I didn’t use absolutes, I said could, and I think.
Anyway, they do have cutoffs. They don’t take it on a national level. If you’re not on par with the State level, you get cut off even if you score higher than people from other States. Virginia has a cutoff of 202, but Massachusetts has a cutoff of 220. They don’t take all of them from a single State, it’s based on how many students are in, or how many take it in a State. So you can still be a finalist even if you don’t have a 220 in Virginia. ._.
To be honest, even the mention is good, it doesn’t matter if you win it or not. Semi-finalist is just as good as finalist when it comes into getting into colleges. Scholarships are a different deal.