<p>Four boys were nominated from my S's school from a class of 44 boys...Pretty impressive!</p>
<p>How do you find out the cutoff for your state? Would it help if a student scored both a 36 and a 2400 for getting to go on the trip? Is it really a good idea to notify colleges?</p>
<p>How does the "nominated for the arts" thing work? (The two I know who are on the list are both awesome.)</p>
<p>The fine arts candidates are the 50 top competitors in the NFAA's core program, a competition called youngarts. Last fall 8000 seniors auditioned in 65 categories in the performing, literary, and visual arts. The top 10% received recognition and monetary awards, the top 150 were invited to attend a week-long program in Miami. These 50 are the students still in the competition after Miami. This spring, 20 will be selected as Presidential Scholars in the Arts.
[url=<a href="http://www.artsawards.org/Students/%5DNFAA%5B/url">http://www.artsawards.org/Students/]NFAA[/url</a>]</p>
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How do you find out the cutoff for your state? Would it help if a student scored both a 36 and a 2400 for getting to go on the trip? Is it really a good idea to notify colleges?
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</p>
<p>Call 319-341-2777.
I doubt it. I suspect that once your scores qualify, other elements are determinative. I believe there's an essay.
Yes, notify your D's colleges. Although they obviously know her scores already, they may keep track of applicants who are Presidential Scholars candidates. Perhaps your counselor could include a note when he/she sends Midyear Reports.</p>
<p>Thanks, wjb!</p>
<p>After bypassing this thread a couple of times because I have no idea what a Presidential Scholar is, I decided to check it out. I clicked on the link to the list and though it didn't explain what a Presidential Scholar is, I see my son's name! Spooky.</p>
<p>I just randomly looked at this list and saw my name on it. What is this? What should I do?</p>
<p>haha.</p>
<p>My D says no way to writing another essay just on the chance of getting a trip to Wash DC in June. She wants to go to the beach in June.</p>
<p>I am assuming some sort of notification going to be sent to the students on the list? Does anyone know if it is sent to the home address or the school?</p>
<p>Two years ago my son was one of 5 kids nominated from his high school. As I recall, there was a lot of paperwork (yes, essays) to continue the process, and only 2 of the kids decided to do so. A good number of his very bright friends were not considered even though they had perfect stats--because they weren't US citizens. My son did send updates to the colleges he applied to, and he did decide to continue the process. I was very surprised by this, since there's no monetary scholarship involved, and shaking Bush's hand was not on his to-do list!</p>
<p>It seems like a fairly meaningless accolade to me.</p>
<p>Does anyone else ever wonder what the purpose of this is? It does not identify the "best" or the "brightest". </p>
<p>Seems to me is that all it does is recognize those that by a statistical fluke aced a standardized test!</p>
<p>After looking at the application, I disagree. The winners (not the candidates, obviously) are selected based on a very involved process, including four or five essays that require them to think and write about leadership (not a laundry list of activities that colleges apparently count as leadership) and their relationship to and role in their community. The schools have to give equally thoughtful responses to the evaluation questions. It's far more weighty than you might expect, so my sense is that those who progress in the contest have a lot to be proud of. It might not be meaningful to everyone, but I see no reason to bash it just because the initial filter is based on test scores.</p>
<p>I know 3 people on the list. When I asked 1 person about it yesterday, he had never heard of it and had no idea he was even on it. He got a 2260 and a 35.</p>
<p>The only winner from our school that I know of (several years ago) was salutatorian, Intel finalist, Eagle Scout, captain of the track and swim team, Physics Olympiad winner and a couple of other things as well. He's now at Harvard where he does light-weight crew, has a postion with the band and is on the masthead of The Crimson. He certainly deserved the honor!</p>
<p>As I look at the list of past winners from my state, everyone in the last 20 years or so has gone to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Duke, with one to the state flagship. It's a scary list!</p>
<p>My son was a nominee last year and I can tell you that is was a very involved application process and a substantial amount of work. As I recall, it's a two stage process, with each stage requiring essays.</p>
<p>Ditto to my son wanting to shake GW's hand - not. The reason he decided to do it all was to get recognition for a teacher who was facing a layoff due to budget issues.</p>
<p>rainmama and others,</p>
<p>Yes, the next step takes a lot of work. But the gate is STILL the SAT/ACT scoring. </p>
<p>You could use any one of a number of other gates (i.e. initial selection criteria) and then have the essays and all. </p>
<p>And why the "bashing" comment, rainmama? Just because you can't answer my question does not mean your response should be to criticize any intent behind the question, especially when that was not my intent.</p>
<p>I do not mean to imply this is a bogus honor. Of course it is not. But I still don't know what it means beyond having scored high on a several hour exam and then written good essays etc. How does one interpret that? To put another way, how is this different from being a kind of "ultra NM finalist?" After all it uses the same kind of selection criterion.</p>
<p>In these times when you mostly see negative news in the newspapers, I think it's a breath of fresh air for any community to have an excellent student and a teacher recognized for their outstanding work. I'll take any excuse to have good news about the schools in the paper anytime.</p>
<p>Among the Presidential Scholars and Presidential Scholar nominees I know, the high standardized test score was a culmination of years of reading and thinking and working hard to develop writing skills. All of the candidates had the opportunity to take the test more than once, as all high school students do, and if some few high school students scored higher than all others, that may say something meaningful about all the hours they spent over years engaged in learning.</p>