PSAT- National Merit Scholarships and Semifinalist State Cutoff Scores

Intro

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation conducts a nation-wide search for bright high school students every year. Those students who are lucky enough to become Semifinalists or Finalists find themselves with many new scholarship opportunities for college. In this hub, I will outline the National Merit process and discuss some excellent scholarship opportunities that are available.

Step One: Entering the National Merit Competition

In order to begin competing for National Merit recognition, you must take the PSAT during the fall of your junior year of high school. All students who take the test and are eligible participants are automatically entered into the competition.

Step Two: Wait

After taking the PSAT, students will likely receive their scores likely a few weeks after taking the test. Unfortunately, the students have to wait nearly a full year to hear anything back from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The time frame is frustrating, but when September of the high school senior year comes, things begin to happen quickly.

Step Three: Semifinalist

In September, nearly two-thirds of the high scorers receive letters of commendation. They are commended students, and are now out of the competition. The other one-third of the highest scoring participants in each state are recognized as semifinalists. Depending on what state you live in, this cutoff score could be as low as 201 or as high as 225.

Step Four: Finalist

Once recognized as semifinalist, the students will be asked to submit academic and other information. Also, the semifinalists will be asked to take the SAT over the next few months in order to validate their PSAT score and prove that they deserve the recognition. Of the 16,000 or so semifinalists, approximately 15,000 will be chosen as finalists. The only students who do not move up to finalist rank are those who do not submit any information about themselves, do not have good grades, do not take the SAT, or fail to score well on the SAT.

The entire process extends from the beginning of your junior year all the way through your senior year of high school. Therefore, the fall PSAT scores of 2017 affect the scholarships of the graduating class of 2019.

Past Qualifying Scores

Your PSAT score can only help you up to the semifinalist ranking. But because nearly all semifinalists become finalists, the cutoff scores for advancing to semifinalist ranking can essentially be viewed as the same for advancing to finalist.

Below is a table showing some of the past PSAT cutoff scores to advance to semifinalist ranking.

Scholarship Opportunities

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation awards around 10,000 scholarships every year to the finalists. Some of these scholarships come directly from the corporation, but many come from sponsors of the program. Most of the scholarships are around $1500-$2500. However, many colleges will award their own scholarships to students who have received the rank of National Merit Finalist. Some of these college-sponsored scholarships can amount full tuition at certain colleges!

Comments

Victor on September 10, 2015:

When will this page be updated? Very informative. Thanks!

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maddan9497 on June 08, 2015:

My son took the PSAT as a junior in October 2014, scoring 215. Your article above says in April following the test, 50,000 high scorers will be recognized. We are not aware of any such recognition, even though it is well past April. How is this recognition supposed to be communicated?

Keishia Lee Louis from Georgia, USA on May 24, 2015:

This is an excellent and useful article. You may want to consider refreshing it to reflect the changes in the SAT (and there for the PSAT). Thanks for sharing!

GINY MOM 2015 on October 14, 2014:

My daughter's score was 222 on the PSAT. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!! Our residency is NY (219) and her high school is in New Hampshire(219). She attends a boarding school (the "51st" state) and the cut off is 224!! I was more disappointed than her. She has a great attitude. WE know a 222 is a strong score/candidate. I HOPE the colleges recognize this too.

bigdogacb (author) from United States on March 06, 2014:

The most likely reasons for not advancing are simply not completing the required application and essay or having grades that do not meet their minimum requirement.

Doyourbest on December 14, 2013:

If your score is 99 percentile, what could go wrong not advancing you

to the finalist? Thank you.

Amie Butchko from Warwick, NY on December 13, 2013:

Very interesting. Looking ahead a bit, I will have some college-bound children which is deathly scary to me! It is good to know there are some ways that we can potentially supplement tuition!

sabrani44 on December 17, 2011:

This was a very informative hub. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this out for us.