<p>Letters went out very recently to the GCs to give to the top 55,000 students based on the 2004 junior year PSAT scores. Those are students whose index score was 200 or higher on their junior year PSAT. </p>
<p>The letters tell students that they are the top 55,000 students, and they are given the option to have 2 colleges notified of this achievement. The students must designate those colleges by May 18.</p>
<p>All of the 55,000 will either be Commended or National Merit semi finalists. The announcement about commended and semi finalists will be made in Aug. or Sept., depending on when your kid's school starts and the GC gets around to giving your kid the info. From what I can figure out, the info probably is sent by National Merit to the GCs in mid Aug.</p>
<p>Anyone whose child might be a semi-finalist needs to make sure that the GCs give their kid the info in the fall and the kid follows through with the paperwork that must be submitted by a certain deadline. I think an essay, GC report, SAT scores, and transcript must be sent in and the students at that time get to select a first choice college. </p>
<p>Students can fail to make National Merit finalist due to low gpas, low SAT scores (This doesn't mean getting something like a 1400. It means getting an SAT score so low that the National Merit folks probably suspect the super high PSAT score was due to cheating), not sending in the required info or presumably not getting a good report from the principal or GC. Considering how proud schools are of their NM scholars, I assume that principals and GCs only give negative reports in the most extreme circumstances.</p>
<p>Use CC's search function to find out more info as there's lots of info in the archieves.</p>