Thank you for the info and the reassurance!
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No idea what is going on with Phase II of the HSF process as they keep extending the deadlines for the required documents portion and the recommender portion. What started as 4/29 has been extended for the 3rd or 4th time and is now 5/27 and 6/3. (The other two portions which don’t show up anymore I assume are closed). So clearly, there will not be selections made in June.
Wow. That is strange!
My hunch is that something is very wrong with their automated system and records tracking. My daughter’s recommender complete the evaluation mid-April. It shows as submitted on the portal, just as it did mid-April. Yet D is getting emails saying she needs to get ‘at least one’ academic evaluation in and they extended her deadline.
She reached out and got some alternate instructions from HSF on how the teacher can do so. (You can’t just re-add them and ask them to do it again because the student-facing system gives an error that the teacher has already completed the requirement… The teacher has to create a duplicate Educator account and start from scratch, as if she never did it in the first place…)
It will be interesting / messy if at the end of all these delays a decent chunk of applicants get disqualified for ‘missing items’ that are not really missing… OK, done venting. Don’t mean to sound so ungrateful as I know this organization helps many!
That happened exactly to my son.
As a point of clarification, does it say “submitted” or “accepted”? Still wonder if that means, the teacher accepted the action, or the portal accepted the LoR. My daughter’s says “accepted” under Recommender. Well actually it says completed at the top, then “already submitted” and finally “accepted”.
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Thanks for helping with any troubleshooting, here is what we see:
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For Phase II - Recommender heading it says “Completed” in a blue oval.
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Then, above the name of the recommended it says “Already Submitted.” (The status of already submitted apparently makes it impossible for the teacher to just resubmit it… Even though HSF can’t see it on their end, the system believes that it is in fact already there… Hence the file being in a state of limbo)
That is exactly what we see, except for next to the name of the recommender there is another blue oval that says “accepted” inside of it.
Then of course at the bottom it says “add another”
Graduation was 3 days ago, so the chances of tracking down any teachers at this point is slim, if she needs to. 
We are missing that ‘accepted’, so you should be fine.
But seriously, were it not for you telling me it is even possible for an ‘accepted’ to show up, there is no indication on my D’s screen that anything is wrong. In any other setting, the word ‘completed’ would mean completed…
Thanks and we’ll see if her teacher submits at this point, set an email two days ago. We too have run out of time to chase this down with school ending.
Happy Memorial Weekend Gang
We are working on finishing list of colleges to apply to this summer. Looking for some more input from students heading off this year. What were your real life offers in regards to CBNRP?
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My daughter only applied to 4 colleges based on her major and location. She was accepted at all and received scholarships from all. The only one of the 4 that recruited and offered scholarships based on CBNRP was Texas A&M.
She has received $9,000 for freshman year and $6,000 for each additional year from them. It is an automatic $6K per year for CBRNP. Additionally, they do send out email invites for events/visits to targeted students. I’m not sure who is targeted exactly and based on what criteria but if you get an invite, register fast, because they have a limited number of spaces for each of the events. They are invitation only and they cap at like 80 or so and then it is closed. At the ones we went to they covered hotel, parking, swag, and meals.
The summer “parent program” was most expenses paid (everything except transportation) and she was one of two who received a $500 scholarship. The L.E.A.D Summit was most expenses paid too and she was one of 10 who received a $2500 scholarship.
She also received an invite to a summer Texas A&M send off party at Main Event in our local area for DFW incoming freshmen in a few weeks and they will be giving out prizes and scholarships there too. My daughter is going.
The events that give out these scholarships are the ones hosted by the Texas A&M local prospective student centers, Texas A&M Black Former Student Network, and the Texas A&M Hispanic Network.
Not CBNRP but my daughter found out at her high school senior award ceremony last week that she received a $1,000 Coca Cola Scholarship! 
*We are in state. The TAMU OOS scholarship is a little different: $4,000 + Out of State Tuition Waiver per year.
