<p>My son’s name is on the list. Does anyone know if the letter goes to the school or to the house? Nothing in the mail so far so we don’t have the user ID. His stats: 4.0 uw, 2300 SAT, 214 PSAT. Thank you.</p>
<p>NEWTRON: I’m sorry about your daughter’s particular room mate but you really didn’t need to trash the “Art Scholars” to make your point. You obviously know little about them. My daughter is one of 56 Presidential arts “nominees” this year (out of nearly 10,000 nationwide submissions which were judged blindly by panels of distinguished international experts). The final 56 were chosen from approximately 160 “Finalists” in several disciplines, e.g., visual arts, dance, jazz, music, film making, theatre, and writing, who presented their work in theatres and museums in Miami during National YoungArts Week earlier this month. You should take the time to view the work of these remarkable young people on the YoungArts website. The live performances of the musicians and jazz singers, for example, will take your breath away(my daughter is a painter). Some of these unbelievable 18 year old talents would not seem out of place in venues like Carnegie Hall (where some of them will surely be in their lives). Implicit in your post is the notion that those you condescendingly refer to as art “scholars” are not worthy of the term. My particular daughter has done quite well academically at a public high school of the arts in Florida which ranks consistently in the top 75 all purpose high schools in the country and regularly sends its top graduates to the finest liberal arts and technology-oriented schools in the country. As to character, the YoungArts finalists I had the pleasure to meet in Miami are some of finest young men and women this country has to offer. So is my daughter. It sounds like your daughter just had a bad experience with a particular room mate, which has nothing to do with art in general or the many fine high school seniors in this country who excel in it. Frankly, you should be ashamed of some of your remarks. Please apologize.</p>
<p>So I made it onto the list, but so did 400+ other people in my state (why does this state have 10% of all candidates when there are 50 states in the US =.= and puerto rico). I have no chance of making it into the semi-finals as competition in CA is ridiculous and I don’t have the ECs to stand out. I know people always say you never know, but in this case yes, I really do know for sure. Is there any point in applying?</p>
<p>If I chose not to release my info while I took the SAT test, can I still change it now through collegeboard?</p>
<p>Wendeli – Since candidacy is based solely on ACT/SAT scores, maybe CA had that many perfect scorers? As far as whether the application is worth it, only you can decide that.</p>
<p>stoccermom, letter goes to student’s home. Ours came yesterday, so you should get it soon.</p>
<p>@STEM, sorry that was a rhetorical question.</p>
<p>Got it today in VA. my quick count shows 80+ candidates, so maybe the whole cutoff thing per state is not strict? I have a 36, or as it looks like this is based off of additive scores, a 143. So it can’t all be perfect numbers</p>
<p>whoops, I recant that. it turns out that you just have to be one of the top 20 males or females in state or tie with one of the top 20. So if I’m girl #20 from VA with a 143 then all the other girls with 143s also get selected. I can totally imagine this happening in CA, maybe even with all perfect 1600s/144s?</p>
<p>@ baddriver: how did you calculate your “additive score”? My son made the list - He had a 35 ACT and his SAT best single sitting was @ 2100 or so. There was one other 35 in his school, and that student did not take the SAT. That student is not on the list. So, I’m curious how the score is calculated.</p>
<p>@ everyone else: is this something that should be added to the college applications?</p>
<p>Jerry - simply by adding the 4 sections of the ACT - with a possible total of 144. My son made it last year with a 36 in our state, but he actually had a 142/144 (two 35’s and two 36’s which rounded up to a 36 for the composite). However a 141/144 would have rounded down to a 35 and not made it. For your state, evidently the cutoff is somewhere between 138 and 141 - and your son had a higher subtotal than the other student from the school.</p>
<p>marciemi - thank you! What is your opinion - is this something that should be added to the college application? I appreciate input/opinions!!</p>
<p>I’d appreciate some advice on this as well. I figure that cus it’s all stats based and schools will see the 36, it doesn’t really show much. Other than to perhaps let them know that a 36 (143) is in the top 20 scores of a girl in VA.</p>
<p>I could see letting colleges know if I was from a lower-stats state, as a student with a 34 or so could prove that he really is quite competitive amongst his peers</p>
<p>I’m a firm believer in putting anything remotely impressive on a college application - you never know what will catch someone’s eye! But I do agree that it’s just reconfirming the ACT score they can already see realistically. But being recognized like this is kind of a National Award if you do have any schools who ask for that specifically (state, regional, national). I would certainly list it. By the time my son found out he already had his EA acceptances and even making semifinalist wasn’t announced until too late to be of much help for any applications (I think April sometime?). But his school did announce it at the Senior Awards night.</p>
<p>Thanks and good luck to all the candidates!!</p>
<p>I just got notification of this, and if there’s no money in it, I honestly don’t see why I should waste my time filling out the application and having another teacher fill out a recommendation. Is there any point to this at all, other than making a few top scorers feel good about themselves? It doesn’t seem like it. I really got my hopes up, thinking there would be some monetary award because it looks like I won’t be able to afford Georgetown, but I guess not.</p>
<p>@cruxclaire: </p>
<p>So apparently I’m not the only person who’s a little bit disappointed. Yes, getting to meet the president would be awesome, but I doubt I’ll even get to that level. The application is going to eat all my time for the month of February, and… I don’t know. It’s a cool honor, but the application looks daunting and so few people actually win.</p>
<p>I feel the exact same way. wondering if a lot of kids won’t bother completing it, thereby making it easier to be the 1/5 of candidates who make semifinalist status.</p>
<p>Don’t do it if you are only doing it to meet the president- looking at this thread through the years, it looks like it is more often a representative of the president. Was secretary of education Duncan either last year or year before.</p>
<p>Your teenager will receive a letter informing them that their scores met the criteria; it is based on the highest “single sitting” score taken prior to October. In our state the top 20 boys and top 20 girls received invitational letters. It was interesting to see that some of the students who made the SAT cut-off had been National Merit Commended (not semi-finalist) on the PSAT and some of the Semi’s on PSAT did not make the cut-off for Presidential Scholar Candidate.</p>