<p>Anyone apply to the program? March 7th is the day those fortunate 30 finalists find out they've made it to the next round.</p>
<p>God I wanted to sooooo badly. Was like the busiest month of my life though when I intended to get the application done. Ended up passing out on my physics book and didn’t have time to do it :</p>
<p>I applied…I just posted on an old thread but I guess I’ll post here again; if anyone gets good news come Monday, please post. The odds for this have to be <1% :s</p>
<p>Yeah I heard there were like 700+ applications, which will be narrowed down to 30 finalists and ~11 scholarships… I’m nervous for Monday</p>
<p>1000+ apps… i’d say reaching finalist is about 2.5% likelihood</p>
<p>there were over 1,000 in before November lol. Then the site crashed bc so many were loading Nov. 30th, and they postponed the deadline 2 or 3 days and it was still crashing…</p>
<p>Does anyone know when and if they call if it will be the home phone or the students cell? The email said the calls would come “later in the day”…which leads me to believe they will call student cells after school???</p>
<p>Hmm, well when I got the letter asking me to apply for it, it said that national merit scholars were given EXTREME favor in the decision process, so I’d say if you were a semifinalist when you applied, then your chances are probably pretty good. Theres no way even half of those 1000+ applicants were semis. I’d guess closer to a couple hundred, tops.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with NMF being in favor, but remember, not all kids in the world take the PSAT. Like my kid…lol. She had a confirmed case of H1N1 and was banned from campus during the swine flu scare, along with 15 other high achieving students. So I am sure they look at the “big picture” and not just a test score. From Texas Ex friends we know, they are really looking for little UT ambassadors. Kids great at conversation with adults as well as kids, kids that are passionate about UT (which would come out at finalist weekend, etc). But here is the bottom line. I would presume that half of the kids that applied were all potential candidates, as the scholarship itself was self selecting. How they will narrow that down, is really hard to tell. Who knows right? For my D, I think her chances are diminished by the fact that she already accepted her admittance to UT, and they use this scholarship to court the best and brightest. Why use the $$ to court someone who already decided? A strategic error on our part I believe, but you can’t un-ring a bell.</p>
<p>Will post if notified…I don’t have any real expectation for this scholarship.</p>
<p>^ same as you</p>
<p>Yeah…hope is fading fast…lol</p>
<p>No reason to lose hope now …hang in there. My S didn’t apply, so I know he won’t get it … Best wishes to you all!!</p>
<p>This is the first time I’ve seen a thread with no info on the day they are supposed to call. I wonder if they even decided?</p>
<p>my phone has been ringing all day o_O;…
will they at least be graceful enough to notify those rejected by email?</p>
<p>I just looked at the email from a few weeks ago and it says they will notify “later in the day”</p>
<p>Yeah i wish we were seniors next year, thats when they are going to take a lot more people</p>
<p>yes, but it only mentioned phone calls to finalists… so the rest of us (realistically, I include myself in the non-finalist category) are left wondering, it seems. Hopefully there will be at least one person on CC who will get a phone call and let us know they actually went out haha.</p>
<p>From what I read, they said they had plans to gradually increase the number to an eventual goal of 75, so it would actually be better to be a senior much later in the future.</p>
<p>o.o Wait, I never even got this email that it would be “later in the day” today.</p>