<p>jc40, great story and great point, IMHO.</p>
<p>From what I have seen among top students going to honors colleges (usually Pitt or Schreyer)from our area, the problem is not academic challenge so much as social fit. Although large state schools can provide as large a cohort of talented peers as many (most?) elite LAC’s, the social atmosphere of the school as a whole can be geared towards a group with less intellectual interests. </p>
<p>This can be a problem, especially for more introverted and quirky students, or students interested in majors with small representation from the honors college. </p>
<p>And if the honors college attracts large numbers of students whose motivation in going that route and turning down more expensive options has been to save money for professional school, a pre-professional focus among such students might lead to loneliness for a student who does not plan to go to med school or law school.</p>
<p>We have also noticed that while many honors college grads have few problems getting into top grad schools, if that is what they want, they have more problems than comparable peers at elite schools when it comes to getting the attention of recruiters if they plan to go directly into the job market after graduation. This issue can be mitigated if they come from a family that is well-connected.</p>
<p>Ironically, students accepting a large merit offer to an honors college might find the academic fit - once honors courses, ready access to top professors in their field, ready access to academic advising, ample research opportunities, etc. are factored in - better than at elite schools that accepted them, and end up making their decision based on social fit.</p>
<p>Sorry - I meant “end up regretting their choice because of poor social fit at the honors college.”</p>
<p>Post by Jannalee:
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<p>I wonder the same thing. Also there was 10% of NMSF did not bother to complete the application for NMF (from the NMSC report). We only see about 50% of the picture here.</p>
<p>The reasons that approx 7000 do not advance to the final NMF designation are
the students SAT scores were not as high as the PSAT scores indicated they would be, or their grades were too low, or their essay was of poor quality, or they did not get their HS counselors recommendation .</p>
<p>“the students SAT scores were not as high as the PSAT scores indicated they would be”</p>
<p>Not necessarily. I have seen students with SAT 2300+ scores but did not get the award. I think it also depends on the number of NMSF on each school, the school location, the college choice, … besides the essay, the recommendation,…</p>
<p>There is some discussion about this here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1086274-if-i-report-first-choice-school.html?highlight=nmf[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1086274-if-i-report-first-choice-school.html?highlight=nmf</a></p>
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<p>NMSF look at a students grades too, as I mentioned above, not just their SAT scores, in determining who advances to NMF. If a students GPA was low, despite the high SAT score, they might not make the cut. That is why a students grades are included in the packet that counselors send to NMSF. All of the items I mentioned are factors, not just 1 or 2.</p>
<p>“I think it also depends on the number of NMSF on each school, the school location”
that has nothing to do with it. the number of NMSF can vary greatly at a school from year to year. there is no upper limit on the number of students in a state that can be designated NMSF. But as there is a finite limit to the amount of money available to be awarded to NMF’s, all of the determining factors listed above then come into play…</p>
<p>I don’t believe that kids admitted to HYPSMC had bad grades and bad counselor recs.</p>
<p>^^And many kids admitted to HYPMSC are listed as NMF’s in the figures on the left, in the report that I pasted a few pages back. They did not receive scholarshipsfrom those colleges because those colleges don’t give [sponsor] scholarships to NMF’s, but those same students were probably the recipients of the 2000 or so one time $2500 awards given directly to top students by NMF. </p>
<p>this is from NNSF:
“•National Merit® $2500 Scholarships
Every Finalist competes for these single payment scholarships, which are awarded on a state representational basis. Winners are selected without consideration of family financial circumstances, college choice, or major and career plans.”</p>
<p>and re this:</p>
<p>“Although officially, you can change your choice until May 31, in practicality, you only have until April 27. That is the date they start sending out the school offers. Once you’ve been made an offer, you can’t change schools.'”</p>
<p>Not true. Many students don’t even make up their minds about where they are going to college until the May 1 decision deadline, which all colleges have to recognize. Students have until Mid May to designate their FINAL college choice to NMF.</p>
<p>Now, some COLLEGES want students to make their choice early, and may put pressure on students to do so, but that does not affect the NMF deadline.</p>
<p>Every year there is confusion by both parents and students about NMF rules, deadlines, etc, etc. NMSF does not do a great job of clearly explaining their rules, and there have been many complaints over the years to them about this. But they are a private foundation and can decide what and how much to disclose to the public.</p>
