<p>has anyone gotten any national achievement letters yet?</p>
<p>My daughter finally got hers today here in Ohio. They passed them out in their last period class- didn’t even call them to the guidance office. So, what is the actual chance of making it to semi-finalist? The letter says that about 16,000 of the more than 50,000 who received the letter will be named semi-finalists in the fall. That seems tough!</p>
<p>linnylu, </p>
<p>The “chance” of making it to semifinalist has to do with the PSAT score itself – search the threads to see what the Ohio cutoff has been, apparently it can waver a few points above or below that each year. If above the cutoff (and you’ll find out for sure in the fall), then your d will be a semifinalist, if below, she will be a commended scholar.</p>
<p>From semi- to finalist there are some hoops to jump through. About 15000 make it on to finalist status, and then to the scholarships, the numbers seem to show that a little over half of the finalists actually get some scholarships directly related to their NMF status (which means several thousand finalists do not get any money that way…but they may certainly receive other scholarships not directly related to National Merit.)</p>
<p>The important thing to note is that there are many schools which give a 4 year full ride (or close to full ride) scholarship to National Merit finalists who name that college as their first choice school. </p>
<p>If your student wants to go to one of those universities, then whether they end up getting any actual scholarship money from the National Merit Society itself is not really significant.</p>
<p>There also seems to be quite a number of schools which give good money to semi-finalists.</p>
<p>So I’m pretty sure I’m getting a letter (236 in Washington) but my counselor doesn’t know anything about a letter. What should I do?</p>
<p>I would advise you to call the school principal’s secretary. I called the guidance councilor at my D’s school and they knew nothing about it. I told them I talked to NMS and they sent the letter dated April 12th, and sent it to the school principal, they transferred me to the principal’s secretary (or admin) and two hours later my daughter had the letter.</p>
<p>D got letter today saying she will find out in sept if she is chosen as finalist. Going back to read all the comments b/c I dont know anything about
it.</p>
<p>Gluckie, does it say when the deadline is for informing them of the two school choices?</p>
<p>I misspoke…meant will find out in sept if she is a semifinalist…not up on nms terminology. In any case, the letter says resp deadline is May 25.</p>
<p>I received a National Merit letter in my home mail today (not from my guidance counselor), but I am not home-schooled. I know for sure that my score is high enough for National Achievement. Are letters sent out for that? If so, should I call the corporation since for some reason the Merit letter was sent to my home address?</p>
<p>Never mind. I just went ahead and called. They said they do not send out letters for National Achievement at this stage because it is a much smaller program, but there is still the notification in the fall, just like the National Merit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Based on your state and the PSAT scores, you can make a very good guess of your chances by looking at previous years lists. The cut offs do not vary very much from year to year.</p>
<p>216 in CA, so I’m looking at commended?</p>
<p>In any case, I’d love your guys’ input on which colleges to name. I’m thinking:</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>University of Chicago</li>
</ol>
<p>My college counselor said Ivys could give a s*** whether or not we were recognized, but according to the College Board, Princeton DOES consider the level of a candidate’s interest.</p>
<p>Princeton and UChicago are my top choices right now, but I’m also interested in Rice and am looking at College of William & Mary, Franklin & Marshall, Trinity, and Bard as possible fits.</p>
<p>Thoughts? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>In general, how does one know if a particular school recognizes NMS intent? The above poster said some Ivys don’t care, so where do we get this info?
Thanks.</p>
<p>Ivys don’t care in that they’re already picking from the best of the best, so there’s no point in having National Merit tell them you did well on your PSAT. Everyone looking at Harvard is a good student, so that’s not particularly impressive. There should be a list of schools that recognize finalists on the National Merit website.</p>
<p>OK, so we need to figure out the commended cutoff. If your score is in the 200-204 range, please post if you did or did not receive the notification.</p>
<p>Fireflyscout - are you talking about the cut offs for each state re: the very first letter they send out? (the one that says you are among the highest-scoring 50,000 students of some 1.5 million…?) If so, the cut off list is in the first part of this thread…somebody posted a link to the list. If not, ignore this post. ;)</p>
<p>It’s an old list, but somebody said it stays pretty much the same each year.</p>
<p>Please note I said COMMENDED cutoff, not semifinalist.</p>
<p>I scored a 230 in CO and still haven’t gotten a letter yet…</p>
<p>Don’t despair! My son only brought home his letter today (we live outside of new york city)</p>