given his history of posts (IIRC, he was the guy who started the “Chinese people cheat on the SAT” thread) I would not be surprised if he left this detail out.</p>
<p>Yea Silverturtle is right, I missed 8 and got a 222. I don’t know what this nonsense is about missing 4 and failing. And in any case, you’re right; the mistakes were silly. Nobody is to blame for the mistakes except you. There are few or no ambiguous answers each year, and this year I only feel that there was one. The rest were based on knowledge, which apparently you didn’t have. </p>
<p>I think what I find most ridiculous about your rant is that you’re blaming the National Merit Scholarship Foundation. They are a company that is voluntarily giving scholarships to 15 thousand juniors every year. Oh, but you want one too? Well either you could just have practiced until you reached the cutoff level, or you can expect them to go out of their way to screen applications of 75000 kids or whatever that hit the 95th percentile mark. The fact that you want the latter option is ridiculous. </p>
<p>They don’t owe you anything kid. Don’t attack the test, don’t attack the corporation, and don’t attack the name of the scholarship just because you think you’re more meritorious than some of the kids who aced the exam. Judging by your grammar skills and pettiness I’d say you’re not the brightest kid in the bunch anyway.</p>