Texas National Merit cutoff for the class of 2027, and what 2028 should aim for

The confirmed Texas National Merit Semifinalist cutoff for the class of 2027 is a Selection Index of 219. If your sophomore is in the class of 2028, the planning target we use is 222, because Texas has landed between 219 and 222 in every confirmed year since the digital test began and the official 2028 number will not exist until September 2027.

The rest of this page shows where those numbers come from, how the Selection Index is built, and what score split on the October test actually gets a Texas student over the line. It also covers the parts most families find out about too late: the number of Semifinalists Texas is allowed to have, why the cutoff moved three points in one year, and what the national Commended level means for a student who falls just short.

The confirmed Texas cutoffs, year by year

Semifinalist cutoffs are not published by NMSC as a table. They are confirmed each September by schools and families receiving letters, and the most complete public record is the cutoff history that Compass Education Group has kept for years. Their page, updated November 8, 2026, is the source for the table below.

Three things stand out. Texas has not been under 219 in any of the four confirmed digital-test years. The one jump to 222 came in a year when the Commended level also rose two points, so the whole country scored higher, not just Texas. And the 2028 estimate sits exactly where the last three confirmed years sit.

The lowest state cutoff for the class of 2027 was 208, shared by Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. That equals the national Commended level, which is the floor: no state’s Semifinalist cutoff can be lower than Commended. Texas was 11 points above that floor. A Texas junior who moves to Wyoming for senior year does not get to use Wyoming’s number, because the state that counts is the one where the student attended school when taking the test.

Why the cutoff moves, and why it is not a standard

Families often assume 219 is a bar someone set, when it is a byproduct. NMSC allocates roughly 16,000 Semifinalist places across the states in proportion to each state’s number of graduating seniors, not in proportion to how many students take the test. Texas gets a large fixed share, somewhere around 1,500 places in recent years [verify]. The cutoff is simply the Selection Index at which that many Texas juniors are left when you count down from 228.

That is why the number drifts. For the class of 2027, Compass reports that 1,462 Texas students scored at or above 219. If the state’s allocation had been smaller, the cutoff would have been 220. If the cohort had been stronger, as the class of 2026 was, the same allocation would have pushed it to 222. The cutoff tells you about the other students in Texas that year as much as it tells you about the test.

This matters for planning. You cannot aim at 219 and feel safe, because 219 was the answer to last year’s question. You aim at a number that would have cleared every recent year, and 222 is that number. Texas is a high-scoring state.

The Selection Index, in one worked example

The PSAT/NMSQT reports a Reading and Writing score from 160 to 760 and a Math score from 160 to 760, for a total between 320 and 1520. College Board also reports an NMSC Selection Index from 48 to 228, calculated by doubling the Reading and Writing score, adding the Math score, and dividing by ten.

Now hold the total at 1480 and shift the split. Reading and Writing 700 with Math 780 is impossible, because Math tops out at 760. Reading and Writing 720 with Math 760 gives (1,440 + 760) / 10 = 220: a Semifinalist in 2027, a miss in 2026. Reading and Writing 760 with Math 720 gives (1,520 + 720) / 10 = 224, comfortable in any year. Same total, four-point swing. The split is the whole game.

The formula has a second consequence that is less obvious. Each Reading and Writing scaled point is worth 0.2 Selection Index points, and each Math scaled point is worth 0.1. A ten-point drop in Reading and Writing, which can be a single question in the hard module, costs two Selection Index points. A ten-point drop in Math costs one. Texas students at the top of the range are frequently separated by exactly that: one Reading and Writing question.

A target split for the class of 2028

We set two numbers for every Texas sophomore: a floor split that would have cleared 219, and a planning split that clears 222 with the same Math score, so the student can see exactly how much the Reading and Writing work is worth.

Read the bottom two rows together. A student with a perfect 760 in Math and a 700 in Reading and Writing is a Commended Student in every recent Texas year. A student who gives back 60 Math points but gains 60 Reading and Writing points lands at 222. For a Texas student whose Math is already strong, the entire path to Semifinalist runs through Reading and Writing, and the plan should say so in its week-by-week hours.

