First I’d like to state this may be in the wrong forum. If it is, I’d appreciate being directed to the right section.
Our school finally received our PSAT results from October. I guess it was delayed due to a testing mishap in one of the rooms some of the juniors were assigned to; the room was next to the band and was allegedly distractingly loud. Much to my surprise (and surprise of everyone else who took a sneak peek at my score sheet), I scored a 218. I thought I’d do well, but not extraordinarily well.
My score breaks down as a 77 in critical reading, 76 in math, and 65 in language arts. I’m upset at this only for the fact I had two incorrect answers in the reading section, yet it was scaled at 77, whereas in math, I had one wrong answer, but at a 76, and math is my strongest subject, too. I had 4 wrong for the writing skills section.
In any case, my 218 brings about some questions. Now, I haven’t spoken to a counselor about this just yet, but I know I will have to. According to my score report, a 218 puts me at the 99th percentile for juniors, something along the lines of the top 15 thousand out of 1.5 million. I was researching some basic National Merit information and seeing as how I took the PSAT as a junior, I though I’d qualify for Commended status or higher. I looked up the qualifying score for my home state, Wisconsin, and I can only find last year’s score of 208.
I hope that my 218 and my percentile will be enough to elevate me into Commended status and potentially Semifinalist and Finalist status, although I’m not certain on the rest of the qualifications on that, and I’d like to know more. When I talk to a counselor my school would probably be ecstatic because I’m not sure if they’ve ever had a National Merit Finalist before. I believe I would have to write some qualifying essays but I’m not worried because I know I can get teacher assistance and my essays are of rather good quality.
Could I potentially get some more information on this National Merit scholarship from those who have taken the PSAT in the past, especially from those who were either on the border for National Merit or won the Finalist scholarship?
Edit: After exploring around on this site, I found an entirely separate “National Merit Scholarship” subforum which answers all my questions. It was probably silly of me to post this question here when all of mine are answered in the FAQs there.