<p>cb2012 - totally agree</p>
<p>kjb wrote:
Bottom line? Because NMSC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with no government support, it’s their money, and they can do whatever they want with it.</p>
<p>I will be the devil’s advocate on how NM awards are distributed. Has anyone considered that states like AR, MS, etc., for the most part, don’t have the quality of education of the states with the higher cut-offs? I know Louisiana has a higher qualifying score because they also have one of the highest (if not THE highest) percentages of students who attend private schools. There are exceptions, of course, but students that have attended public schools in these poorer states all of their lives could not begin to compete with students from MA, CA, MD. </p>
<p>People jokingly comment that they should move to these states for HS. Hypothetically, if that happened, then the qualifying scores from these states would be just as high as the states they just left.</p>
<p>wemel has a good point about MA and MD’s students attending more private schools and receiving a higher education in general. But other than the quality of the education system itself, these states also have an environment of intense competitiveness, and therefore, more self-motivation. This may also be a result of the fact that there are more higher-educated Asians living in those states.</p>
<p>Let me put it this way:</p>
<p>For the 2010 competition, Utah’s extremely low cutoff score allowed 3.4% of test takers to be semifinalist, while Maryland’s extremely high cutoff score meant only .66% of test takers were finalists.</p>
<p>Is Utah’s education system so bad that they should get 5 times as many semifinalists than Maryland?</p>
<p>Let me give some more context to that.</p>
<p>Utah’s median score for 2008-2009 Juniors was 156.3
Maryland’s median score for 2008-2009 Juniors was 135.9</p>
<p>Utah had a median score 20 points higher than Maryland, but Maryland’s cutoff was 15 points higher, 221-206.</p>
<p>The system simply rewards students in states where lower percentages of students take the tests.</p>
<p>VADAD1, that’s interesting. Perhaps a lot of students in MD higher than the median were concentrated in the 70-80 area? From what I’ve observed in schools, there’s usually a pretty big gap between motivated students and mediocre students. So I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the motivated students score very high. </p>
<p>Are you sure that NMSF simply rewards states with lower percentage of students taking the test? Just to get more students to take the test in those state?</p>
<p>NMSC mirrors our nation’s political structure. They are allotting 16000 NMSFseats based on number of graduates in a State, same way we allot representitives per State based on population and reallocate them when the population changes in the state.</p>
<p>Because NM awards so many spots based on the population of students, regardless of how many of them take the test, it should make no difference to students in other states how low the qualifying scores are in these states. Based on public school graduation rates, it looks like about 20% of students take the test in Utah and about 77% take the test in Maryland. Naturally that makes the test more competitive in MD. Maybe NM hasn’t done their job in Utah getting the word out on the test, or maybe these students don’t have, or want to spend, the money on taking the test. There are probably a lot of rural students who don’t know what NM is. The students that do take the tests probably don’t even prep for it. But it is still a competition for the students who do take the test. The only other alternative would be to have a national cut-off. If that happened the score would probably be somewhere between 230 and 240. What’s the point there? These students for the most part don’t benefit from NM.</p>
<p>Son notified he made the cut with a 211 in NV</p>
<p>Every year there is a discussion on that year’s analogous thread of how the state based apportionment of NMSF slots is unfair as it results in divergent cut-off scores. NMSC has been doing it this way for more than five decades but still it seems to surprise people.</p>
<p>As SteveC has indicated, the reason they can do it is because they are legally enabled to run the competition as they see fit. I have never seen an official explanation as to why they do it this way, but my surmise is that the program has a large degree of private/corporate participation whose interests are in seeing local students (children of residents or employees) receive some of their money. It is easier for the NMSC to elicit this money when they run the competition on a somewhat local basis. If they did not it is likely some of the money would not be available and total scholarships would have to be decreased.</p>
<p>The reason for UT vs. MD statistics is clear: MD has much higher test participation rates than UT. In MD, 44908 testers out of approx. 58000 (eventual) graduates take the test for about 77% participation rate. In UT, 5630 testers out of approx. 27000 graduates yield a 20% participation rate. Given the median score it would appear in UT that that weaker students are being effectively filtered out from the PSAT by some means, probably not explicit, and this is unfortunate for those students who might have done well had they been tested. But it is also probably true that most of the NMSF’s in UT would still retain that designation even if the pool had been much wider.</p>
