If you live in West Virginia, your child needs to score at least 203 on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which is used to screen for candidates for the National Merit Scholarship program. But if you live in Virginia, that score has to be at least 218, as it is in New York. The cutoff score for Washington D.C., Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey is 221. In fact, the cutoff scores vary in each state, and they vary from year to year. Some college admissions counselors think this is patently unfair, and that a national scholarship program should...