NMSF parents and kids: Post any news (good, bad or torturously indeterminate) here, if you care or dare to share.
I would like to say congratulations to everyone thus far. No matter what the results of the next few weeks are, every student here should be proud! It’s quite the accomplishment to make it this far, and every student has a wonderful future ahead regardless of Finalist standing.
I’m ready for the rejection letter with my 3 C+ semester grades. I do regret not trying earlier in high school and am now paying the price for it. The schools I’ve applied to are full tuition for finalists so its pretty unfortunate that I made it this far but due to my grades I probably won’t get finalist. We’ll see…
Good luck, @curiouscat319 . I really hope you get good news.
Very nervous here. D17 was told by her principal that she’s most likely a Finalist and even a Scholar but some of that is probably wish-casting. In reality we don’t know anything about the culling this year. With the new scales they may really need to cut back at the finalist level. Does anyone know what the number of SF’s turned out to be?
No news = good news so far! Fingers crossed. @JBStillFlying…where did you hear a cut back at finalist level? News to me…
@curiouscat319 - Good luck!
@Blackbeatcat there are supposed to be about 16,000 semifinalists, 15,000 of whom will make finalist. That means about 1,000 kids don’t make the cut, for whatever reason (too many C’s, didn’t turn in the application, didn’t submit a qualifying SAT score, etc.). However, the wildcard issue this year is that with the compression at the high end of the PSAT score scale (a fallout from the new test design), we don’t actually know exactly how many NMSF’s there are out there. If the number is a bit too “high” then NMSC can be extra stringent on the cut to Finalist. They need to end up with around 15,000.
Wouldn’t they have established the cutoffs to ensure the same number of semifinalists as always? The press releases all referred to approximately 16,000 semifinalists.
@MatzoBall that’s certainly the goal. The question is how close to 16,000 did they get this year? The distribution of scores at the highest end was really weird with several peaks at even SI’s and valleys at the odds. Very different from the old test.
Say a state’s allocation is 500 SF’s. In past years, they would end up with 520, or 490, or something reasonably close (the rule is that you chose the SI that gives you a number that is closest to the allocated number). This year, in contrast, an SI of 218 gives them 550, while a 219 give them 410. Obviously they would select the 550 (because 50 over is closer than 90 under). But that’s a lot of additional SF’s. This is a potential consequence of the score compression (range of cutoffs was 209-222) and ratchety distribution at the even SI’s. The old test had a much smoother curve with the numbers at the higher end stretched out from about 201 - 225. You don’t need every state to go over their allocation by 10%; however, enough might turn the “approximately” 16,000 SF number into something closer to 17,000! (NY, CA, and TX alone account for a sizable number of SF’s).
Of course, it could go the other way too - for instance, MN (where D17 resides) only had 279 this year under the new test vs. 303 last year (the final year of the old test). The allocated number is right around 300. While the error is larger this year than last year, it’s in the opposite direction.
Could well be that the overall error is larger but not systematic. We won’t know any of that till next spring, when the numbers are actually published.
Thank you @MatzoBall
@Backbeatcat Thank you
Thank you, @JBFlying . That was a wonderfully clear explanation. Let’s hope it’s not a ruthless year. Depending on state, it could even be a generous year.
Not to keep throwing curveballs, but unlike SF, Finalist status doesn’t depend on state and I’m pretty sure they don’t reject by state. It’s a national competition at this point, even if you are from MN and your state number erred on the low side of the allocation goal for SF. To give an extreme example, if they need to send 300 rejections, and 279 of the most problematic applications happened to be from MN, they get the axe and no one from that state would be a finalist. Someone is welcome to correct me but that’s how I read the rules.
So… Any news about rejections and explanations for same? Texas Dad here. Watching this thread for a couple days. Quiet… Real quiet. Good luck all. Son is SF. I’m afraid of the mail. 
Well, mail came today. Nothing from NM. Another day down.
No news today in this Texas mailbox.
I think everyone needs to chill for a bit…from the NMSP website:
Is there a list of Finalists in the National Merit® Scholarship Program?
Each high school is notified in early February of their Semifinalists who have advanced to Finalist standing. Decisions regarding public announcements about Finalists are left to the discretion of the high school.
But rejection letters go out weeks earlier; i.e., now.
@MatzoBall - Sorry–I didn’t know that (nor had I read the rest of the thread. Oops.)