<p>From what I've gathered from my college searching, it seems that being a national merit finalist or semifinalist is a big boost to your application. But...the PSAT scores are probably less of a measure of reasoning skills than are the actual SATs. ex. my SATs are much, much higher than my junior year PSATs. I only got national merit commended junior year [my sophomore PSATs were probably good enough for semifinalist but since those don't count...I guess I just kinda bombed junior year PSATs]. do schools really place that much weight on whether you're commended/semi/finalist/whatever?</p>
<p>It’s not a big boost at all. It’s just like “honor society” or something. Besides, it is a PSAT after all.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters that much since I mean the difference between a finalist and commended could be just 1 point on the PSAT. Although there are a lot of finalists 15, 000 who probably also apply to top schools</p>
<p>No, it doesn’t help much if you’re talking about Yale. I believe about 300-400 or so National Merit Finalists attend Yale every year. I can go look up the exact number if you want.</p>
<p>Ya, national merit not a big deal. However, I don’t think any state’s cut off for finialist is above a 230, so I hope you did better on the SAT than on the PSAT = D.</p>
<p>Sorry, it’s not 300-400. For Yale, it was 213 NMFs in 2008, and 285 for Harvard. I exaggerated.</p>
<p>Not everyone takes the PSAT as well, so keep that in mind</p>
<p>Well, look at the award this way: it tells nothing about you except that you can score high on the SAT.</p>
<p>I saw a lot of National Merit Scholars denied last year. Yale is pretty cut throat</p>