Thursday, December 17 students who took the PSAT, further known as the National Merit Scholar Qualifying Test, recieved their test scores.

Tensions ran high within classrooms as students got their test packet along with their score sheet in their hands. While I cannot speak for the Sophomore class, the class of 2011 definitely has a significant amount of kids that recieved above a 200.

With 240 as the top score, breaking the 200 mark is an obvious requirement in order to qualify as a National Merit Scholar. Finalists for the 2009-2010 graduating class had to be in the 99 percentile. Finalists for this year will be determined after assessing scores across the nation.

Don’t be too disappointed though, because there’s still a chance of qualifying as a semi-finalist. In Texas last year, the cutoff to be a semi-finalist was a 215, and the cutoff this year has yet to be announced. Most teachers have told students that the official announcement will be made in September of 2010. So Juniors will just have to wait until then, but based on research many already have a fairly good idea of whether or not they made the cut.

Considering that the class of 2009-2010 had so many students that qualified, the test could have potentially been made harder, but in general the PSAT is harder than the SAT so no one should lose hope.

Congratulations to those that did exemplary! You know who you are.  For those of you that may be disappointed, just keep trying!