<p>Last year at my school, the graduating class of only about 54 had about 18 semi-finalists. they were a really smart class. i dont know about our semi-finalists this year, but my class of 50 had about 25 commendation which is pretty cool too.</p>
<p>My school had 8 out of a class of 80.</p>
<p>in a class of 650....about 90 nmsf.</p>
<p>47 in a class of about 550</p>
<p>class size: 674
30 semifinalists. We're a public school too...so our school is probably more of an abnormality</p>
<p>Last year we had around 50 kids...but this year only 30. I guess my class's caliber isn't as high as last year's class's.</p>
<p>35/205 for 2007</p>
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NMSF means (roughly) you are in the top 1% of all the students in the country in your class (Class of 2008) who took the PSAT in the previous year.
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<p>Interesting. I looked it up, and this is accurate, though the college board website says the number of NMSFs is actually 16,000, and 1.4 million kids take it, but that's a small difference. Once upon a time (the mid-70s), we were told that it represented the top .5%, or one out of every 200 kids. I assume that was true then, though I can't find historical evidence.</p>
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NMSF are very rare. Our high school, which is top rated and does well on a variety of factors such US News rankings and competitive contests ,only had about 6-8 NMSF out of about 550 kids.</p>
<p>The only schools that generally beat the national average are usually selective private schools and very selective magnet schools. Some of these actually use the PSAT in admission so they tend to have an overabundance of NMSF kids.
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<p>6-8 would be a bit above 1%, so that's about average or just a little above. But there are many public school systems that do better, depending on the demographics. It doesn't have to be a private school or a magnet school. One regular, neighborhood high school in my area turned out 20 this year out of a class of about 400, so that's about five times the average. But this is a university town, so it's not too surprising.</p>
<p>I will ask again... where are these schools located which are churning out 40 and 50 NMSF? Are they private/public? Are they magnet schools? Are they located in certain states?</p>
<p>A school with 500 students would reasonably have 4-5 NMSF. Obviously, the one's with astronomical numbers are not just "normal" schools. It reinforces in my mind that we have - at least in some parts of this country - an educational system which doesn't necessarily reward individual meritocracy. It rewards those who have the resources to fund their children's education by sending them to private schools. I saw a "Cathy" cartoon over the weekend which spoofed this... Cathy's friend is expecting a baby and she was saying it didn't matter to her if the child was a boy or a girl but only that the child had already been accepted into the "right" preschool. I have a suspicion that the cartoon was pretty on target for some areas of this country.</p>
<p>In my S's school, 14 out of 40 seniors (Class of 2007) were NM Semi-Finalists . He attends a private, all-boys Catholic school.</p>
<p>11 NMSF out of class of 375</p>
<p>9 out of 158!</p>
<p>public magnet in ky: 39/450ish</p>
<p>our score was really low this year (208). it's weird, though, because last year the score was 213 and they had 43. I guess my class isn't as good?</p>
<p>Does anyone have any insight into how important the essay is in becoming a finalist, versus GPA and SAT scores, etc?</p>
<p>Oldest Son's class has 11 semifinalists out of 171 students in his senior class, and 16 national merit commended. Crazy class for a public school. My next son's class had only 6 NMSF and 7 commended for a class about the same size.</p>
<p>My school, to my knowledge, has 4 NMSF. I know at least one commended scholar but I don't know about the rest. </p>
<p>I'm not positive exactly how big my class is but I'd venture to guess somewhere between 175-200.</p>
<p>At my school we have about...um...25 finalists out of a class of 150-200 students. I know it is a school record. It was up on the school marquee, so I guess I should have remembered. I didn't get it. My PSAT was bad and didn't even qualify to be considered, even though my SAT was very good.</p>
<p>An important thing to remember is that for every private/magnet school that has 40 NMSF, there are many more public schools that have none (or very few). My small (70-80 per class), rural upstate public school went 13 years without a Semi. The last one was Class 0f 1995, I'm class of 08. That's about 1000 kids that went through w/out being NMSF. I wasn't even in school yet when she won.</p>
<p>12 out of 370 or so................. so pretty normal I'd guess</p>
<p>Out of about 600, there were 4 semifinalists last year...so our school sort of sucks, but then again, it's a public and we're in Maryland...</p>
<p>But there were only 5 total from our entire COUNTY (of like, 10,000 seniors), and 4 of them were from our school...so we're also sort of strange in that sense.</p>