A&M funds the CBNRP scholarships as well as other programs to increase diversity of student body. The money to “expand the student pipeline” mentionned in the article below is behind the recruitment efforts described above. This article shows how much money goes to CBNRP scholarships and other programs aimed to increase enrollment of underrepresented students.
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I just discovered this thread. My son did not receive a college board invite for National Recognition but I’m almost positive qualifies as rural/ small town (confirmed on linked pdf way above on this thread, although that’s from 2020), and he definitely meets GPA criteria and his test score I think should be good enough, he’s probably going to miss the semi finalist cutoff but he got 1440 on PSAT in October. So since we discovered this really late, my son can self nominate I guess, what else is involved? Do we have to try to get a teacher or counselor recommendation? Please help! My son is interested in Alabama anyway, and this could potentially add on to already great merit scholarship.
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My daughter didn’t self-nominate and we don’t remember much about the application, so I’m afraid I can’t be of much help, but this is from this thread in May 2021:
I think your son can start a new application by following that link and see what it’s all about. If in doubt, look in this thread for some College Board emails/phone numbers and ask your questions. This year the University of Alabama offered my daughter a generous scholarship related to this recognition. Looks like your son still has 13 days left to apply (deadline is June 15). Good luck!
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Since 1520 is the highest you can get on the PSAT, are you sure your son didn’t qualify to apply for National Merit Scholar? I think you have to be in the top 1-2% but his score sounds very solid. He should definitely self-nominate for the rural/small town recognition and can definitely qualify for great merit at Alabama. I think the rural/small town recognition is treated the same as the minority (Hispanic and African American) recognition when it comes to colleges who award merit. My son qualifies for the National Hispanic recognition but has zero interest in Alabama. He said he doesn’t want a party school and is skeptical about being a minority in a red state. It’s too bad because I know they have a great honors program and are super generous with merit for his stats. Luckily, he has some other good options including some local SUNY colleges so it’s all good! Best of luck!
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My son is all in on Bama and their Engineering program, especially after our visit. The campus is beautiful. I spoke with them last week and they said they will post any changes to the amounts on NRP scholarships and other scholarships at the end of July. My son will qualify for the Honors college which is great as they get to pick classes 2 weeks before everyone else and they have access to Honors College tutoring if needed. The current offering is 4 years out of state tuition first year of housing, and $1k/year for for years.
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you have to give it to alabama. The state wants to increase the education levels & workforce there; and has the opportunity to attract smart sharp kids with merit-based scholarships because of the success of its athletics programs. The school is diverse, with kids from every state. I think there’s a majority percentage of kids who attend who live out of state. The southern hospitality charm, mild weather, school spirit and beautiful campus are all bonuses.
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It wasn’t on our radar for my oldest but we are definitely going to check it out for my youngest.
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Alabama Tuscaloosa was in the top 5 schools on my daughter’s list the entire time because of the generous scholarship they offered. We visited the school during spring break. The personalized tour was amazing. We did not expect to be so impressed by the beautiful campus, engineering building, and honors dorms. My daughter is not interested in sports, parties or Greek life. However, the engineering students she talked to during the tour made her feel like she could find her group there. In the end, she decided not to attend Alabama because she had other options and went with a smaller school, but it was definitely nice to have Alabama with its automatic scholarship early in the application process (applied Nov 2 and was admitted Nov 21).
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Thanks all! My son will likely be NM commended but not make cutoff for semi finalist in our state as his selection index is 214, projected range for his class is 215-218, we will know for sure in a few months I guess. He completed the self nomination, so hopefully that works! It doesn’t seem like there are a ton of additional scholarships, but it adds a bit more at his current top choice (Alabama), so worth a shot! Hopefully any changes for next admission cycle don’t devalue the scholarships!
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I will be shocked if they continue to offer that level of generous support to all applicants that qualify for NRP. They will either make it competitive and award it to the top applicants or reduce the value. I had a chat with out local rep and she said exactly what has been stated by @jcastotx that new guidelines will come out in August.
My son and wife are both reluctant to attend school so far away plus the intrinsic bias of being in a deep red state but the school has not been completely ruled out as of now.
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