My D3 hasn’t received that letter, but my D1 received it when she took the PSAT a couple years ago
and she did not score top 5% (top 7% I think).
My S18 also received the Stanford letter 2 weeks ago and did take the PSAT this year. He also took the PSAT last year, did well (but not top 5%), and did not receive the Stanford letter at that time. He did start getting lots of other college marketing info though.
Just realized that my S18 wasn’t old enough for the Stanford summer program last year (kids have to be 16), so that may be why he didn’t receive letter at that time.
I think my son checked the box ‘not interested in marketing materials’ or something to that effect. At least I told him to. Was there such a box and did you guys leave it blank?
I think there is a box based on what my kids have told me (though they certainly can be mixing it up with the ACT . . . ). D1 got a lot of materials and told me she left the box blank. I told D3 to do the same but now am wondering if she checked it accidentally instead LOL. I like to get the materials because it tells me what level of selectivity to shoot for (or confirms what we were thinking). Very easy just to toss it out or delete an e-mail (I think she gave them my address).
@workinghard1234 Thank you for sharing that information! Sounds like they have finished scoring and have pushed the data out to the marketing firms on schedule - but they didn’t push it out to us. This points to the fact that they’ve delayed the enotifications to students to be 1/6 because of technology issues (this is the first year they are doing the PSAT online notifications) and not because of scoring issues.
Or the scoring issues don’t affect the top 5% . . . But it does appear that technology and not scoring is the more likely culprit for the delay.
I’m going with Occam’s Razor (or is it Hanlon’s Razor, I get them confused) and assume that there are technical issues with the rollout for PSAT online notifications versus a nefarious collusion between CB and NM.
Considering how many software rollouts I’ve seen lately that have been really poorly done (WDW and Magicbands come to mind), I’m ok with waiting to see how my kids did-the number will be the number, and frankly, I’m guessing D16 will be happy to go the entire winter break without her mom going “so let’s look at what colleges match up with your PSAT/SAT scores”. 
It’s a holiday miracle, as far as she’s concerned, lol.
She also got the Stanford summer school thing-she can’t do it because school in Atlanta starts a week before the Stanford thing ends, plus it’s 11k. Ouch. I’m not going to tell her the possible correlation between top % scorers and that letter, though, I don’t want to skew anyone’s excitement in the wrong direction.
My Junior grader got the Stanford letter but my Freshman didn’t. However the Junior also had taken the SAT before. So far my freshman has not received any mail. I believe that my freshman’s score will be close to what my Junior score is on the PSAT. Therefore I’m not sure they have pushed out the PSAT score information yet.
As far as it being the first year for online notifications that’s not entirely correct. Last year I was able to log on to college board and see his score because he already had a college board account from the previous year. We did not have the key at that time I just checked when I knew they were sending them to the schools because we don’t get them at our school until January.
After going through the June SAT fiasco with my son it’s hard for me to believe that there isn’t more going on than just some technology issues…
Just for a data point, my D is a sophomore who took the PSAT and also received the mailing from Stanford.
ETA: She has not taken the SAT yet.
Another thought: a lot of schools seem to be furious that students were to get their PSAT scores before the high schools were given all their scores. That planned roll-out is now swapped, albeit by only one day. From the little I’ve heard, it seems that schools were taken aback when they found out they would not control score release. Many wanted it to happen in January, per those school’s traditions. Any chance that issue influenced the decision to delay scores?
@HodgesSchool The original plan was that the schools would get the scores electronically a day before the students, that hasn’t changed.
@3scoutmom Perhaps you are right, but I remember it the other way from the College Board’s calendar–that students could see the score one day before schools. And that is certainly the way our local school district was responding. Anyone remember for sure? (The CB site of course has changed to reflect the new dates.) Still–the bigger issue that the delay might resolve is that schools who did not want scores released until January for whatever reason will get their way.
My dd has not received any mail, but she did not give permission for marketing info. She has also only taken subject tests and not the regular SAT.
It seems that by making study materials more readily available and thorough as with the new PSAT and Khan Academy, that it will mostly benefit the over-achievers as they are the ones most likely to study and practice.
In my area, there are people studying for the SAT from 6th grade and we will probably continue to see the qualifying scores to rise because of this-I live in CA and would not be surprised if it will soon be necessary to get a perfect score to be in the top percentile. Seriously, week-end classes, tutors, summer school-all for test prep!
@workinghard1234 6th grade??? That is insane. Hopefully more schools will go test optional.
Just my own speculation, but I find it implausible that the reason for the delay is a technological problem posting PSAT scores online two months after the test date. For many years, CB has posted SAT scores 19 days after the test date. The online posting process is virtually the same. The raw scoring process is even simpler for the PSAT since there is no essay. I find it much more plausible that the problem is determining the curves for converting raw to scaled scores. If the distribution of raw scores is top- and bottom-heavy (as one might have expected based on the practice tests), this could make the curve determination even more fraught with controversy.There are a lot of potentially hot potatoes here.
Yes, and they take academic summer school from Pre-K. Most are from technology families…almost one third are National Merit Finalists at some schools. AP Calc in middle school is not uncommon…
@HodgesSchool
Here’s a cached page from September explaining that the schools get an electronic copy of the day before the students are emailed their access codes (got to love the wayback machine!) So the part really hasn’t changed.
Thanks, @3scoutsmom !