<p>Is it significant to be a national merit scholar if you want to go to, like, harvard? Or does everyone sort of have that award at that level</p>
<p>I'm also curious; does it significantly hurt you if you DON'T have national merit semi/finalist?</p>
<p>I don't think it's unique enough to make much of a difference either way. It <em>might</em> raise some eyebrows if you're not even commended...but personal experience actually speaks to the contrary; the only guy who got into Stanford from my school was the ONE applilcant who WASN'T recognized by the National Merit Corp. in any way. ;)</p>
<p>I do not believe National Merit makes much different either way to the most selective colleges. Their applicant pool is usually too strong for National Merit to be a distinguished factor. Not so, however, for the lower tier colleges. Many will use big merit scholarships and their honors college programs to recruit National Merit Finalists.</p>
<p>Well, I was commended for the PSAT, only scoring a 210 my junior year in NY. The cutoff is supposedly 216 for semi-finalist.</p>
<p>I was wondering </p>
<ol>
<li><p>should I bother including this in my app? I did very poorly by my standards; I scored 218 in sophomore year. I suppose commended is better than nothing though</p></li>
<li><p>Will this be a big disadvantage for me applying to ivy league level schools? I got a 2300 on my SATs and 35 on ACTs, so I guess my test scores are overall pretty good still. I'm wondering if EVERYONE applying to those schools tend to be semi's, so I'm not sure if it's a big deal or not.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for reading</p>
<p>^Hiyo_bye, a 2300 is amazing. That, coupled with a 35 will completely overshadow your PSAT. There's a reason those scores are on 1/10 the scale of the real thing; they count nowhere near as much.</p>
<p>Just curious, anyone know what the NM Finalist cutoff was in '07 for CA? I'm not totally familiar with how the levels work...</p>
<p>It meant $1k/year for 4 years. Not bad for a morning's worth of work. However, not even a 240 was worth a full scholarship at this school.</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant what the score cutoff was, not the monetary value of the scholarship. Like what score did you have to achieve to be named a finalist in CA?</p>
<p>2008-2009 (2007 PSAT) CA semifinalist cutoff = 217. See <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/554901-psat-cutoff-scores-2008-national-merit-semifinalists-h-s-09-a.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/554901-psat-cutoff-scores-2008-national-merit-semifinalists-h-s-09-a.html</a> for most up-to-date information.</p>
<p>cool, thanks :)</p>
<p>short answer: not really. again, national merit can help you, but it's definitely not the deciding factor. if you don't have it, I don't think it'll hurt you, either.</p>
<p>Re. the Harvard question,</p>
<p>Harvard had the most NMFs in the U.S., with I think something like a total of 280 studnets who were named as NMFs attending.</p>
<p>U. Texas at Austin had the second highest # of NMFs in the U.S., with 2 less than Harvard at like 278 NMFs attending. </p>
<p>There are 15,000 NMFs in the U.S.</p>
<p>I guess that puts it in perspective.</p>
<p>Depends what perspective you're putting it in.</p>
<p>Harvard: 280 NMF & approx 1660 freshmen
UT-Austin: 278 NMF & approx 7400 freshmen (2006 figure from website - probably higher now since total undergrad enrollment is over 37,000)</p>
<p>As far as I know the merit might get you in but won't get you any money. Harvard (and the other Ivy League schools) don't give out any merit awards.
University of Florida used to give $5.5k per year to NMF. That was reduced to $1k last year. They used to be one of the top schools recruiting NMF (right below Harvard) but that may have changed with the smaller awards. Their rationale (besides saving a ton of money) was that the NMF as a group didn't do any better academically than the next group that wasn't NMF (and didn't get the award).</p>