<p>Need to verify something...</p>
<p>Kid is a resident of state A, but attends private (non-boarding) school in state B -- Is National Merit cut off based upon residency or school?</p>
<p>I understand it as residency and only a boarding school would override the residency.</p>
<p>Call NMCORP for the accurate answer…</p>
<p>Nat’l Merit Corp 847-866-5100</p>
<p>Article in Washington Post last Feb said not all the DC winners live in DC, some live in MD and VA and attend school in DC, so I would infer that it is where you attend school.</p>
<p>“Last year, nine students in D.C. schools were named National Merit finalists. Only four were D.C. residents, and only one of the nine attended a public school, Wilson High School. The rest attended private schools.”</p>
<p>[The</a> Answer Sheet - D.C.'s National Merit winners aren’t all from D.C.](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/poor-washington-dc-not-only.html]The”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/poor-washington-dc-not-only.html)</p>
<p>Thanks – I’ll call next week – They are closed this afternoon</p>
<p>I would guess that Mamabear is right since the results are sent to the schools, not the individual test-takers. Considering that, I’m tempted to open a private HS on the WV side of the WV-MD border and attract smart Maryland kids to take the PSAT where the cutoff score is 20 points lower! :)</p>
<p>gadad – I think you are onto something! I’m fretting over only an approx 7 point difference, but 20 points is quite a difference!</p>
<p>Has to be a day school, though, gadad.</p>
<p>I believe that National Merit is based on residency. We live in Virginia, and the scores are high. Fortunately, my oldest son made the cutoff without a problem. But … West Virginia is only about 90 minutes away, and I do have another son …</p>
<p>We know people who lived in KS, their kid attended a private day school in neighboring MO just across the state line, the kid was a National Merit semi-finalist in KS.</p>
<p>
Nine, in all of DC? Is that a misprint, because that is a shockingly low number for a city of that size. Unless they said something else that I didn’t pick up on.</p>
<p>This has been discussed before. IIRC, it is the location of the school, not your state residence, that determines the cutoff score you will be compared to. So, if you live in NJ but attend school in NY, you will be compared to NYers.</p>
<p>That is contrary to what happened per #9 above, as we understood it.</p>
<p>From the article about DC winners:
[The</a> Answer Sheet - D.C.'s National Merit winners aren’t all from D.C.](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/poor-washington-dc-not-only.html]The”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/poor-washington-dc-not-only.html)</p>
<p>From the 2009 PSAT student guide: “A participant can be considered for Semifinalist standing in only one state or selection unit, based on the high school in which the student is regularly enrolled when taking the PSAT/NMSQT.”</p>
<p>The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has established several other selection units which are: DC, “US commonwealths & territories, schools in other countries that enroll US citizens, and US boarding schools that enroll a sizeable proportion of their students from outside the state in which the school is located.” I think these are all separate selection units.</p>
<p>So, if you set up a <em>boarding</em> school in West Virginia, the students would have to compete against US boarding school students, and that’s one of the highest cutoffs, if not the very highest, each year. On the other hand, it looks as though a day school . . .</p>
<p>Gadad’s school has to be a day school In West Virginia. You are right, QuantMech, the boarding school kids’ score cut-off is the same as the highest state score.</p>
<p>It sounds as though DC is the exception for day schools and that other day school students compete in the state where their day school is located.</p>