I am sure it is somewhere in the thread but can’t find it – which number are you all calling to get the finalist status? And what info will I need on my son? Thanks!
@candyandnuts I called this #. (847) 866-5100
I only had to give my full name and date of birth. Good luck! 
Principal got the notification today! I’m a National Merit Finalist! When do we find out about the money?
According to the NMC website, notification of corporate scholarships will begin in early March. Notification of $2500 scholarships will begin in late March. Notification of college sponsored scholarships will begin in May.
@phokie It ok to go to a state college for undergraduate for medical school. I know of a few examples that got in. Just work toward being the top of the class. Help save money for medical school. Don’t want to be in debt for medical school. It seems people don’t always like their profession even after they finish and then have huge debt sometimes. I have seen it in law school students. Not sure about medical. I have heard good examples of people that went in the military and paid it off that way. It seems like it helped them get in as well. They enjoyed it very much as well. Some of the best times of their lives.
@phokie My son is going to Rice and is very excited to go. I know he is crazy to give up the other schools. He was to be an engineer. We are paying for him to go, but graduate school is on him. They will help with aid so it is not full pay. If it was full pay I was not going to let him since it seemed too expensive. He is my only son and he wants warm. There are minimum Gpa’s too tied with the school like Alabama and other schools though he is smart sometimes the first year can be hard to adjust. He didn’t want that pressure. Then the school with free tuition is out of state cost. They could not tell what the average GPA was engineers when I asked.
I still haven’t heard anything in Central California. Is this a bad sign? I never got a rejection letter.
@shanabanana1 give them a call. Their office is still open - it’s a little after 2 pm CT now.
You know it would saving them a lot of work answering the phone if they would just post a list of the NMF’s on a web page some place. Really, it’s not that hard. Heck, they could just post the list to this thread on CC and be done with it!
@fun1234 I am happy for your son that he will not have to worry about a minimum GPA. Although my son ended up not having a problem with the minimum, it has been in the back of his mind the whole time and added extra pressure. It would have been even more pressure if he had been in engineering. We are grateful that his annual NM Corporate award does not have a minimum GPA requirement.
@BunnyBlue That is great that yours did not have trouble meeting the GPA. It seems like the kids really like BAMA it seems like a popular school. They did say the average GPA was 3.0 for all majors which made me think that engineering was probably less. It was Alabama Huntsville. They also had there own rooms that for most they would like, but my son wanted a roommate. It was a beautiful school seemed like it was a commuter school. A lot of people had cars. My son never looked at BAMA because he wanted a small school.
Here in California we just got an email from the school that S2 made Finalist. Yay!
I called and DS made finalist (they still haven’t notified them at school). Stats: 32 ACT, 1480 SAT, almost all AP or IB classes, GPA was wt 4.39 when submitted. Really proud of him although it probably won’t end up making a difference – he was admitted EA to Washington University in St. Louis, and plan is to go there unless something drastic happens, and they don’t give anything for National Merit. We are in Oklahoma, so I admit I am going to keep the OU option open as long as possible in case DH loses job in next month or something like that.
@fun1234 I should have included that S1 is not at Alabama but is at a UC with a scholarship that requires a 3.0 gpa… He had to adjust to being at a large overcrowded campus. Even though he has priority registration, he often just barely gets the classes that he wants. The 3.0 was not difficult to maintain, but sometimes when class grading is curved kids can think they did terribly on a test even when they didn’t and go through a lot of worry for nothing.
What state are you in?
My D made finalist & will be attending TX A&M in the fall. NMF get a little more than $40K in scholarships (which hopefully will pay for about half her costs) She will have to maintain a 3.5 GPA & that makes me very nervous. She is joining the Corps of Cadets so hopefully their mandatory study hours will help w/the GPA.
@candyandnuts WUSTL is not listed in the 2016 PSAT/NMSQT Student Guide as a college that awards National Merit Scholarships. You might want to call financial aid office to check on this if it’s something your S is counting on.
Principal told me I am a finalist yesterday! I was honestly shocked because I do not feel very qualified…
State: Missouri
ACT: 34
SAT: 1460
PSAT: 1460
GPA: UW 3.53
All AP & IB courses since junior year
lots of involvement in the community and arts (music and fine art)
I applied to Northwestern ED and got rejected but I made University of Michigan EA and Urbana Champaign EA. Still waiting on Columbia, Brown - RISD, UCLA, UCB, UCI, UCSD, USC, Tufts, WashU, Cornell
@4getit, sorry, I wasn’t clear – we know WUSTL doesn’t give NM money. They have given us a nice primarily need-based offer that makes it less than $10,000 a year more than what OU would be with the NM package. That is worth it to us but will be tight – I have this paranoid fear that after we close other doors, we have some terrible economic turnaround and DS is stuck unable to afford WUSTL OR one of the other schools. So because of that, although he fully intends to go to WUSTL, I want to keep other options open until the last minute.
Still waiting here in Dallas, guess I will call today. Can anyone explain what would cause someone to not make finalist? Are there cutoffs for GPA, etc.? My son has 1580 SAT but about 3.65 u/w gpa (we think - school only calculates weighted gpa). He is top 14% of class if that matters. No Cs if that helps.