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<p>You have not seen the level of obstructionist bureaucracy, catering to the lowest common denominator teaching, and the abject lack of resources for above-average…much less excellent students on our state/local university campuses that my HS classmates experienced. In their case, they were able to pull straight A+s without having to exert any effort whatsoever. Even with them taking the initiative to learn more advanced topics in their fields and others, they felt it wasn’t as optimal as if they were learning them in the company of classmates who are at/exceed their academic level/capabilities. It is also helpful to do this in learning environments where the professors are not inclined by the school culture to focus almost all of their attention on the slowest average or even undiagnosed remedial students who couldn’t cope with the standard intro college courses there. And nearly all of them were STEM majors…including one pre-med and a slew of CS/CE majors. </p>
<p>Thankfully, the city system has made great improvements after we all graduated, I still hear complaints about the low-level of rigor in the regular/honors sections from recent graduates of my high school and peer schools. Like my HS classmates, they’re also in the process of transferring out for this very reason. </p>
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<p>That wasn’t my experience at my private LAC and I personally never had a boring class during my undergrad career. If I wanted to take more advanced courses…even if I never took any prereqs, all I needed to do was to go to the professor’s office and have a discussion convincing him/her of my preparedness/willingness to prep up on my own. Friends at Barnard and other elite LACs/universities had similar experiences. </p>
<p>In every case, I was allowed to skip over the required intro or sometimes even the intermediate courses. Most larger private universities didn’t seem to allow as much flexibility in this area…and my state/city university systems downright refused to allow this altogether based on experiences of HS classmates and many colleagues who attended our state/city universities. As for private readings, they were practically unheard of there because most of the system’s resources/Professorial attention seemed to be geared toward the school’s average and remedial students. </p>
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<p>MIT Opencourseware didn’t exist when my high school classmates and I were attending college during the mid-late 1990s. The internet was still in its infancy and most students didn’t even have their own computers during my first year or two of college. Moreover, taking an online course in isolation is one thing…taking part, having discussions, and being with classmates who are at or exceed your intellectual level/capabilities is another. Most learning takes place among and with one’s college classmates. </p>
<p>As for myself, I had no issues since I attended a private LAC and felt the pace and rigor was manageable.</p>
<p>It seems to me that at our local high school, most National Merit awards come from a parent’s corporation rather than from either the National Merit Corporation OR the schools where students matriculate. Students who do not advance to NMS status most likely did not have a parent working for a corporation that gives awards or matriculate to a school that offers awards to finalists.</p>
<p>All right, I think the confusion comes from the difference between NMSF, NMF, and National Merit Scholar designations:</p>
<p>Semifinalists are selected on a state representative basis based on PSAT scores. Semifinalists advance to become finalists based on grades, guidance counselor recommendation, and essay, and virtually every semifinalist does so as long as he/she has reasonable SAT/GPA. </p>
<p>Finalists advance to Scholar status if they actually receive any sort of monetary award from either the college they attend, private organizations (if their parents work at the organization or if their career goals or geographic area matches the award criteria of an organization), or the 2500 $2500 one time scholarship from National Merit Corporation that is given on a state representative basis. </p>
<p>The tables everyone brings up shows the number of National Merit Scholars at a given college. The selection of corporate organization Scholars has to do with whether the student has a parent working at the corporation or whether he/she hold specific career interests, and the university awarded Scholars are the students who choose to attend a college that awards scholarship to National Merit finalists. As a result, universities like U of Alabama, WUSTL, etc have a high number of National Merit Scholars. By giving money to NMF, the finalists automatically become Scholars. </p>
<p>The $2500 scholarships are given on a state representation basis, like the process for semifinalist. For NMSF, a 202 on the PSAT makes the cutoff as some states, whereas in MA, for instance, you need a 223 at least. Because Scholars are also decided in a similar fashion, the same concept applies.</p>
<p>No, those who attend colleges that don’t give National Merit Scholarship don’t all get the $2500 scholarship, no matter how high their GPA and SAT score. </p>
<p>This is why the number of National Merit Scholars is a poor criterion for judging the intellectual rigor of the student body. It strongly disfavors colleges that do not award National Merit Scholarship to attract students and the colleges that tend to enroll students from states that have high average PSAT scores, like the northeastern coastal states of MA, NJ, NY, etc. or states on the west coast like California.</p>
<p>
