<p>DD recently received notice that she is a semifinalist. Her SAT is less than 10x her PSAT, so she was concerned her SAT is too low to move to NMF. She's happy with her ACT and doesn't want to prep for and retake the SAT for no reason other than NMF qualification.</p>
<p>So I called the National Merit offices today to ask what SAT score was needed to confirm the PSAT. They were very helpful and gave me a direct and thorough answer, which I will share here:</p>
<p>The confirming SAT score is a national score; it does not vary by state. The last two years it has been 1960. It can change year to year, but it probably wouldn't change by much. This year's confirming score will be determined in three to four weeks and they will tell callers the confirming score when they know it.</p>
<p>There's more. They don't use the actual SAT score to confirm. Since the PSAT doesn't have an essay component, they pull the essay score out of the SAT Writing section to yield an adjusted SAT score. To show how this works, I'll use DD's scores as an example. DD had a 650 Writing score, with a 6 on the essay. If you look at the SAT score breakdown at College</a> Admissions - SAT - University & College Search Tool and go to the Writing score, it shows a MULTIPLE CHOICE score and an ESSAY SCORE. The MC score is a two digit number. Multiply this number by ten to get the adjusted Writing score. In DD's case the MC score was 70. 70 times 10 is 700, which is 50 greater than her actual Writing score. So, in essence, deleting her weak essay score raised her composite SAT by 50 points for NMF purposes. Where her score was already safely above the past two year's cutoffs of 1960, this adjustment means that she is unquestionably in the clear. She was very happy to know she is done with the SAT.</p>
<p>I hope this information is helpful to some of you, and I hope this news can make you as happy as it made my daughter.</p>
<p>@sherpa
Thanks very much for sharing that information. It’s great to know what the College Board is actually looking at and using for finalist status.</p>
<p>sherpa: Thank you for this infromation. The SAT confirming score has been the subject of much speculation in these forums for years. Its good to see both a definitive number and method posted. Its also good to see that the number offered in previous posts, 1950, was not far off.</p>
<p>2000 even, but my psat was high 210s :/. Have a solid ACT score now, don’t really want to take it again, but worried that my score doesn’t confirm past test</p>
<p>I don’t know if this matters, but it can take up to two weeks to send SAT scores unless you rush. So, if you haven’t sent SAT scores yet, you might want to rush them. (I decided it was easier to just pay the $29 to rush all the scores and not have to worry about - and just sent out all my child’s scores to all the appropriate schools and NM.)</p>
<p>You don’t need to rush SAT scores to NMCorp. NMCorp takes SAT scores from the Dec test, so any recent tests will get there long before Dec test results get to NMCorp.</p>
<p>Sigh. NOW I know that rush is pointless. And, it actually can take LONGER than normal. Rush scores go as a piece of paper, mailed to the school. Then, somebody has to open it, sort it and find the file to connect it to. Non-rush scores go electronically, in batches and are usually auto-sorted.</p>
<p>I’ve been calling National Merit every few days trying to learn this year’s qualifying score. Today I was told that it might not be determined until as late as November. I will keep calling every few days and will post here when I learn the cutoff.</p>
<p>What we do know, though, is that there will be one national confirming score that will apply to everybody. If the confirming score is 1960 again, then a 1960 will be good enough whether you’re from a high cutoff state or a low one, whether your PSAT was a 240 or a 204.</p>
<p>One other thing, it isn’t your actual SAT score that matters, it is the adjusted SAT score derived by pulling the essay score out of the Writing section as I described in the first post of this thread.</p>
<p>Sherpa–Thanks so much for explaining how the adjusted SAT score is computed. I read all the NM materials but didn’t remember that!</p>
<p>I read that your D’s scores were increased with the adjustment; I should also note that the adjusted SAT score could reduce the student’s composite score (as it did with my D), so a student who is borderline should make sure to compute the adjusted score.</p>
<p>The number 1960 as the qualifying score gets thrown around a lot on this forum but I hadn’t seen an authoritative confirmation yet, so I just called National Merit again to ask.</p>
<p>It’s official! For the third straight year, the confirming SAT cutoff score is 1960.</p>
<p>Bear in mind the National Merit confirming score isn’t simply the composite SAT score. It is the CR score plus the Math score plus the Writing multiple choice subscore times ten.</p>
<p>Good luck to all as they await their finalist decisions.</p>
<p>If a person takes the SAT multiple times, their scores are expected to vary within a range of plus or minus 30 to 40 point of their “true” score. I’m no expert but I suspect that the SAT cutoff is set to a value that captures the range of expected scores of all qualifiers assuming that the student’s PSAT score was their “true” score.</p>
<p>For instance, if you scored a 220 composite on the PSAT but your NM adjusted SAT score is only 2150, they are considered to be the same score since their score ranges overlap. The 1960 score therefore confirms that candidate’s true score was likely in the qualifying range.</p>