<p>owlice, is your S a sophomore or junior? Since he took PSAT as a freshman, I assume that he is a sophomore. Congratulations for his great performance of real SAT from December!</p>
<p>I am hoping that NMSF qualifying scores drop in our state this year...two points would be REALLY good. :)</p>
<p>CountingDown, I wish you and your S2 best luck and I hope for a 2-point drop from your state. A friend's daughter got 215 and I believe our state's cut off last year was 215. So the friend's daughter is right on the cutting line for PSAT. She is taking SAT in January. </p>
<p>My D2 (Duke TIP/7th grade) got her December SAT score by phone. She did really well.</p>
<p>Congratulations, susan4!</p>
<p>susan4, S is a sophomore; this was his third time taking the SAT, as he took it in 7th grade for CTY and again in 8th for grins. I'm glad he's done with it! Now on to SAT Subject tests...!</p>
<p>Congrats to your D2!!</p>
<p>If you're in top 1% are u guaranteed a National Merit Scholarship finalist?</p>
<p>I live in CA and got a 230 (74CR, 80M, 76W) in 2008 test.</p>
<p>As has been noted, the cutoffs vary by state and from year to year...but I think 230 is a safe score! Congratulations!</p>
<p>Yes, I would expect a score of 230 to be above the National Merit semifinalist bar in any state in any year.</p>
<p>My son scored the same on PSAT this year (11th) as last year (10th) but took the SAT in November and scored 200 points higher than the projected score on the PSAT (2250 overall). He doesn't think he will qualify for NMST but is happy with his first go around on the SAT's.</p>
<p>My D finally got her scores from school. She's a 10th grader, and got 13 points higher than last year's score. She plans to study for it next year when it really counts.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if a 222 is above the NMSQT Finalist cutoff for Texas? After waiting so long for my scores, I don't know if I can wait another year to find out if I'm a semifinalist :/</p>
<p>Yes, 222 should be well above the Texas cutoff. Congratulations!</p>
<p>Last year's cutoff was 215, so you should be good. Congrats!</p>
<p>Can somebody please explain the requirement of selecting a specific college to be able to get the NMS? I’m not sure if this is a requirement or not, but I read something similar in a thread.</p>
<p>Greenery, all universities deal with NM differently. But, that said, there are certain schools that really embrace the NM program, including Arizona, Arizona State, UT-Dallas, Texas A & M, U. of Oklahoma, U. of Tulsa, USC, U. of Central Florida and U. of Alabama. You will start to receive e-mails from some or all of these schools in the coming months. Read the information that you receive. Some will offer tuition packages, others more. </p>
<p>As for the other schools out there, many major universities offer scholarship monies ranging from $500 to $2,000. Sometimes, it’s one time. Sometimes it’s yearly. Just check with each school.</p>
<p>“Can somebody please explain the requirement of selecting a specific college to be able to get the NMS? I’m not sure if this is a requirement or not, but I read something similar in a thread.”
If you are selected as a NMFinalist[ you will receive a packet in Sept of your Sr year] then by May, after you have received you college acceptances, you have to let NM know your final “first choice” school, in order to be eligible for a NM scholarship. You can send in a preliminary list of schools on the card you receive from NM in Sept. but you don’t have to.
For some colleges that give additional scholarship $$ in addition to the NM $ , you will need to send in your college applications in early in order to eligible for consideration for those extra scholarship $$. And at some colleges the pot of NM money is limited, so you may want to send in the card with your preliminary list of colleges in Sept. to NM in order to “boost your chances” of acceptance. There are quite a few colleges that want to “snag” hi scoring students. But the final choice is the one that matters.<br>
If a college doesn’t “sponsor” NM scholarships, then you won’t receive any NM scholarship $$if you go there. Quite a few of the Ivy’s don’t sponsor the scholarships, because they don’t need to attract hi stat kids.</p>
<p>here is a list of where the 2007 NMF’s matriculated
<a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/01/merit_table.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/01/merit_table.htm</a></p>
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<p>If you were selected for the $2500 NM scholarship, it will be sent directly to the school you will be attending. You have to notify NMC which school that is.</p>
<p>If you are a finalist, but were not selected for $2500 (you’d know by now if you were), you should check with the college you plan to attend if it awards any scholarships to NMF finalists (the list of colleges that do was included with your NMF application, and is also available on NMC web site). If your school is on the list, make sure to inform NMC of your college choice - otherwise you will not get the scholarship. If it isn’t on the list, it does not matter if you select the school, you will not get any money anyway.</p>
<p>Thanks, Momreads, melonparkmom, nngmm:
NNGM: "If your school is on the list, make sure to inform NMC of your college choice - otherwise you will not get the scholarship. If it isn’t on the list, it does not matter if you select the school, you will not get any money anyway. "</p>
<p>At what stage a college needs to be chosen? Where should we call or notify?</p>
<p>We faxed son’s choice in using a sheet provided by the college. I believe it can be downloaded from the MNS site too.</p>
<p>Well, I found the following information in a different thread:
“In April following the fall test administration, high-scoring participants from every state are invited to name two colleges or universities to which they would like to be referred by NMSC. In September, these high scorers are notified through their schools that they have qualified as either a Commended Student or Semifinalist.”</p>