Looks like killing the PSAT and getting NMF is the Golden Ticket into UF

More students should do extensive preparations for the PSAT, with parents fronting the money for prep/tutoring if necessary. It’s a hell of a return on investment if they have the grades/EC’s and worry about getting into UF. This Benacquisto scholarship is an amazing deal for both in-state and out-of-state because it covers room and board and other fees Bright Futures doesn’t. Worth over $80,000.

Its the Golden ticket!!!

what kind of scores do you need on it?

You have to be NMF, and the score needed will vary by state.

Well, many colleges want those kids and many of those kids will have multiple options. .

While I agree that many parents don’t have their kids focus on the PSAT, I consider the overall premise a bit flippant. About 8,000 kids become finalists each year of the more than 1.6 million who “compete.” It’s not really a strategy to tell your kid to go be in the top one-half percent of students, nationwide.
If you are one of the 8,000, dozens of top schools will be offering extremely generous scholarships. That’s for sure.

The majority of kids can prep and study until they are blue in the face and will not achieve NMF status.

Florida students can still get full tuition (plus $600 for book) from Bright Futures. Pretty good prize for the runners-up.

Lottery ticket. Look st the numbers. It’s not like you are “in” at certain cut off numbers that remain the same. It’s a moving target based on the top nth Percentage. The more kids who focus on the Numbers and study and get tutors, the higher the break point becomes as only the same % get the status.

I absolutely advocate any and everyone to go for it. But realize it’s not a bottomless bowl of goodies. There are so many tickets, and then that’s it

I read that about 16,000 become semi finalists and then 15,000 of them move on to become finalists. So if you get the qualifying score you are very likely to be a finalist.

You have to score well enough on the SAT to move from semifinalist to finalist and
then you have to SUBMIT the SAT score to the National Merit Corporation.
Many many finalists end up getting NO money from the National Merit Corporation, but there are a list of about 50 schools that end up being mostly free, including U of Oklahoma, U of Alabama, Arizona State, U of Texas Dallas, a private school, U of Tulsa, and others. Arizona State will send airplane tickets to a National Merit Finalist to visit Tempe Arizona and offers of admission to the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State, if GPA is strong.

There are plenty of very inexpensive schools for smart kids too, schools like New Mexico State, U of Wyoming, U of Nevada Reno and many others do not demand a student be a National Merit Finalist. Some of the schools that offer deals to National Merit Finalists, also offer deals to straight A students, so don’t sweat the PSAT too much. If it happens to work out, then explore it, but many students want a better ranked school than the good deals on National Merit, so it may not work out.
One big caveat, is the National Merit Finalist must choose a favorite school! That school may limit the National Merit Scholars, so a National Merit Finalist may not get chosen by his or her top choice school.

Also, a National Merit scholar can game the system, apply early to one school, with that one being his first choice, than SWITCH the first choice school to a different school, and apply RD to that school. Not that I recommend that, but its possible to do that. May not pan out though.

This year you can submit an ACT score as a confirming score as an alternate to the SAT score. And @flprepaidmom has it correct that about 15,000 of the 16,000 students move on from semifinalist. With the Benacquisto you do not have the problem of the schools limiting NMF numbers since it is from the state, not the school. You have to get accepted, of course, and list UF as your number one school.
Getting the Benacquisto at UF is hard to beat right now for NMFs looking for a deal. High ranking, large university on the rise. It was certainly the talk of CC’s NMF board. It will be very interesting to see how many NMFs UF enrolled this year…and how many are out of state!

Texas High school JR takes the PSAT for NMF in 6 weeks. She has been prepping hard. So worth the effort. UF would be a dream!!!