<p>Edit: looks like wemel beat me to it with a similar explanation. It is satisfying that we independently calculated the same participation rates. I would estimate, however, that if there were a true nation-wide competition the cut-off scores to establish the top 16,000 would probably be in the 210-215 range. However, as I have tried to point out, if this were a true nation-wide pool there might not be enought money to justify 16,000 NMSF’s.</p>
<p>230 or 240?</p>
<p>Try about 215 or 216. The highest cutoff score ever for any state was like 223, so I don’t see how anybody could think the national cutoff would be 230.</p>
<p>Well I think their system is short sighted. If they simply told every state “1% of your test takers are going to be NMSF”, that would encourage much higher participation rates.</p>
<p>And I’m not complaining, just making observations. I recognize that no person has a “right” to National Merit recognition.</p>
<p>*I have a question: If this is a NATIONAL Merit Scholar competition, and there is a NATIONAL cutoff for the Commended level, why is the semifinalst by STATE? *</p>
<p>Because then the finalists would largely come from about 6 states. The purpose is to recognize the top students in each state.</p>
<p>Thanks to those of you who have explained the justification for the distribution of cutoffs. I see that NMSC does it that way because they can.</p>
<p>But it still doesn’t stop the sting when I see that my daughter, who is likely not to be able to afford to go away to college without a merit scholarship, due to our finances, could have made it with her 220 in almost all of the states that have come in so far. (And I can assure you that public school in CA ranks near the bottom of all 50 states by many metrics, so it’s not that she has had a higher quality education.)</p>
<p>Oh well. Just another lesson in why life is not fair. I will stop complaining now. Thanks to all for your helpful information.</p>
<p>WA scores are in, S made SF with a plenty high score that wouldn’t help establish the cut off. I asked the GC, but she didn’t have the information in front of her and doesn’t recall having read the cutoff number.</p>
<p>Cynara, I think we’ve only established that the cutoff is below 225, not the actual cutoff score. I doubt you’re daughter is going to be left out in the cold with a 220. That would be a bummer. </p>
<p>I feel your pain, I am in the same boat hoping that my daughter’s 219 is good enough in VA.</p>
<p>Cynara - As anyone who has kids in University of Alabama will tell you, National merit is nt the only game in town. UA and several other colleges award scholarships based on ACT and SAT scores too.</p>
<p>Cynara - I trust you know that there are multiple other ways to earn merit scholarships besides NM. I would also advise you to look into 100%-need based schools which are usually very competitive but might be attainable for a student like your D.</p>
<hr>
<p>PLEASE DON’T FREAK OUT! Check the explanation of the notation in the first post. When you see, for instance, AZ <= 219, that means that Arizona’s cutoff is no higher than 219. This comes from a report like, “I live in Arizona, made a 219, and got my letter.” When you see, for instance, TX > 216, that means that Texas’ cutoff is higher than 216. This comes from a report like, “I live in Texas, made a 216, and didn’t make it.”</p>
<hr>
<p>Remaining states that need to be finalized:
AL, AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, GA, ID, IN, IA, KY, LA,
ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND,
OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY</p>
<p>Updating NV</p>
<p>AL <= 219 (post #206)
AK = ?
**AZ = 213<a href=“post%20#126/#132,%20per%20GC”>/B</a>
AR = ?
CA <= 225 (post #50)
CO = ?
CT = ?
DE = ?
DC = ?
**FL = 214<a href=“post%20#107,%20per%20GC”>/B</a>
GA <= 221 (post #182)
**HI = 216<a href=“post%20#225,%20per%20GC”>/B</a>
ID = ?
**IL = 216<a href=“post%20#110,%20per%20GC”>/B</a>
**IN = 214<a href=“post%20#147,%20#193,%20established%20by%20score%20comparison”>/B</a>
IA = ?
**KS = 214<a href=“post%20#87,%20per%20principal”>/B</a>
KY > 211 (post #111)
LA <= 216 (post #101)
ME = ?
MD = ?
MA <= 228 (post #143)
MI = ?
MN = ?
**MS = 205<a href=“post%20#192,%20NMSC”>/B</a>
MO = ?
MT <= 209 (post #90)
NE <= 215 (post #10)
NV <= 211 (post #250)
NH = ?
NJ = ?
NM = ?
NY = ?
NC <= 224 (post #85)
ND = ?
**OH = 214<a href=“post%20#28,%20established%20by%20score%20comparison”>/B</a>
**OK = 209<a href=“post%20#106,%20NMSC”>/B</a>
OR = ?
PA <= 215 (post #224)
RI = ?
SC = ?
SD = ?
TN = ?
**TX = 219<a href=“post%20#46,%20per%20principal”>/B</a>
UT = ?
VT = ?
VA = ?
WA = ?
WV = ?
WI <= 209 (post #166, #191)
WY = ?</p>
<p>10(?) Boarding school regions
No scores reported yet.
These usually are set to be equal to the highest cut-off score among the individual states in the region.</p>
<p>Internationals=?
This usually is set to be equal to the highest cut-off score among all the individual states.</p>
<p>Commended (national cutoff) = 202 (Class of 2012 Notification Letters - College Confidential)
Any person with a score equal to or higher than this cutoff who is not a NMSF receives commended status. This group represents the highest 50,000 scorers.</p>
<p>^Cynara - Also feel comfort in knowing that your child is truly gifted. To score a 220 with a low quality education is no small feat.</p>