2019 National Merit Scholarship announcement?

A private school I know of is bragging on Twitter that 10 of its students have received notification from National Merit Scholarship Program that they will receive “recognition” in the fall for the 2019 scholarship program. How is this possible? I thought announcements went out in September.

The commended cutoff is going to be 212 according to many sources so they just know they have students above that number. Recognition is commended and semi-finalists

But they are saying that the organization sent them a notice they would be receiving recognition. That is different than just doing the math and surmising. That is my point. Is anyone aware of any notices that NM is sending out?

No they will send the notices in September for 2019.

As the principal of my homeschool, I received a letter yesterday from NMSC notifying me that my daughter will be recognized in the fall since her index score is above 212. I’m assuming all schools were sent the list of who from their school met the criteria.

Thanks! That is what I was wondering about.

At this stage of the competition, school administrators (if homeschooled, those would be parents) receive a list of students who will be advancing. This list is going to include any names whose SI was the commended level or higher. Administrators are asked to verify the information about the student including year in HS, permanent address, citizenship/permanent resident status, etc. All on the list will be Commended Scholar or higher but a whole bunch (probably around 34,000 of them) won’t make SF. Some will be on the edge so should prepare for the possibility. Most won’t be and should be able to ascertain that via CC or Compass. Think of it as having advanced to the finals when you might know what the outcome will be. BTW, NMSC should know the SF cutoffs by now -they are just cleaning up those lists at this point.

As an aside, there are obviously some great ones out there, but most of us on CC, including the home school parents, are a step or two ahead of a good number of high school GC’s and principals on this matter. It’s actually amazing how totally uninformed the latter group is sometimes. One friend told me her kid - who was focused on the ACT - was instructed by the GC to take the SAT since SF was likely - well, the student had an SI well below the prior year cut-off - not even anywhere near the edge - but just high enough for commended. Talk about poor advice! Obviously, taking both tests can be an excellent idea, assuming that’s part of your admissions strategy. Taking the SAT because the GC gave you bad info - another matter entirely. And this was a private college prep that produces a respectable handful of SF’s every year so it’s not like they were in the dark about the competition.

I knew that NMSC was doing the due diligence about potential commended/semi finalists, but what prompted my question is that I had never heard of a school “announcing” on social media and/or their website and posting pictures of those same kids in April of their junior year. That is what caused me to ask the question.

Some do, most don’t appear to. My kids’ high school waits till SF’s and Commendeds are all sorted out, then recognizes both groups on social media after the news release date has passed, and also at a November awards ceremony. Not sure if the students are even notified at this stage (S19 is a high commended but hasn’t heard anything). Other people have posted on CC that their schools don’t even recognize the SF’s or NMF’s So it can be all over the place, from too much publicity at the beginning, to not enough at the end. Not sure if this kind of early publicity violates any new-release specifications. In general schools should follow the directions so as not to risk compromising their students’ progress in the competition, but of course some schools ignore the rules. The specific news-release dates are sometime in September for the SF’s and then in early summer for the scholarship winners.

Our local newspaper is no longer paying attention to SF. The number of SFs in our area are dwindling year over year. The best high school here has no more than six SFs. Half of the high schools don’t have any.

Our high school had a small private ceremony for these students - plus one student who got a perfect score on the Chemistry AP exam (one of only 3 worldwide). Pictures were posted to our PTO’s Facebook page. If any of them make it past SF, we’ll obviously find out in the Fall, when the official announcements are made.