Our planning split for most 2028 students is Reading and Writing 740 or higher with Math 740 or higher. Students who are already at 740 Math by sophomore spring get a plan that is almost entirely Reading and Writing. Students at 680 Math get both, because the Math gap is real, but the hours still lean to the section that counts double.

What a sophomore score says about the junior target

A sophomore PSAT/NMSQT score report shows the same Selection Index as a junior’s, and parents sometimes read it as a verdict. It is a starting point, and a useful one, because the test is the same test. A sophomore at 205 is 17 points from 222. On the formula, that is 85 Reading and Writing scaled points, or 170 Math scaled points, or some mix. Framed as questions, it is typically a handful of Reading and Writing questions in each module plus a few Math questions, with the exact count depending on where the student sits on the scale.

We do not publish a growth figure, because the honest answer is that it depends on whether the student does anything between the two Octobers. A sophomore who takes the test cold in October and again cold a year later tends to gain some points from an extra year of school, but nothing like 17 Selection Index points on average. A sophomore who learns the Reading and Writing question types as templates over the summer is working on a different curve. Our sophomore guide covers the percentile ranges and the start-in-spring decision in detail: /psat/guides/sophomore-psat-score-what-it-means/.

The parts of the calendar that are fixed

The PSAT/NMSQT is given once a year, at school, inside a window College Board sets. For fall 2026 the window ran October 1 to 30, with a Saturday option on October 17 [verify]. Each school picks its own day inside the window. Scores release in waves a few weeks later, in late October and November [verify]. The only sitting that counts for National Merit is the junior-year one, and there is no retake. If a junior is ill on test day, NMSC has an alternate entry route that must be started quickly, through the school counselor, and it is not something to discover on October 20.

From there the clock is slow and then sudden. Commended and Semifinalist status for the class of 2028 will be set from the October 2026 test but not announced until September 2027. Semifinalists then have roughly five weeks to complete the Finalist application, which the school submits in early October of senior year. Finalist letters go out in February [verify]. Our Semifinalist checklist walks through every date: /psat/guides/semifinalist-to-finalist/.

For a family with a sophomore right now, the fixed points are these. Sophomore October has already happened. Junior October is eleven months away. Everything that moves the Selection Index has to happen between the two.

What falls short of Semifinalist still earns

Roughly 34,000 students nationally are named Commended Students each year, against about 16,000 Semifinalists. For the class of 2027 the Commended level was 208, so a Texas junior between 208 and 218 is Commended: a letter, a line on the application, and eligibility for some corporate-sponsored awards through NMSC, but not the college-sponsored Semifinalist and Finalist awards that carry the big money. Our scholarship page lists what Texas universities attach to each level: /psat/guides/national-merit-scholarships-texas/.

Commended is a real honor and a poor consolation prize, in the sense that the dollar difference between 218 and 219 in Texas can be the difference between a nice letter and four years of tuition. That is the single best argument for planning to 222 instead of 219. The margin is cheap in hours and expensive to miss.

What to do this week

1. Pull the sophomore score report and write down three numbers: Reading and Writing, Math, and the Selection Index. Confirm the Selection Index by hand with the formula.
2. Subtract the Selection Index from 222 and convert the gap to Reading and Writing scaled points (divide by 0.2). Decide whether the gap is a summer’s work or a sophomore-spring start.
3. Ask the school’s testing coordinator for the October 2027 PSAT/NMSQT date and whether juniors are registered automatically or must sign up and pay. Put both dates on the family calendar now.
4. Bookmark the Compass cutoff history and this page. Check both in September 2027, when the class of 2028 numbers are confirmed and the 2029 estimate appears.
5. If the student’s Math is already at or above 740, stop splitting practice time evenly. The remaining points are in Reading and Writing, and the plan should be weighted the way the formula is.