I got a 201 on my PSATs and I was in the 96th percentile… Commended student?

<p>I just received my score for the 2013 PSATs. I know that the cutoff is usually around the 96th percentile with variation based on the difficulty of the test that year. With a 201, am I likely to qualify as a Commended Student?</p>

<p>What state do you live in? The cutoffs usually don’t change by more than a few points each year, so you might be able to tell from that.</p>

<p>Depends on the state. I’m not sure if it’s likely, though.</p>

<p>Commended status does not depend on the state – the cutoff is the same everywhere. Relying on memory, it was 200 for the Class of 2013, and 203 for the Class of 2014.</p>

<p>It was 201 for the class of 2013</p>

<p>I live in upstate NY. I got a 72 on my math, a 64 on my Critical reading, and a 65 on my writing skills. My percentiles for each were 98th, 92th, and 94th respectively.</p>

<p>You might be commended but definitely not SF</p>

<p>If I have to guess, you will be VERY close or right on it. It was 203 last year (class of 14) but I think it will drop by a couple points for class 15. But… no one really knows. It doesn’t matter where you live or how you scored each section. Good luck.</p>

<p>There’s a post, somewhere, that talks about the Commended cutoff being equal to the lowest score in the National 96th percentile band. If that is true, this year it would be 200. Someone ambitious could go to the trouble of finding the old charts and matching them against the commended scores and let us know.</p>

<p>55,000 students get recognized out of about 1,500,000 juniors (to be exact it’s probably closer to 1550,000 because almost this many juniors took the psat last year) yearly…which means approximately 3.667% of the top PSAT takers are awarded.</p>

<p>So you’re on the brink! I could guarantee you though that national commended cutoff will fall, since the average junior score for 2013 was lower than that of 2012.</p>