Essay was cut off on the form -- is there hope?

Paying for College National Merit Aid
1

<p>With help from her guidance counselor, my daughter carefully prepared all of her forms. Her heart sunk when she realized that her essay was cut off when it was submitted online. Apparently what you see on the screen is not necessarily what gets loaded onto the PDF. A good portion of her essay was not submitted for consideration.</p>

<p>I'm not terribly concerned about her making finalist, as she has plenty of other credentials. I'm hoping that a cut-off essay isn't an automatic decline. But I am concerned that the half-missing essay will keep her from getting one of the $2,000 scholarships.</p>

<p>Is there any hope of being able to fix this problem with her essay? </p>

<p>For everyone out there: check your formatting on the screen and on the PDF! You can't be too careful with something so important.</p>

2

<p>I would call the NMFC.</p>

<p>How long was the essay? How much space do you think the form allows?</p>

<p>Please let us know if you are allowed to get this resolved. I hpe they will work with you.</p>

3

<p>Yes, call NMCorp.</p>

<p>Also, you may need the GC to call and plead the case since she participated in the error.</p>

4

<p>I wouldn’t put any blame on the guidance counselor. There are a large number of kids, and I’m sure they were given good instructions. My daughter submitted the paperwork from home. I did suggest to my daughter though to let the guidance counselor know, in case she can help and/or she hears from NMSC.</p>

5

<p>The preview function lets you see how much of the essay will be seen - anything in the orangy-pink area will be lost. DD did not see the preview option at first and had to do a quick last minute edit to get the last few words in.</p>

<p>This is not well explained in the NMCorp instructions. I think calling NMCorp is in order - but do it soon.</p>

6

<p>How many words are you guys “getting in” ???</p>

<p>DD has 534. We want to know if it will “fit” …</p>

7

<p>The easiest way to tell is to go online to her application and have her paste it in, then pick the option (upper right corner, I think) to preview it (might say something like look at in .pdf format or something, I am not in the application right now). It will show you the essay against a page, and the bottom part of the page is colored. If the essay goes into that part of the page, it is too long.</p>

<p>My D’s is 334 words, and has some extra space when we do that. She is looking at expanding it a bit to get a few more thoughts in.</p>

8

<p>I wasn’t suggesting that you blame the GC. What I meant is that is that if you can’t get anywhere with NMCorp, then have the GC call. She probably will want to help.</p>

9

<p>I talked to someone at the office today, and she said that essays can not be re-submitted. Oh well, we’ll hope for the best.</p>