@Kayak24 – Last year was such a frenzy bc of the new scale!! When I started the thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1849640-national-merit-cutoff-predictions-class-of-2017-p1.html I never imagined it would have so many twists & turns and was an interesting journey though my son missed NMSF by 1 point in NY. Info might trickle out a bit later this year but perhaps by early next week. What does Art say - he was great last year & we had a lot of sleuths (some home schoolers too helped a lot). Good luck to you all. My DS18 is not in hunt.
@CA1543 , I am so sorry your son missed by one point! My D and I were just talking about this and she said she thinks she’d much rather miss by many points than one. That’s crushing!
Great point about the frenzy of last year with the new test. One could argue that we may have less online information seekers this year and thus less tipping off of scores.
Art has been great and says we should know by the end of this week (hopefully).
Shout out to you in NY. Fordham is one of my D18’s top choices. Best of luck to your D18 in her journey. 
@Kayak24 – I am going to suggest DS 18 look at Fordham - but rather close to home. DS17 did ok in the college process & thankfully did not fret about his PSAT score or even know that if he lived in some states, he would have made the cut-off. It just felt weird bc the change in scale seemed to suggest that many states would have lower cut offs but there was so much compression at a certain level that states with higher cut offs did not go down much if at all contrary to predictions of some thought to have a methodology for predicting. Lots of drama. DS18 will be many points away so not even thinking about it!! Hang in there.
Not out of the ordinary.
From NMSC:
@amyandscott, do you mean that your school hasn’t yet told the students who are at least Commended for the current competition? Ours doesn’t either. The students hear nothing until fall of senior year. I guess some schools do pass on the info that they receive in the spring before senior year, but not ours. I invented a reason to call NMSC just to confirm that they have a file for my S, although I think his GC would have also told me if I asked her.
@CA1543 , My apologies - for some reason I thought I read D18 on your post. Best wishes for your SON. :)>-
For those interested in the distinction between Finalist and Scholar . . .don’t be. First of all, you should know that SF is the big achievement as only 1% of the test takers reach that point (16,000 out of approx. 1.6 mil). From there your chances of being offered mega moola increase substantially. Second, whether you are given one of the NMSC scholarships (a one timer of $2500, an up-to-$2000/yr. college-sponsored scholarship, or a corporate scholarship - not sure of amount) has a lot more to do with where you choose to go to college than anything else. For instance, if you get into, and attend, MIT you have taken yourself out of the college-sponsored category since MIT doesn’t hand those out.
For those pursuing the big money, the real issue is making Finalist. In that case the NMSC scholarships themselves are icing on the cake. If you are pursuing a selective or elite that doesn’t hand out merit aid to NMF’s, then getting NMF may help with admission chances and getting the designation of “scholar” (a one-time or corporate) from NMSC is a little way to reduce the financial burden.
@DavidPuddy When my S class of 2013 was recognized as commended he received a letter to our home which I thought was highly efficient. When my son class of 2017 made commended he was alerted by the school. Commended this year was announced in June when my third son made commended (and possible NMSF) we expected to hear SOMETHING…crickets. Nothing.
@JBStillFlying I would hope NMF would help my baby boy get into Ga Tech.
@amyandscott I think you may be confused about how commended works, yes we know the minimum for commended but we won’t know the maximum for commended until we know the state cut off for NMSF. You can’t be both commended and NMSF and the since the commended score is the lowest NMSF in any state, those states have no commended kids only NMSF that’s why NMSF is announced before commended.
Maybe I’m just weird, but I’m internally hoping that the NMSF mail is like Hogwarts mail. Some people may think “Ha! There’s no post on Sundays!” but I’ll just be waiting for the notice to come from under the door or through the chimney! Fingers crossed 8-}
@sewin2music not unless NMSC is using Amazon Prime to deliver the notices this year.
=D> ;)) Thanks for the humor tonight!
@3scoutsmom Yes I understand the difference. In the old days (4 years ago…maybe 5) Commended was announced first as a minimum score then NMSF was announced as higher score thereby confirming the range of commended scores. Everyone in years past found out what the commended score cut off was in April I believe then NMSF in Sept. I guess the June commended cut off date moves the notification of students to senior year… Commended was already announced as 211 this year (in June) so many students who scored 211-some number higher already may know they are most likely commended. But now we are waiting for the top of that range…say 217 in AL…whatever it will be. So no you can’t be both but we are waiting for state cutoffs so we know what the top range of commended will be…SOMEONE correct me if I am wrong. Example, my son made a 217 and commended has been announced as 211 so we know my son is at least commended. HOWEVER, if state cut offs for AL falls at 216, my son will be NMSF, not commended. But right now we know he is AT LEAST commended. That will change depending on the cut off for NMSF for AL. Doesn’t it still work this way since commended cut off has already been announced?
@traveler98 No they have not been told anything.I thought they would at least tell them that. My two others sons were notified by the school in April of their junior year. I guess with the commended cutoff being moved to June (instead of April) everything is delayed.
Actually, unless this year was different from last, no announcement of the commended was actually made. What happened is that NMSC notified the schools in the spring that certain kids were moving on in the competition and requested verification of their information. Assuming all of them qualify for the NM competition, these kids are all commended or higher, of course, but no specific designation is made to the student before senior year. The reason that everyone knows the commended cutoff is because people called NMSC and asked.
@amyandscott - it’s possible that the school notified your two other sons just because NMSC sent the notice to them about kids moving on. Some schools do that. It’s possible that NMSC has changed the protocol the last few years but the earlier notice to the older kids can also be explained by a change in school administration.
A quick google search should yield some local news articles or blurbs on high school websites dated a few months ago, in which the listed students are congratulated for moving on in the NM competition. Every such news item I’ve seen just indicates the students have reached the next level in the competition; none I’ve seen so far have announced any Commended status. I don’t think the spring communication from NMSC is particularly meant for students (it’s just verification of information) although it’s obviously left up to the discretion of individual schools. Personally I do wish NMSC encouraged schools to share with the students in the spring that they’ve advanced, because it is so silly for a school to not share. Just as it’s silly that some schools won’t notify NMSF until on or after the press release date in September; surely NMSC could explicitly instruct schools to notify NMSF as soon as possible after receipt of the letter but to wait on the wide announcement until after the official press release date.
@traveler98 wait I’m slightly confused. Are you saying that schools have already been informed of NMSF’s for several months now?
@CTMorris1999, no, schools were notified in the spring that they had students who were moving on in the competition. Nobody has been notified of NMSF or Commended yet.
ETA: well, some of those letters mailed on Tuesday have probably reached their destinations by now, so I’m sure that at the very least some homeschoolers probably know they are NMSF by now.