Anybody from Fairfax County, Virginia having trouble getting their letter? The County schools’ press release naming semifinalists came out on the 9th, but at our school no letters (or other recognition) have surfaced. We wrote to the GC who is unaware of when and how they are being distributed but promised to get back to us. I am wondering whether the County schools are handling this directly.
@ChicagoMom62 Here’s the Illinois list for anyone who wants it https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCkQFjABahUKEwj3z8TttPnHAhXIuB4KHbq0AKI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fadc.d211.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F02%2F2016-Ill-Natl-Merit-Semifinalists.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEBhQ8759H2yKYndoxwsFpvcTIiVw&sig2=WWAOOB-LIlSAMDOibiVIdw&cad=rja
Did anyone ever find the MA list?
@curious2learn, the author is hard at work on Part 2. I hope to publish in the next day or so.
Here is Part 2 of the National Merit features on our site: What parents need to do, and know. http://publicuniversityhonors.com/2015/09/15/the-national-merit-journey-part-two-the-parents-role/
@uniwatcher – somewhat off-topic, but I’ve loved the website for years. My sister who teaches at a top twenty private university told us when our older son was applying to school how the best fit for a lot of kids is at an honors college of a public university. Although he didn’t go that route we found your website immensely helpful. I’ve recommended it to lots of other parents and have posted the link on various threads here on CC.
Thanks.
What is the deadline date for sending in SAT scores since I plan to take one in November?
@AsleepAtTheWheel, thanks for the compliment! One thing many people don’t realize is that there really are not enough places at “elite” private schools for all the smart kids in this nation. Honors colleges and programs provide some additional places, often at much lower cost. Even US News is getting the message, although their piece overdoes the “VIP” treatment. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2015/09/15/public-college-honors-programs-give-students-vip-treatment
@wandlmink The letter the principal/GC recieves is supposed to have information so they can log on and print NMSF letters for their students that qualified. They have to print those and give them to your student. If that doesn’t happen, or if they say they did not get the information, you can call the National Merit office and ask for their help.
My daughter FINALLY got her semi-finalist letter from the guidance counselor yesterday. I saw that my husband’s company is on the list of corporate sponsors, so I was googling that this morning to get more info, and I found this information about Special Scholarships for 1200 students who are “outstanding but not Finalists.” Maybe that’s old news, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it and might be good for some kids who missed the cutoff by one or two points in some of the high-cutoff states. Just passing it along in case it’s something people aren’t aware of, though you probably are aware of it, because you all seem to know way more about this stuff than I do! 
@SE1619, my understanding of the Special Scholarships is the corporate sponsors can decide to give money to commended students or semifinalists who do not progress to finalist, and it would usually be only for students from the corporate sponsor’s community or children of employees. My understanding, though, is that that they are always or nearly always given to children of employees of the sponsor corporation.
I’ve never actually heard of anyone getting one that was not a finalist. Our local paper, which rarely publicizes National Merit, put a big article in last year naming a student who got a corporate NM scholarship and another student who got a NMSC scholarship. It was sort of odd, since so many other local kids had NM scholarships and were not mentioned.
Our school said it won’t announce NMSFs until letters for commended students come in - then the school will announce them all at once.
When do letters for commended come out?
Edit: late September apparently per the website - answered my own question.
does the school know that the semifinalists have to have everything turned back in to NM corp by Oct 7th? announcing at end of sept seems very late and not at all what is supposed to happen.
@Stanton2016 thankfully they went ahead and gave us the packet - we got everything done. They aren’t announcing to the school who got NMSF until commended letters come in though because they want to announce NMSF and commended together (oh well).
Finally got my letter this week at school. Just a call to the GC office and a congratulations, no announcement.They didn’t even announce the commended people and we had a lot at my school. I really feel badly for those that just missed it. My GC wants me to finish everything a week earlier than the deadline so they can review. I pretty much logged on and finished quickly but definitely got an impression from the application. There was very little room for extra-curricular activities and even less space to list honors/awards, even when I abbreviated everything. So I am thinking for their finalists decisions these things aren’t weighted a lot. Would everyone agree that your essay, school recommendation, and grades are what they base their decisions on?
@longdog let us hope so!
Is there an official list of the cutoff scores for each state this year? I’m currently a semifinalist; I live in Florida and got a 215. In the past I think FL cutoff scores have been between 210 and 214, so I’m curious to see how narrowly I made it this year.
See post #1235. I think those numbers have been confirmed and Florida was 214.
How is everyone working around the low character limit on the NMSF application–for example, 62 characters on the activities section?
@helpfulandtrying, just do your best with the character limit. It really is not going to make a difference in the application. They can’t put much weight on 62 characters.
On the other hand, if there is something you absolutely want to get across on your application, and you just can’t do it justice with the character limit, and you aren’t going to discuss it in your essay, then you can ask your GC (or whomever is going to write your rec letter) to mention it. Otherwise, don’t worry about it.