@3scoutsmom thanks again. We can’t wait to visit the school in February!
Thanks for the good discussion on UTD. It’s my son’s first choice. We are going to NM Day on March 6th and he’ll confirm if all goes well with this second visit. In terms of scholarship, it sounds like the $3000 or $2500 NM or school scholarship stack (1/4 each year).
We visited UF on Monday and my daughter like it a lot, but when we were talking to the Anthropology staff they mentioned UCF has a good program also. (This was new information to us.) So now we are very late to the UCF game, I will be calling them today but just wondering if anyone knows if there are any more NM Days coming up there. And I remember seeing people talk about a Luke, but I don’t know how to contact him. (I wasn’t paying close attention, because I thought UCF was not a viable option.) Any information on UCF would be greatly appreciated.
@Icky19 you can contact Luke at Luke.VanBlaricom@ucf.edu. March 20 is National Merit Finalists weekend. If your D/S is a finalist you should/will get an invitation from UCF.
Does anyone know if you can be “rescinded” after being named a finalist due to second semester grades?
i think i saw something somewhere that at any time a school can contact national merit and report bad grades or bad behavior which could have negative consequences for the student. but i can’t find where i read that or any specifics or timeline.
We are remaining undecided because once you put a school down, they might award you that school’s sponsored scholarship—then if you change school choice, you lose the scholarship and are not considered for others through NMSC (still eligible for whatever the university offers NMF on its own). My husband’s corporate NMF scholarship is higher than the 2k the school sponsored ones are, so we are holding out hoping for that. Universities that offer major money for NMF if you put them as number one will offer the money as long as they are listed by MAY 31. HOWEVER, some have priority dates they want. For instance, my girl has been accepted to Northeastern. They want you to list them by April 2 so that they can have an updated merit award to you by matriculation date of May 1. BUT, if you don’t put it by April 2 and then later decide it’s where you are going, you still get the money as long as they are listed by May 31. I wish my girl was interested in any of the schools that offer full rides and then some, but growing up in the Northeast, there are so many amazing schools up here that she has heard about her whole life, and the schools she loves that aren’t in the northeast aren’t ones that offer NMF anything. Ugh!! It will ALL work out!
I have been trying to research the pros/cons of indicating a first choice college as well. This whole thing is very confusing! The school my D is most interested in offers NMF $1000 per year and they don’t indicate a specific deadline. A couple others offer $1000 or $2000 and one (Oberlin) considers NMF status when giving merit awards but they don’t indicate a specific amount or deadline. What I’ve wondered is if there is any potential benefit to naming a first choice college in terms of demonstrating interest in that specific school. My D visited and interviewed at Oberlin but did not have the opportunity to visit some of the other schools she’s interested in and missed the window to request an interview at one (Bowdoin). Does anyone have a sense for whether it could be important to a college to see if a student has listed them as a first choice? And would other colleges that the student has applied to know the student listed a school other than them? In other words, is it worth taking a potential risk of demonstrating interest to list a school or better to stay safe and remain undecided?
@CrazyCatMama when we have asked similar questions of both schools and NMSC, most schools have indicated that you have until that May 31 deadline, so after matriculation date, to list them as number one. Most DO require that you list them for the bump in merit as your final merit offering. But the NMSC and schools have stated their goal is for you to be able to maximize the benefit of being a NMF not hinder doing so, so I don’t think anyone counts the listing against you. Everyone has to know that money is part of the final decision with costs what they are these days! I hope this helps.
“on february 3, NMSC mails notifications to high school principals about the status of their Semifinalists …” but I assume there is a way for schools to find out on the same day instead of waiting on the snail-mails?
Nope. NMSC only uses snailmail. And, to add to that, last year, many Finalists found out from receiving the notice at their house because the schools wouldn’t tell them they had received anything or the school people hadn’t bothered opening/ finding the notifications/ certificates.
Does anyone know why NMSC notifies schools before students? I know that’s the way it’s done, but the whole process seems so backwards to me…sending out rejection letters first, then the schools, then the actual finalists. Why are finalists last to be notified? NMSC must know who the finalists are when they send out rejection letters - why not just notify everyone at once?
That adds at least another 10 days (adding snail-mail time) of waiting … I certainly am much better at this waiting game now, comparing with how I was when my kids just started their college and scholarship applications.
Thanks for the info @Reebtoor.
Agreed @ebh87
And for that matter, why, in this day and age, do they not do email notifications in addition to snail mail, or at least update portals or something.
I totally agreed. The whole process is just very dated.
I agree it is a rather messed up system. I think there should be a portal notification for the students at the very least. Mail, can and does, go astray and it is not fair to the student when that happens.
On top of that, our mail delivery is notoriously unreliable here. Neighbors deliver mails to neighbors is a norm here, plus quite a few lost their important mails.
@ATTX Yep, same here!
Agreed.
I think it was last year that a semi-finalist made it past the rejection letter phase without seeing a letter & thought he was safe. After no notification for Finalist, he found out his parents had tossed the rejection letter in a drawer & didn’t tell him, hoping to lower his stress level. Poor kid. Just lengthened his misery.
I hope NMSC will enter the digital age soon.
Does it mean if we haven’t received a rejection letter by now that my child will be a finalist.