<p>Why don't they make it the same for every state?</p>
<p>The reason for this is probably that they want to make it fair for everyone. If the cutoff was based on the national average, a huge number of the qualifiers would be from NY, CA, NJ, and MA. Places like Arkansas, Mississippi, or Wyoming would have very few qualifiers, due to differences in education standards and socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>From the beginning of the National Merit Scholarship program, the cutoff scores for each state have been set to select the top students in that state. How students in other states perform doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Should not be called “national” then, IMO…</p>
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<p>So what? It should be up to the individual. Scoring high on the PSAT depends on the individual himself/herself. Anybody from anywhere in the USA can score high on the PSAT. It just takes hard work and a good use of resources. </p>
<p>Next thing you know they’re going to start making separate cutoffs for different ethnicities, genders, etc. just to make it more “fair”.</p>
<p>Rather than dumbing down the standards for students in certain states, they should keep the cutoff score equal. But that’s just my $0.02.</p>
<p>I guess that makes folks in those states equivalent to URMs.</p>
<p>Because the National Merit Corp is a private organization and can do whatever it wants.</p>
<p><— 220 in CA. LOL.</p>
<p>They take the same number from every state. Idk what the number is, but I will just say it is around 300. The top 300 students from every state are considered semifinalists. So a state with students that are very competitive will have a higher cutoff score because the 300th student has a higher score than the 300th highest score in a less competitive state.</p>
<p>The cutoff is for a certain percentage of the student population in that grade in each state, not the number of students who take the exam. You can find the exact percentage (2%???) at the website.</p>
<p>Happymom is right. It is the top so many percent in each state. There are huge differences from state to state as far as opportunity. </p>
<p>I have a friend who likes to say her son would have been a NMF in 47 states. But not the state he lived in.</p>