Since my daughter went to Barnard, and had some classes with profs she felt were inept (at teaching)* & some classes she felt were a waste of time, I know those classes are there. Obviously the classes look good on paper, or else she wouldn’t have signed up for them. She actually fought to get into one class that was full up – as she wanted the class very badly – and then ended regretting that because of dissatisfaction with the quality of the teaching and with the level of discussion in class. </p>
<p>Obviously this was not the dominant experience – there were a handful of weak classes and a handful of very strong ones (amazing prof, stimulating discussions, etc.) – and most others were somewhere in between. But that was my experience at the UC as well, my son’s experience at his LAC. My son’s CSU experience is harder to categorize because of the exceptional academic opportunity he was offered, relative to his major – but something which is only offered to a tiny number of CSU students – so while it was good for my son, it would be harder to generalize across the board. But then again, if there are only a very limited number of prize offerings at a given school, when it comes to getting them, it kind of helps to be in a situation of being academically at the top of the heap. Had the same opportunity been offered at a more competitive university, perhaps my son would have lost out to a more competitive applicant. As a culminating academic experience… I think my son’s pretty much ranks at the top for our family. </p>
<p>*Note re “inept”: it is very possible for a person to be brilliant and accomplished within their academic field, but simply have poor communication skills and make for a very poor teacher. One year one of the faculty members at Columbia was awarded a nobel prize in economics, and I decided to check out the student reviews of his classes – and they were all quite negative, describing the lectures as monotonous and boring. Was the man a brilliant economist? Probably. Was he a good teacher? Apparently not. </p>
<p>I similarly remember my chemistry teacher’s lectures as being utterly boring, even though the content matter was quite difficult – but I never doubted the man’s competence as a chemist. He just was a terrible lecturer, who probably was bored himself at having to teach the basics to incoming freshmen. I went to a top law school - same experience there. (My sense is that it becomes a particular problem with the introductory level classes that everyone needs to take, but perhaps many highly accomplished profs wish they didn’t have to teach). </p>
<p>I think that one difference between the top schools and those lower on the selectivity chain is that you aren’t going to find any boring Nobel prize winners on the faculty on the lower end. I suppose it is a saving grace at the top college to know that, even though a particular prof. can’t manage to explain his subject in a coherent fashion, he or she is actually well regarded in his field. At the lower end of the spectrum… a bad teacher or boring prof is simply bad & boring … you don’t even get the compensating factor of later being able to impress people with the fact that you studied under Professor Famous.</p>
<p>You can be a National Merit Finalist without getting a monetary award. </p>
<p>Student has 225+ PSAT, is named NMF, does not get one of the National Merit Corporation $2500 one-time awards, does not qualify for a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship, and chooses to attend a college that does not award school-sponsored National Merit Scholarships. Such schools would include Harvard, MIT, Penn, etc.</p>
<p>In our state, residents who make NMF automatically qualify for a $3,000/year Distinguished Scholar award to attend any school, public or private, in our state. Our flagship only gives out a very limited number of school-sponsored awards. It is entirely possible that a NMF in our state will not get NMF money, but will get $12,000, which is clearly a much sweeter deal. </p>
<p>My DH – made NMF, got no NMF $ from Wharton.</p>
<p>That’s a major reason why NMF is NOT a guarantee you’ll see $$ out of the deal. Has no bearing on the quality of a student’s apps. In previous years, 15,000 out of 16,000 NMSFs move to the finalist category. Of those, ~57% actually got NMF money.</p>
<p>"You can be a National Merit Finalist without getting a monetary award. "
did someone say there was a guarantee of $$ to all NMF’s?
“does not get one of the National Merit Corporation $2500 one-time awards, does not qualify for a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship, and chooses to attend a college that does not award school-sponsored National Merit Scholarships”
That may be a reason that some students [ like my son] who are accepted to colleges that don’t sponsor NMF’s [ 2 Ivys], decide to go to a college that does[ USC]. Money can be a big factor in the final decision of where a student chooses to go.</p>
<p>re:
“Has no bearing on the quality of a student’s apps”
I question that part- 2000 top NMF’s receive no strings attached $2500 scholarships. . In 2008 there were over 1800 NMF’s at non sponsoring colleges [ all were Ivys or highly selective colleges]. I would be very surprised if most of those unsponsored NMF’s were not the recipients of the $2500 scholarships, which only go to the very tip top NMF’s [there are only 1000 corporate scholarships]. I believe there is a very strong correlation between the overall exceptional academic quality of the 2000 winners of the $2500 one time scholarships, and the large numbers - 1800- of unsponsored NMF’s at the Ivys and other highly selective colleges[ S, MIT,CalTech, etc.
