Just received a letter from Amherst congratulating me...

<p>on being a National Achievement Scholar. Should I take this with a grain of salt? It was my understanding that notification for NAS doesn't even go out until late February.</p>

<p>Take is with a grain of salt. All it means that they were notified by NM that you made semi-finalist. My D has been getting letters like this since October-November. She received one from Cornell, State Universities of NC and Arizona to name just a few.</p>

<p>You probably listed Amherst as one of the schools you are interested in.</p>

<p>Regardless, according to what info is out there, as long as you submitted all required documentation and your SAT scores are good enough, you have a pretty good chance to become a finalist. Can’t be 100% sure, since we are waiting for a decision as well. I called NM today and they told me that the decision should be coming out the last week of January or the first week of February.</p>

<p>Good luck to you!</p>

<p>I don’t know the NA timeline, but I know that the NMSF/F timeline works like this…</p>

<p>Rejection letters go out around Jan 9th. If you haven’t gotten a rejection letter by about January 21, you know you’ve made it. Official notifications occur in Feb.</p>

<p>Perhaps NA works similarly. :)</p>

<p>Congrats! Did you apply to Amherst?</p>

<p>Okay, I feel a little thrill of hope. I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed that they won’t send me another letter saying “Whoops - we only meant semifinalist.”</p>

<p>Thank you though! Amusingly enough, I applied ED to Williams, though I have my RD app for Amherst ready. We’ll see if I’ll have to send that one in. :p</p>