<p>a lot of these records are amazing. here we're down significantly from previous years.</p>
<p>The Seattle Times ran an article listing the NMSF from schools in this area today and I did a little bit of evaluation as to how they are distributed. :-)</p>
<p>The Seattle Public School District has 12 High Schools (this does not include any suburban districts) and last year there were 2499 Juniors who were eligible to take the PSAT in October. As I said in a previous post, Garfield High School is a magnet school and, as expected, they boast the largest number of semi's of any school in the SPSD. How did the other 11 fare? One, Roosevelt, had 7 semis while the other three shared 4 NMSF's between them. Which means that the other 7 schools in the District had zilch.</p>
<p>But that doesn't even tell the whole story. Private schools in Seattle proper boast 54 NMSF, 33 of those from a school which has been dubbed as Seattle's "ivy" league school, Lakeside. </p>
<p>Which confirms what I think happens here and especially on the east coast... that these schools which have huge numbers of NMSF's are getting the cream of the crop students who would likely excel regardless of which school they attend...</p>
<p>Just me I think, out of 217. 6 commended.</p>
<p>About 320 kids in the senior class - 4 semifinalists, but I'm not sure how many are commended.</p>
<p>4 / 700ish</p>
<p>my school is nuts: 26/92 (kids total in a grade) were semi-finalists....</p>
<p>My school had 31 National Merit semifinalists this year, out of a class of about 550. The last couple of years, we've had around 35-36 per year.</p>
<p>49 out of 400+. Public school in Sillicon Valley.</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson 151, down slightly from last year. About 400 students, I think.</p>
<p>21 in a class of 180.</p>
<p>we had a pretty bad year, only 3-4...</p>
<p>but again, in the midwest, the ACT is big, so a lot of students forgo the PSAT because they know they will not take the SAT</p>
<p>My son is the only NMSF at his school - class of about 400 - this year. While that may seem bad, the good news for him is that it is a BIG deal at his school. When he arrived at his AP Spanish class yesterday, the teacher - who he had last year and is a big fan - had a huge sign on the board congratulating him AND had put smaller banners in the Foreign Language "hall". She then proceeded to spend most of the class time discussing scholarships and the SAT with the class. </p>
<p>Later in the day when he arrived at his AP US Government class, THAT teacher had cut out the article from the local newspaper, highlighted my son's name and posted it on his door.</p>
<p>My son seemed pleased with the recognition, even though he is not one to seek attention for himself. It must have felt pretty good to know that he had teachers who hold him in such esteem.</p>
<p>7 semifinalists, class size 150
like 15 commended students</p>
<p>Last year DS was the only semi/finalist in his class of 96. But here is where it gets interesting. The principal did some research and found that he was the third one in the last 50 years.</p>
<p>Class 314, 22 seminfinalists, plus about 20 commendeds.</p>
<p>last year we had 54 semifinalists, don't know how many commendeds</p>
<p>...but our class had about 1100 people, haha.</p>
<p>"More than 1.4 million juniors from across the nation entered the 2008 National Merit Program by taking the 2006 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). From that group, approximately 16,000 of the highest scoring students were named as National Semi-Finalists, representing less than one percent of high school students nationwide. Approximately ninety percent of semi-finalists go on to become finalists, and of that group about half are selected as National Merit Scholarship winners."</p>
<p>I would like someone to answer a question for me about this "national" competition. If it's a "national" competition, why are there cutoff scores by state? And has it always been this way? I personally would like to see recognition provided to students regardless of what state they live in. Making sure that all the states have semi-finalists is ridiculous. If you don't have the scores, you shouldn't be recognized. This could provide incentive for some states to improve their educational system.</p>
<p>There are many students in a state such as Massachusetts, Maryland,.... who score in the top 1% nationally among all students who take this test, but they are not semifinalists (and thus have no chance to be a finalist) because their state's cutoff score is higher than another state's cutoff score (and there are many of those states). The actual scholarships provided by the NMSC for finalists are $2500, so they are are more of an honor than a big ticket scholarship. However, the real payoff comes from many schools that reserve some high value scholarships (i.e. full tuition or more) for NMFs. A student could miss out on these because he/she didn't make the cutoff for NMSF in his/her state but would have made it easily in another state.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would like someone to answer a question for me about this "national" competition. If it's a "national" competition, why are there cutoff scores by state? And has it always been this way? I personally would like to see recognition provided to students regardless of what state they live in. Making sure that all the states have semi-finalists is ridiculous.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Happy,
Many agree with you. Here is a NMSC statement on the subject from their annual report.</p>
<p>
[quote]
To ensure that students from all parts of the nation are included in the talent pool, the top scoring entrants in each state are designated Semifinalists on a state representational basis.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know how long it has been structured like this, but certainly this has been the case for a good many years. Student receive commended recognition us regardless of the state where they attend school. However, commended does not carry the prestige of finalist.</p>
<p>Only one out of 350.</p>
<p>Class of 700. Usually no nmsf...a good year is one...fabulous year =2.</p>