Hey, my son was a NMS and he did not win one of those $2500 awards- he would have recieved zip [$0] had he gone to Brown, or Dartmouth. But as smart as he is, he was not a 4.0, 2400 student. So he made a choice and followed the money and was lucky enough to have those choices…</p>
<p>^ I believe there is a strong correlation too. However the issue here is almost half of the NMFs are not accounted in the list of the awardees.</p>
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<p>Re post #231
That may be the experience at a good LAC, although it was not my son’s experience. The problem my son ran into was that the strict limitations on class size at his small LAC meant that many of the classes he wanted to take filled up and were closed to him, and in the end he had to take some classes he really didn’t want to fill out his schedule. .</p>
<p>My public university experience and my law school experience was that for the most part, the college classmates were at best peers who were learning along side me, and that a good deal of learning took place through interaction with faculty, internships, and interaction with older students (either older nontraditional students or grad students). I know that even though my d’s college was technically a LAC, her overall experience was similar because of the urban setting and large university experience – her closest friends tended to be older students*, and she formed strong relationships with some of the faculty and with grad student TA’s, and in the end her self-arranged internship experience was probably the dominant learning experience of the 4 years. (By “older” I don’t simply mean a 20-year-old junior – I mean the older nontraditional students who were on my d’s campus by virtue of Columbia GS.)</p>
<p>It may be a matter of area of interest. My kids are both poli sci majors, with my d. focused on international relations – and I was pre-law. In that arena, all of the action is really taking place off campus. A kid with that set of interests might be far happier attending American U. (not noted for its intellectualism) than, say, Dartmouth (not noted for its local internship opportunities). </p>
<p>So when I talk about the pros and cons of various environment, that is one thing I see that is missing when others rave about their LAC experiences. It may be more of a LAC vs. large university dynamic, rather than related to selectivity and ranking. But to me there are positives and negatives about each environment, and I personally would not have wanted to study in a homogeneous environment where all my classmates were roughly the same age. I’m a person who has always scored very high on IQ tests as well as SAT tests, but I felt that there is lot of value in life experience and accumulated wisdom. (The older I get, the more I feel that) So when you make a statement along the above lines (most learning comes from one’s classmates) … that’s not a selling point for me. </p>
<p>Maybe that’s a different reaction some very smart individuals have to their childhood experiences. Whereas some kids crave the social milieu of same-age peers with similar intellectual prowess and interests, others may simply have become accustomed to seeking out a wider array of friendships and opportunities, including friendships with many older or working people. I certainly saw that with my daughter. When a person has spent their childhood and teenage years engaging largely with adults - that whole LAC/peer group thing can actually seem rather horrifying. That is, not a liberating experience of finally meeting people who are on a similar intellectual level, but a disconcerting experience of being forced to sit at the kids’ table after many years of being allowed to join the adults. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that one is bad and one is good. Again, there are pros and cons of each situation. But one thing I see in some of the discussion among the boosters of the elite schools is a monolithic, inflexible viewpoint (all good vs. all bad) – which is expressed when people who have never attended a public university voice various stereotypes about how bad things are there, based largely on their own internal biases coupled with what they’ve heard and gleaned from people who were dissatisfied and left (or wanted to leave). </p>
<p>And to me that doesn’t speak well of the elite learning environment – it kind of betrays a simplistic viewpoint, and a weak link in the critical thought process – the part that is missing is failure to recognize and account for the bias of the reporter. If you wanted an accurate portrayal of a college or university - at any level – then you would need to talk to a cross-section of students, including those who were satisfied` with their experiences. </p>
<p>My own experience at a public u. is that there was a lot of red tape, bureaucracy, and rules, and part of the process was learning how to get around the system. One aspect of that is being stubborn and persistent – another is learning that it is easier to get forgiveness than ask for permission. When you write about “obstructionist bureaucracy” and a “school culture” of focusing all the attention on “undiagnosed remedial students” – you are basing that on the point of view of the malcontents, not the middle-ground students who muddled their way through, and not the successful kids who saw lemons and made lemonade. It’s like basing all your intelligence about a foreign government on the reports of an expatriate informant called “Curveball” … if you are hearing what you want to hear, then there’s a tendency to buy the story in its entirety.</p>
<p>“However the issue here is almost half of the NMFs are not accounted in the list of the awardee-” </p>
<p>Nowhere does it say that ALL NMF’S are awarded scholarships! “Being considered
for Merit Scholarship® awards” does not mean you will WIN one or be awarded one.
There is only so much $$ available! NMSF has money they provide for the 2000- $2500 awards, their corporate sponsors provide $$ for the 1000 or so Corporate sponsored scholarships and the colleges who do sponsor NMF’s decide WHO they want to sponsor- that usually adds up to about 4900 students.
So as CountingDown related above, you can be one of the 15000 NM Finalists-[finalist is not the same as winner] and not become a Scholar for the 3 reasons he posted-
" does not get one of the National Merit Corporation $2500 one-time awards, does not qualify for a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship, and chooses to attend a college that does not award school-sponsored National Merit Scholarships. "</p>
<p>From NMF
“National Merit Scholarships
Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2011.
Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships that will be
awarded on a state representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 250 corporations and business organizations for
Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 200 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.”</p>