So @Kayak24 - would you say that, based on your conversation with NM Corp, a 210 is safe? @amyandscott might need a manicure at this point 
Donât they release the SAT confirming score in September in conjunction with NMSF notifications? So @amyandscott and anyone else on the confirming score bubble would be able to then determine if it makes sense to register for a fall/early winter SAT (in the event they are confirmed NMSF but donât have a high confirming score)? That was how I understood the process. Noted there is an SAT opportunity in October, November and December.
@LOUKYDAD they did not do that last year, although that mightâve had more to do with needing extra time to figure out the confirming score than a change in process.
For sure I do. @JBStillFlying
Iâm joining the party train.
DS1 (Class of 2015) was a NMS, though he was a âbubble kidâ and a â1 C on the transcript kidâ and a âmail delivery sux in my neighborhood so if NMSC sends me mail, will I get it? kid.â We went down to the absolute wire on all fronts. DS2 (Class of 2018) is not on the bubble, all As so far, but our mail delivery has only gotten worse. Iâm definitely not getting my hopes up, but at least I donât have as many âissuesâ this time around.
Good luck to everyone! (And yes, Iâm guilty of calling NMSC more than once⊠They may remember me.)
@JBStillFlying, From my conversation with the rep, I would assume 210 is safe. She implied it would be 2-3 points below Commended. I had mentioned that I guess weâll find out with the state cutoff announcements and she said that they donât inform of the qualifying score then either. (Huh?) It was quite confusing, but thatâs when she said it would be several points below the Commended score. She was careful not to divulge too much though.
@prodesse, She did not give a date for the NMSF cutoff scores.
It scores will be crowd sourced later this month, hopefully, if our good friend Art from last year repeats his awesome performance. All cut-offs were known by the end of Aug. which has to be a record!
FYI - NM Corp will NOT release cut scores. They WILL let you know if you (or your kid) made NMSF but only once the press release goes out in mid-Sept. Any list of cut-offs you see here or elsewhere is derived from home schooling and other families reporting that their kid made NMSF and what their SI was (then the lowest for the state is determined). Very exciting process.
@JBStillFlying
Curiosity only. Historically, have the âearly returnsâ only come from home school parents acting as GCs? OR do some School GCs inform early, and parents share?
Not JBStillFlying, but from what I recall and have seen, the very earliest typically come from the home school parents or kids. But, schools will start to inform the students also, and when that happens they add that data to help us figure out cutoffs.
Whatâs really helpful are the families whose kids are on the cusp but find out they did NOT make NMSF. Those families kindly report the SI so that the cut-score can either be confirmed or the range narrowed. Canât speak to all sources but homeschool families are typically the earliest to report. Our good friend Art had several excellent sources last year (typically the national prep companies have contacts in most states, including - I imagine - guidance counselors). One very lucky year someone with what was verified to be accurate sourcing posted all the (correct) cut-scores on CC in a single post. Where he/she got it - who knows? However, that was still early Sept. Last yearâs efforts resulted in the same level of accuracy by Aug. 31st (albeit with a LOT more effort than merely posting the results of an NMSC list or similar).
The letters/packages to the schools (or homeschools) go out super-slow bulk rate, FYI. NMSC will let you all know when they are to be mailed out, if that info. hasnât already been posted.
Good luck everyone!
@JBStillFlying there is booklet with all the names of the semifinalist that is mailed to GCs . The person you mentioned had access to the booklet. I can 100% confirm this because I pmed the poster and they were able to find my daughter by first name and high school and tell me her very unique last name.
I pray that this person or someone else that has access to the booklet will share the info with us here. BTW many GCs claim this booklet is myth and the are many old posts debating this.
If such a booklet exists (and why wouldnât NMSC make that available to the high schools to help explain the current year contest?) itâs very easy to imagine that a school or two inadvertently passes it along to a student. They arenât exactly reading CC and trying to help crowd source the cut scores LOL.
Iâve seen the publicly available Texas press release that lists all the NMSFs by name and high school, so why is it a leap to think that GCs would get a booklet of all such press releases along with other info about the contest? Certainly those documents are prepared well in advance of their mid-September release. Iâd be much more surprised if GCs did NOT get such info as state SI cutoffs, but Iâd expect that they are told not to share it.
I know the booklets exist. When my older D went through this, there was a poster who had it - at least for our state. He gave me the names of all of the kids at my Dâs HS who made it, before that info was public.
@GoAskDad donât you have some kind of âinâ with the National Merit folks? Maybe theyâve hired âJimmy the internâ on full time by now;-) I really enjoyed your posts on the 2015 and 2016 NM thread. Glad youâre back and not on the bubble this year! Woot!
The book exists! I saw it today (from a few feet away, but still). It was the 2016 version. We were visiting a college and the admissions rep showed it to us in the context of NMF merit aid. Maybe itâs only sent to sponsoring colleges and not HS Guidance Counselors. That would be my guess.
I would expect the colleges would get the list in machine-readable form, to make it more convenient to send out admissions materials.
@kayak24, I just learned recently that colleges get a paper book of NMFs. I canât say whether they also get electronic information, but it was either OU or OSU NMF office who outlined their process with my good friend who was visiting with her son. One of the big Oklahoma colleges anyway. She was told they need to cross check NMF status with this book every year. She didnât ask whether that was because of NMSC or college policy, or whether colleges have a choice in how they receive NMF data.
If cutoffs began leaking around Aug 27th last year, I wonder if we may know something this coming weekend. On one hand it feels like weâve been waiting forever; on the other it feels like yesterday it was six months away and I didnât want to rush it bc that meant rushing to senior year.
@Kayak24 it feels like we have been waiting forever on both hands to me! What a crazy slow process. Now we are waiting for snail mail to be mailed to the high schools?