<p>Is there a current listing of all the state cutoff numbers for this year.
When we got my daughter's psat results, her number did not have an asterisk so we presumed we'd be in the running. We live in Michigan. The cutoff number was 210. Perhaps this was from an earlier year?</p>
<p>The asterik just means that the student has met the qualifications for participating in the National Merit Scholarship program (in other words, is eligible - this has nothing to do with whether or not the score makes any cutoffs). The 210 is last year's MI cutoff. Rumor has it this year's cutoff is 211 in MI.</p>
<p>My understanding is that anyone who received a letter in early spring asking them to send info to NMS is at least a Commended Scholar. That qualifying score is national (I believe it's 203 this year). I am confused as to why NMS notifies semifinalists a month earlier than finalists. I assume that anyone not a semifinalist is commended --- the formal notification is a bit anticlimactic!!</p>
<p>Did your child score at least 211? We are in MI & my d just missed it. She's fine with that, since she knows it's an honor to be commended. She's not looking at any schools that offer much in the way of NMS finalist money, so it isn't a great financial loss. She figures the fact that she is commended will make her more appealing as she competes for institutional merit scholarships.</p>
<p>My daughter scored 210. We received nothing in the spring. Do we assume then that she is not even commended?</p>
<p>SF is determined by individual state cut off #. Commended is based on national # of 203. Anyone scoring that or above, regardless of state, is commended.</p>
<p>There's an unofficial collation of state by state SF minimums at <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=74297%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=74297</a> Page down until you see the big list.</p>
<p>mamac: Michigan was 211 (same as last year), so your D will be Commended -- the Commended mailings went to school principals last Monday.</p>
<p>Is your daughter a current senior? If she had a 210 she should have definately gotten something in the spring of 2006.</p>
<p>you said that your daughter did not have an asterisk by her score -- and I thought you had to have that asterisk to mean that you were eligible to compete in the national merit scholarship program.</p>
<p>Was your daughter a junior last year? Did her score indicate that she was eligible? If not -- that might be the reason you haven't heard anything.</p>
<p>If your daughter got a 210, she would definitely have scored high enough for commended. If she was a sophomore, not a junior, last year, she was not eligible. She has to take the PSAT again this year, as only the junior year score counts for NMS. If she WAS a junior last year, there must have been some criterion she did not meet. Maybe she marked something wrong. Check this link to see if she might not have been qualified: <a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_answer_sheet.png%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_answer_sheet.png</a> If she SHOULD have been eligible, maybe she bubbled something incorrectly. With a 210 & all the criteria met, she should have been given a letter late last winter/early last spring from NMS asking for names of 2 colleges. If she did not get that, she obviously could not have filled it out --- and that HAD to be completed & returned in order to progress to commended status.</p>
<p>If she missed out & shouldn't have, I suggest contacting NMS and explaining your concerns. Good luck.</p>
<p>I'm confused! kelsmom - what had to be completed? Are you saying that if a letter was not returned last spring then the student will not be Commended now?</p>
<p>Good news. I dug out the letter from NMS, which was dated April 2006. It states that a response to the letter has no bearing on a student's standing in the National Merit Program. Sorry, I thought the response was one more required step in the process.</p>
<p>That letter was the only early notification of a student being one of the top 50,000 scorers (which means he/she will at least be a commended student). It is possible that your child's letter was lost in the mail or misplaced. However, by now, the school would have received all names of both semifinalists AND commended scholars. At this point, I would definitely suggest calling NMS. The number on the letter is (847) 866-5100. From other postings on these boards, it seems like they are very helpful.</p>
<p>Oops, forgot to add --- my daughter still has not actually been notified that she is a commended scholar. The school's scholastic awards are this week, so they are probably going to announce it then. I am telling you this because it occurred to me you should call the school guidance office first. If they don't know anything, THEN call NMS.</p>
<p>Thanks Kelsmom!</p>
<p>i haven't been notified of being commended yet either and i was a top 50,000 scorer. i even asked my counselor about it a couple of days ago. time to call NMS...</p>
<p>220 here in VA</p>