<p>Momsdream,
If your son got a score above 200, he probably was named commended for National Merit (I am assuming his score was not high enough to be a NMfinalist), and he should have found out in the fall that he was a semi finalist, National Achievement, the program for black students.</p>
<p>If he didn't get such info about National Achievement either he didn't indicate when he took the PSAT that he is black or when he was named an Achievment semifinalist last fall, his GC did not give him the paperwork to fill out to be considered for finalist.</p>
<p>With your S's grades, ECS, and SAT scores, if he had done what was needed to be considered for Achievement finalist, he would have gotten that honor. He also may have gotten a National Achievement Scholarship.</p>
<p>National Achievement is a separate program from National Merit, though both use the PSAT scores. Google to get more info. Call them if you want to find out what happened in your S's case.</p>
<p>Since a v or m score of 650 on the SAT is at the 98th percentile for black students and the 99th percentile for black students is a 700, the qualifying scores for National Achievement are understandably lower than for National Merit.</p>
<p>About 125,600 black students take the SAT each year. For all students, 652,000 males and 750,000 females take the SAT and the 98th percentile is 750 for verbal and between 750 and 800 for math. </p>
<p>I got this info from a chart that the college board put on line 2 years ago showing racial and male female breakdowns of the SATs in 2003. Unfortunately, they no longer put that info on-line any more, but at least I saved the info from 2003. I have never seen a racial breakdown for the PSAT, but one can estimate that info by using the SAT info.</p>
<p>As you can tell, the kind of scores that your son got on the PSAT are very rare for black students, so he definitely should have qualified as a semi finalist for National Achievement. Going from semi finalist to finalist is based on getting the paperwork in, sending in SAT scores (and I have known National Achievement scholars with SAT scores of 1250) and having requisite grades. I am not sure what the gpa requirement is, but I think it's either an unweighted 3.0 or 3.5.</p>