<p>NM confirmed that COMMENDED LETTERS will be sent to schools on 9/17/13. </p>
<p>Hawaii schools barely mention the commended. NM confrimed 215 cutoff for Hawaii.</p>
<p>It’s really tough when they just miss the cut off. These are all terrific students.</p>
<p>ctl987: My two cents - don’t send it. NMSF is cool, but it is not that big a deal. Sure, there is some merit scholarship money attached, but there is plenty of merit money that is unrelated to PSAT scores. (More grants are awarded based on need) My DS made it this year. A couple of years ago, my DD missed it by a point, so I have felt both sides. All of the kids that get close are great kids whose talents are demonstrated all over their college apps. (The really good schools would never base an admissions decision one the results of one test on a Saturday in October of junior year.) They all get into good schools - and once there, they thrive, make friends, have wonderful professors, get internships, etc. Trust me when I tell you that missing NMSF by a point or two (or 10) won’t matter at all 8 months from now.</p>
<p>Your kid is going to kick some butt at a wonderful school.</p>
<p>Thanks glido!!! Just starting to run true costs on one of their top choices today(since net price calculator underestimated costs) and I confirmed with admissions office their grades are good enough to get full tuition there 
They also have committed interest in one EC in particular, some other EC’s too, and that combined with SAT and GPA makes them solid candidate at most schools they are applying to. It is a bummer how much the costs jumped though since full rides are hard to come by competitively. But hey we’ll live. Who knows who’ll they’ll meet down the road or what doors will open for them by going to College A instead of College B?</p>
<p>glido, I agree with much of what you say. My D just started with full tuition/fees+ at one of her NMF safeties that she fell in love with. But she also had other equivalent offers at similar and higher ranked schools that had nothing to do with her NMF status. In our case we also could have scrimped and paid the EFC if we had to to send her to a school which offered less or no merit. So things would have worked out fine either way. In our city not many of the NMFs even take advantage of the big NMF scholarships, heading off to Ivies and near-Ivies by and large, with a few enrolling at our local state flagship. From last year’s 20+ at her school only my D and one other took an NMF full tuition, one took half-tuition and the rest enrolled at schools that give nothing or a couple thousand for the status. Not one took an NMF fullride. </p>
<p>However, I think there are kids for whom the NMF full rides at Kentucky, Idaho, etc. mean the world. If you are in a family that has relatively high EFC but no money for college, and/or no desire to spend money on college,it could be the only viable option and for those kids it is heartbreaking to miss NMF by a point or 2. Full tuition is not so hard for good students to get, but full rides at top200 schools for high EFC families are hard to come by. My D didn’t get any except for NMF. I know, kids can live at home, go to CC, etc. and manage somehow to patch something together, but it is a big loss to those kids in any case.</p>
<p>Thanks Celeste. So gracefully worded. We fall into that category except we want to and can figure out ways to pay for college. A middle class EFC for us at least means enough financial ability to squeeze college in. One of our issues is that kid wants a career in a field that’s hard to break into. Had we been able to minimize his college bill, we’d be in better position 5 years from now to help set him up financially(say with rent for 6 months to a year). Another thing we were looking at was starting at a NM school and transferring to an expensive school that is excellent in his field of interest. Again, costs would have been better. But things always have a way of working out and it is exciting to start narrowing things down. It has been frustrating to not be able to plan properly the last several months due to what if NM question? Now that we have an answer, kid is focusing on doing a good job on apps and essays to maximize scholarship options and we are fine tuning the estimated costs(such as looking at actual room and board options rather than relying on an NPC) so we will have realistic numbers in hand by the time he makes a decision next March.</p>
<p>Completely agree Celeste . . . well said.</p>