<p>Someone told me that the College Board combines all boarding students into their own group and assigns the cut-off qualification for a finalist based on the highest cut-off state (perhaps CT). Is this true? Please verify if you have recent experience with this. Thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, College Board has a separate group for boarding school students. I heard the cut-off is based on the boarding school students, not a state. When I took the PSAT, the cut-off for us was around 224, which is higher than most states.</p>
<p>Is the commended category the same for everyone in the country?</p>
<p>Wait, what?</p>
<p>i agree with Jonathan...what?!!!! please explain this in simple terms. but it sounds really bad for me if i'm hearing this right...</p>
<p>I am still going up the learning curve on this, so I'll try to explain with what I have gathered.</p>
<p>When you are in 11th grade, you will take the PSAT exam in Oct. which is a practice test for the SAT. The results are also tied to a national scholarship competition called the National Merit Scholarship. Each state has a cutoff for qualification based on the scores in that state that are 1/2 of 1% of test takers or higher. As a result, cutoffs can be as low as 202 or as high as 224. What I learned recently is that boarding school students are placed in their own pool. Someone told me that their cutoff is the highest cutoff of any state. Sugarkim above believes that their cutoff is calculated differently. As I was reading through PSAT threads on CC, someone said that the boarding school pool is only comprised of students going to boarding schools in the Mid-Atlantic and New England. In any case, I think the commended category is still the lowest state cutoff for everyone.</p>
<p>If you know about this, please chime in. I'd like to understand it. Thanks.</p>
<p>I found this explanation on the St. Mark's site:
"Of the nearly 1.4 million students who take the test each year, the 50,000 highest scorers are selected for Commended Student or Semifinalist status, according to College Counselor Bill Mason. Semifinalists are among the top tier of those high scorers; they represent each of the fifty states, along with the “51st state,” which is comprised of a handful of independent boarding schools."</p>
<p>"Handful" does seem to suggest that it doesn't include all 300+ boarding schools in the US. I'll check with our College Counselor to see if she knows more.</p>
<p>If you want to try to game the system - move to Arkansas, West Virginia, Wyoming, Mississippi or one of the Dakotas. ;) BTW - This also works for Rhodes Scholarships.</p>
<p>Thanks for looking into this. The "handful" includes my son's school, so I think the number includes more than a few boarding schools.</p>
<p>According to our college counselor, whether a school is classified with the "51st state of boarding schools" or its home state depends on the percentage of students enrolled at the school who are from out of state. If a school enrolls 40% or more of its students from out of state, it is classified into the boarding school group.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. </p>
<p>Anyone with more information post here. Specifically, is commended the same for everyone? Is it always the score of the lowest cutoff state? Does the boarding school pool generate its own cutoff, or is it based on the highest state cutoff? Thanks.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you want to try to game the system - move to Arkansas, West Virginia, Wyoming, Mississippi or one of the Dakotas. BTW - This also works for Rhodes Scholarships.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, this does not work for the Rhodes, for two reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li> Arkansas is in the same district as Kansas, Mississippi an Missouri. Missouri has wash u....and all the smart kids that went to Harvard and Yale...and this years winners went to Cal Tech and Columbia</li>
<li> West Virginia is in the same district as Maryland, DC and Kentucky. So this district has the Naval Academy, Hopkins and all the smart kids from Montgomery county that went to Harvard and Yale...and this year's winners went to U. Chicago and MIT.</li>
<li> Wyoming is in the same district as Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Agreed no "national" universities here, but tons of smart kids who go to Harvard, Yale and maybe Stanford and this year.s winners went to AF Academy and Georgetown.</li>
<li> Mississippi is in the same district as Arkansas. See above, where all the smart kids went to...</li>
<li> The Dakotas are in the same district as Iowa, Montana, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Could be easier here, except for the fact that all the smart kids go to Harvard and Yale. And those Iowa kids have the highest SAT scores in the country. This year's winners went to St. Olaf and U. Oklahoma. (Ok an outlier. I guess not all smart kids go to Harvard or Yale... :) )</li>
</ul>
<p>Why PSAT score is so important ?</p>
<p>It appears there is confusion on PSAT scoring system.</p>
<p>Start by thinking finalists are regional, commended are national.</p>
<p>And, my true story may help explain this.</p>
<p>Boarding school PSAT -- true story</p>
<p>D attended boarding school pooled with others. Her PSAT score would have been finalist at home state, but-- and I am not making this up -- was the lowest in her dorm! She was one of among 13 takers. And, of that group, that particular year, I think 226 or 228 was needed to get finalist. She was cool about it. But, to be last is never fun.</p>
<p>To her surprise, she received commended as her score fell within the top 50,000 takers nationwide. The "separate" (and special) group of boarding schools merely kept her out of NM Scholar. She was funnelled regionally for finalist, but competed nationally for commended. </p>
<p>Moral of the story -- everyone in her dorm was commended or better. With this, I tell other parents: think before sending kid to boarding school -- can be very hard on self esteem. The "dummies" can be commended students -- and actually were in her dorm that year.</p>
<p>FOB, without boring you with a discussion of psychometrics, suffice to say the PSAT scores in your D's dorm say nothing about relative rankings: the error rate (SD, if you will) is just too high at these scores. There are also such things as ceiling effects and such.</p>
<p>It is for reasons like this that I continue to be puzzled about why NM finalist is considered something so significant. From a technical POV it is not. But the PR machine behind it has been very effective.</p>
<p>It's interesting too that one of this years Rhodes Scholars was not even a NM semifinalist.</p>
<p>That is also why, for students coming out of these boarding schools, being NMS semifinalist is not important in the eyes of college admissions. The same level of accomplishment would have earned that recognition had they attended other schools.</p>
<p>From this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/434716-national-merit-finalist-boarding-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/434716-national-merit-finalist-boarding-schools.html</a></p>
<hr>
<p>Boarding school PSAT – true story</p>
<p>D attended boarding school pooled with others. Her PSAT score would have been finalist at home state, but-- and I am not making this up – was the lowest in her dorm! She was one of among 13 takers. And, of that group, that particular year, I think 226 or 228 was needed to get finalist. She was cool about it. But, to be last is never fun.</p>
<p>To her surprise, she received commended as her score fell within the top 50,000 takers nationwide. The “separate” (and special) group of boarding schools merely kept her out of NM Scholar. She was funnelled regionally for finalist, but competed nationally for commended. </p>
<p>Moral of the story – everyone in her dorm was commended or better. With this, I tell other parents: think before sending kid to boarding school – can be very hard on self esteem. The “dummies” can be commended students – and actually were in her dorm that year.</p>
<p>Yow, I had no idea before that attending BS could impact chances of being a National Merit Semifinalist. Here is what I found the NM website:
<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s a thread on the Parents forum that has some additional discussion and links:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1426164-psat-national-merit-boarding-school-pool.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1426164-psat-national-merit-boarding-school-pool.html</a></p>
<p>Though it’s a bummer for families who could use the small stipend toward college that the NMS provides, I do think the benefits of BS far outweigh the downside of being in a “harder” pool of NMS qualifiers.</p>