<p>Just curious... how many of you here recieved National Merit status (semi or commended)? The boy across the street from me, who began his freshman year at Princeton this fall, was a semi-finalist.</p>
<p>Semi-finalist...hopefully scholar in the future</p>
<p>I was a semi-finalist, too. I wonder if it actually means anything, though, since I'm sure a lot people who apply have some sort of status.</p>
<p>I was commended. ). I wasn't at my best that day (sick)</p>
<p>But luckily my non-sick scores are better (by about the equivalent of 260 points)</p>
<p>I don't think semifinalist or commended will help much @ Princeton, but it sure helps at a lot of other schools (especially semifinalist).</p>
<p>Yea I think most applicants are semifinalists or commended.
I'm a semifinalist; I also put Princeton down for the notification thing...did any of you get that? The letter that says you can put two schools down for the National Merit people to contact and tell that you did well? That was like last year.</p>
<p>I didn't even get commended. I had a pathetic 200 or something like that out of 240. I didn't try very hard on the PSATs... if I had known this could have helped me later... atrgghgh!</p>
<p>don't worry. it won't help you that much. and colleges won't even see your score.</p>
<p>I missed finalist by one point! One point.... (Yes, I'm still bitter. :-p )</p>
<p>you mean semifinalist?
aww
it depends on the state though</p>
<p>Yes, semifinalist. But since my transcript is flawless and my real SAT scores are high, I would have made it to finalist. Most are guaranteed to move on to finalist from semifinalist. Yeah, if I had lived in nearly any other state, I would have made the cutoff. My index score fell into the 99% range too. :(</p>
<p>Commended and National Achievement Semifinalist. We had our school reception the other day. It was neat.</p>
<p>my state sucks</p>
<p>220 is the cut off</p>
<p>Mine is usually about 209, but I would have made it anyway with 220. My scores were really screwed up, though, and I ended up using my first SAT sitting scores + my SAT writing score instead of my PSAT scores. That gave me an extra 10 or so points.</p>
<p>One guy in my class was 2 pts under cutoff in sophomore year (practice) and then did worse in junior year when it mattered...he wasn't too happy...</p>
<p>What do you mean you ended up using your sat and writing scores? for what?</p>
<p>yeah, i was wondering about that too</p>
<p><em>takes a deep breath - loooong story!!</em></p>
<p>Well, like many posters here I'm sure, I attend one of the better school districts in my state. However, the day my district offered the PSAT myself and many others were unable to attend because we all had some sort of regional competition for athletics (mine was a cross-country meet). The alternative test date was held in a neighboring district; one which due to its lack of funding is generally not as organized and concientious. </p>
<p>This district did not send the 100 or so of our athletes' scores in on time because our tests got buried on someone's desk, and thus those scores were ineligible. The alternate way to qualify is by sending in a set of SAT I scores and the SAT II Writing score (although now it's probably been switched to just SAT I, with the format change) so that's what we did. The funny thing was, the student-athletes at our school tend to be the best students, so almost all of our semi-finalists came from that pool who had to send in their SAT scores. I think the mistake definitely gave us an advantage, as well - we all generally did better on our SATs.</p>
<p>ohh I didn't know you could do that. </p>
<p>I do cross country too! =)</p>
<p>oh wow gracilsae thats really interesting. i didnt know that lol. thats pretty cool</p>
<p>well you can only do that if you didn't take the PSATs or there was a problem with your scores - it's not a very common thing to do.</p>
<p>really? that's so awesome! our school has a team of 105 girls, it's out of control. how does cross-country work in nyc? do you guys just run through the streets, etc?</p>