With all the talk of PSAT and National Merit, I couldn’t help but wonder what if students doesn’t get National Merit, but get’s a 1550 on the SAT. But another student who gets National Merit but scores less on the SAT, let’s say 1470. How would colleges view this? Note: This is a hypothetical situation, but could happen.
Not important once there are High SAT scores.
NM is more important for scholarships than for admissions.
It depends on which school you are talking about. For some (top) school, it does not matter at all as the cut off is only around the admission average. For some lower tier schools, they will embrace you as they can report how many NMF attending their school.
Benefits of being a National Merit:
- One chance, Junior year in high school
- Part of Top 1% PSAT club
- Automatically considered for the National Merit Scholarship, College-sponsored, Corporate-sponsored
- Recognition by NMS program, Your High School and Local Newspaper.
- Possible Full Ride/Full Tuition Scholarships (without need-based requirement or component)
- OOS tuition waiver to in-state tuition for most state colleges