If you are a Junior and you weren't able to take the PSAT this year due to school closures, there is still a way to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship! Not many people know about the alternate path to a National Merit Scholarship, so here is the breakdown—
If you don’t know what a National Merit Scholarship is, please watch this video to learn more about the PSAT and the associated National Merit Scholarship competition.
How the National Merit Scholarship Competition Works During a Normal Year:
Any 9th or 10th grader can take the PSAT/NMSQT, but only juniors can qualify to enter the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
Out of the roughly one-point-five-million students who take the PSAT each year, some 50,000 with the highest scores (calculated by doubling the sum of the Reading, Writing and Language, and Math Test scores) qualify for recognition in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
In September of 12th grade, these high scorers are notified through their schools that they have qualified as either Commended Students or Semifinalists.
In February, approximately 15,000 Semifinalists are notified that they have advanced to Finalist standing.
Beginning in March and continuing to mid-June, NMSC notifies approximately 7,600 Finalists that they have been selected to receive a Merit Scholarship award. These accolades range from cash payments to one-time designations to renewable college scholarships.
Special Scholarships — Every year some 1,100 National Merit Program participants, who are outstanding but not Finalists, are awarded Special Scholarships provided by corporations and business organizations. To be considered for a Special Scholarship, students must meet the sponsor's criteria and the entry requirements of the National Merit Scholarship Program. They also must submit an entry form to the sponsor organization.
The Alternate Path to a National Merit Scholarship:
2020 was clearly the strangest year in the history of competitive college admissions, and one of the many disruptions was that many students were unable to take the PSAT due to school closures.
But that doesn’t mean that they can’t win a National Merit Scholarship too!
Here is how the alternate path works—
There has long been an alternate path to National Merit Scholarships for students who miss the PSAT for sickness and emergencies (including school closures). The difference is that for the 2020-21 school year far more students than ever before qualify for the alternate path due to massive school closures across the country. On the alternate path, students can take a full-length official SAT and submit those scores in place of official PSAT scores.
The Steps—
Fill out this application by April 1, 2021.
Take a full SAT exam between August 2020–June 2021.
That’s it!
But please note that Alternate Entry is only for students who do not take the October 2020 PSAT or January 2021 PSAT. If you take either of those PSAT exams, then you are automatically enrolled in the competition and your PSAT score will determine if you qualify for recognition in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
How Your SAT score translates into a PSAT National Merit Scholarship Score (Selection Index Score):
For those of you who really want to get into the weeds to understand how to calculate your National Merit Scholarship score from an SAT score, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation will add the Reading, Writing, and Math scores, and multiply that number by 2. The new sum is your Selection Index Score, which is what they use to determine who qualifies for recognition in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
If you have questions about your specific situation, let us know!
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