I don’t recall getting the TASP letter/email for my NMF son last year, but I didn’t even know what it was until this year, so I might have missed it in the gob and gobs of mail we did receive. I will say that parts of this discussion ring familiar, and there were several mailings in particular that held much speculation last year, without rhyme or reason in the long run. Hang in there!
@garyasho2 I also initially thought that CB does not release student scores until I saw on the CB website that Telluride Association is put in the same category as National Merit Scholarship Corporation, not in the category of colleges and scholarship programs. I posted the link above but here it is again:
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt-psat-10/scores/who-receives-scores
"The College Board sends PSAT/NMSQT scores to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), the test’s cosponsor. Learn about the National Merit® Scholarship Program, an academic competition for recognition and scholarships.
Other Programs
PSAT/NMSQT scores are automatically sent to these scholarship and recognition programs:
National Hispanic Recognition Program
National Scholarship Service
Telluride Seminar Scholarships"
As far was score release schedule…the key word in is “about”.
Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but D got some of the e-mails you all are talking about (eg. Columbia summer program, Penn Engineering, Colby, Dartmouth, etc.) and I can absolutely guarantee you she will have a very mediocre PSAT score, since she did last year as a soph and did not study since then. Further, she always does very poorly on standardized math tests, so the Penn invitation really cracked me up. A prospective engineering student she is not! Therefore, I don’t think the e-mails mean anything at all. Or if they do, then they are coming from the SAT II US History she took, since that score was very good.
This old thread has some conflicting viewpoints, but it seems to say roughly the same stuff.
“December
Scores released online.”
There is no “about” in this post.
January 7 is not December.
There is no ambiguity. This is a failure by CB to maintain its own published schedule.
Just imagine a student saying, “Oh, I had a problem. I couldn’t register for my SAT by the deadline. Let me register late without paying a late fee. What difference does a couple of weeks make? Be patient.”
@TheGFG I think that the TASP is much more legitimate than the the colleges since it is an organization specifically specified on the list of which organizations receive scores from the CB, whereas colleges may not receive the scores and therefore, emails or mail from those colleges may have no meaning. In addition, former alumini from the organization have said on websites that PSAT scores from the 99th percentile receive emails from TASP. I’m not saying that I’m right, but if TASP is on a list that the CB developed themselves, then I would trust that list.
I cannot believe I accidentally used the words “Conflicting viewpoints.” ACT problems. XD
CB definitely gave a mid-Dec. timeline a few months ago because they wanted students to use the Holiday Break to view their score reports. If anyone doubts that then go back and read the earlier posts on this thread - people were checking on the dates back in October.
Practically all schools are back in session beginning Jan. 4th so there goes that opportunity.
Also, when CB got back to me with the January date they did kindly open with “We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.” That certainly doesn’t sound like things were going hunky dory over there.
I looked back at a college spam folder with copies of emails my NMS older daughter received after taking the PSAT and then SAT in Dec, the emails being from Jan 14-April 1 following this testing. Unfortunately I don’t have anything earlier. She received unsolicited emails for summer programs from Penn SAAST, and Duke TIP, both in Feb, and multiple emails from Brown, as well as almost 200 college admissions emails. Most of these emails say prominently in the beginning or at the bottom that she was being contacted because she had given permission to the college board to share her info. There is nothing in this time period from TASP, and I don’t recall anything earlier but I didn’t see all her mails before we set up forwarding. Don’t know if that helps anyone.
@labegg For someone willing to go to the University of Alabama or Oklahoma honors college being a NMF can be worth more than $200,000, since it includes five full years of school tuition for both undergraduate and graduate, summers included. Plenty of extras, first year housing, ipad, trip to Europe, stipend, other money available. Since most NMF will be arriving with quite a few hours through AP or dual enrollment, it’s quite possible to get a free grad, law, or medical degree.
Yes, I would not be at all surprised, though, if those opportunities which are contingent upon vigorous and enduring test prep become less available to students who are not asian. It’s not a judgement, just a fact.
Did anyone get a letter from ESAP? I got one today in the mail
@YoohooAddict ESAP as in Endocrine Self Assessment? Nope.
@TheGreatTroll No, ESAP as in Engineering Summer Academy at Penn
Obviously value of scholarships available to those with the NMSF/NMF designation can be tremendous. A the college could just as easily give their money to those that score a 35 on the ACT, correct? For instance U of Alabama also offers Academic Elite Scholarships and Presidential Scholars which you do not have to be a NMF to receive and offers a similar monetary value as the NMF scholarship packages. (Looks like U of Alabama has some awesome scholarship opportunities,for those willing to attend, that are not NMF!)
Did I read this correctly on the NM website: That it there are 15,000 finalist and “What proportion of Finalists win a scholarship? Approximately half of all Finalists win a scholarship”.
I wish each and everyone of you waiting on your PSAT scores to determine your standing with NM the best of luck. I am sure it is nerve-wracking waiting to hear. It is clearly a high stakes uber competitive situation. Certainly everyone, regardless of NM, would like their score sooner rather than later. But waiting for scores seems to be the name of the game this year, whether it has been PSAT/SAT or ACT scores. I guess everyone just needs to keep trudging forward and plan for the worst.
I understand that there are about 53 colleges/universities that offer full ride tuition to NMF. UT - Tyler being one, although I am not exactly sure why someone who is a NMF would choose UT-Tyler when they would most likely be more than qualified to attend UT-Austin with a healthy merit package to boot.
I am really curious to see test results now, because my standardized test scores (ACT, SAT, EXPLORE, PLAN) have always been 99th percentile for my state and for the country and I didn’t get the TASP invitation. Maybe it is not by state, but by region or district. I live in a state which is usually pretty low-scoring, but I live in a highly competitive zip code, district, and county. I wonder what area TASP is basing their score selections off of. Or maybe the new PSAT is so different that it will favor a completely different section of students than the usual high-scoring kids from the old SAT.
It could be that the entire 99th percentile has too many people for Telluride invitations, especially this year.
Someone on this thread reported that 4.5 million students took the PSAT this year. This would mean 99th percentile=45K people. We can assume the vast majority of 99th percentile scorers are juniors. TA is looking to receive around 1k applications to fill around 70 spots. I think 45k invitations would be too many. If TA is sending invitations to people in the 99.5th or 99.7th percentile, this might still be reported in the popular press/blogosphere as the “99th percentile.” Telluride’s own website says only that invitations are sent to the “high” PSAT scorers in each area. I would not put it past those TA people to set up a committee to decide “manually” who should get the invitations.
In the other thread on CC about TASP cutoffs (see the link is above), the students who received TASP invitations reported scores of 237 and 240. These scores are way over the NMS cutoffs. One person reported 211. My best guess is that the last person was or appeared to TA to be a URG.
Of course, all of my comments are complete speculation. I would indeed be tail-chasing except that a lot of $$$ and college admissions verdicts depend upon NMS, NMS depends upon PSAT, and CB failed to meet its own scheduled deadline for PSAT score release. If CB had met the deadline, no one would speculate about TASP invitation cutoffs.
It would be interesting and potentially useful for the future if the people who received/did not receive TASP invitations are willing to report their scores and/or NMS statuses later down the line.
@workinghard1234 wrote
Whoa! Are non-asians getting barred from test prep?
I’m Asian and there’s this one test prep center that I go to and non-Asians aren’t not allowed to go there but when they do go, they’re sort of ostracized