<p>Colleges get to request for a fee from College Board email lists (or postal mail lists) with names of students in specified score RANGES, not necessarily above or below the national Commended Student cut-off, for recruiting purposes. The individual scores of each student are NOT revealed to the recruiting colleges. The lists can be made up from students who took any of the various College Board tests, not just the PSAT. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/higher-ed/recruitment/sss]SSS[/url”>Recruitment & Admissions – Higher Ed | College Board]SSS[/url</a>] </p>
<p>My son took the October 2007 PSAT as a sophomore (tenth grader) and began receiving emails last night. His score put him in the range that includes National Merit Semifinalists in most states, including our own, but of course he has to repeat or better that score to be in the running next year. I’ve heard elsewhere in cyberspace that other current sophomores, including at least one who didn’t take the PSAT this year but took other College Board tests, are beginning to receive recruiting emails. NACAC has a rule for colleges that discourages recruiting students before their sophomore year, but my son, who has attended some regional information sessions over the years, was getting recruiting postal mail by the end of the summer from colleges whose sessions he has visited before. We have not yet seen any PSAT-related postal mail–we haven’t had today’s mail delivery yet. </p>
<p>Does that help? Sooner or later nearly every student gets recruited by some college. It’s still okay to apply somewhere that didn’t didn’t recruit you.</p>