How important is National Merit

Test Preparation
21

<p>It's not a big deal not to have National Merit.</p>

<p>If you do have it, then your path to college is a lot easier.</p>

22

<p>What is a "a National Merit Commended Scholar/ National Achievement Scholar" ?? never heard of it.</p>

23

<p>if you have a the score necessary to get semifinalist, such as 220-230, what gpa do you need to get the national merit scholarship? What other factors come into play when they narrow the 16k people down to 15k?</p>

24

<p>Ester W. Lee,
NM Commended Students meet a national cutoff score--around 200 usually. Kids get a letter from NM but don't progress any further in the scholarship competition.<br>
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php&lt;/a>
National Achievement is for Black students
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/nasp.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/nasp.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>dma1748,
I think most people who fill out their paperwork and score >2000 on the SATs progress to finalist. Not sure how low GPA can be before it becomes a factor.
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_R&I_Leaflet.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_R&I_Leaflet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

25

<p>What's considered a high academic standing? 3.0? 3.5? 3.9?</p>

26

<p>Your guidance office would probably know from previous experience with NM scholars. My guess is that it doesn't need to be as high as 3.9.</p>