National Merit Scholarship Program

So my school posted online saying that I had qualified for the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program. What are the other things needed to actually be one of the students to get the scholarship? I heard that there’s an essay to write, but is there a “cut-off” score that you need to get on the actual SAT as well? And is there anything else? Sorry if I’m posting on the wrong part of the forum.

Interesting that your school posted that! What state do you go to school in? And, if you don’t mind, what as your PSAT score? Much digital ink was spilled here in trying to determine what the cutoffs will be for 2017.

Official announcement of semi finalists is made in the fall, I believe. Finalists aren’t named until February of next year. You do need a confirming SAT score; google for the cutoff and the algorithm as it isn’t your actual SAT score but a calculation based on the subtests. You’ll also need a letter of recommendation from your school, and of course the essay.

It’s a 100% fact that the NMS company has not yet selected semi finalists yet, but had chosen the 50,000 kids that are in the running for semi finalists. The commended score is 209 for class of 2017. Per NMS Corp, they haven’t even started doing state allocations for class of 2017,-they are still closing out the 2016 program.

Your school is saying you qualified to move forward as commended.