<p>I have 4 grades under B- in math alone, but that's per quarter and that's literally IT. Now I'm getting Bs in Trig and As in everything else. It's just so arbitrary!!</p>
<p>I really need to stop coming to this thread, it just makes me angry. :p Oh national merit...</p>
<p>FWIW: my d's gc checked (today) and senior mid-year grades are not sent for NMF consideration.</p>
<p>I haven't received any letter yet, but if the 4 grades below B- thing is true then I'm screwed. I have 3 C+ in 9th grade and 1 C in 11th.</p>
<p>216 PSAT (i know, my state's cutoff is lower than most), 2140 SAT, 3.4 uw gpa overall. And I think my essay was pretty average.</p>
<p>I thought most people made it; isn't it 16,000 semifinalists and 15,000 finalists? It seems really weird that people on here who have 3.8's and 3.9's are rejected.</p>
<p>Since the commendable and NMSF were selected giving all states representation, does anyone know if the NMF group is also distributed by state/population or however that worked?</p>
<p>Just curious and thinking maybe the standards for gpa and sat are higher in the states where the PSAT cutoffs are higher....just a thought! Hope so...we are in a lower cutoff state.</p>
<p>^^ Those are weighted 3.8s and 3.9s. NMF apparently does not weight for rigor of curriculum at all. Do any of the denied students care to share their unweighted GPAs, which may be more enlightening toward a general trend?</p>
<p>I calculated it one day on the standard scale and I think it was 3.5. School only does weighted - like I said, it's weird.</p>
<p>They should definitely weight for rigor though! That's a bit chintzy, I think. No, chintzy's not the right word. It's.... goofy.</p>
<p>We don't get our unweighted GPAs, but my school is scaled on 4.5 anyway. I have 2 Bs, 1 B+, and 1 C+ on my transcript--the 2 Bs are both from freshman year, the C+ is from math last year, and everything else is an A or A+. I'm assuming it's because my school gives grades by quarter and my math grades last year for each quarter weren't pretty. It still sucks that one class can mess you up, though. I feel like, just from what this thread says, they did get a bit stricter.</p>
<p>And my curriculum is the most rigorous available, though one of the other SFs went to a special middle school and thus had classes like AP Physics C and Calc BC junior year. But the I've taken the same level of difficulty as the other two, and more APs than either of them.</p>
<p>I'm done dwelling on this. What happened, happened. It's puzzling, but as long as it's not an indicator of deeper issues, I'm going to be okay. I don't think any of my schools give merit aid to finalists.</p>
<p>Well, now I'm feeling foolish saying I'm "waiting for my NMF package". It sounds like I might not get it. Has anyone called to find out if they changed things? It sounds like a lot more than 1000 won't make it. I thought it was pretty much a sure thing. Can't imagine that they would change the rules w/o announcing them. They give out the same number of scholarships, regardless of who is selected for finalist so why would the economy change things? I only have two semester B+s both in APUSH), but I think I have a couple of B+ that I managed to turn to As for the semester. Now it looks like quarter grades count? I don't even think our school gives quarter grades on the transcripts. Did the school send a transcript, or was it a hand-written form with grades? And our mail is so slow- I may get The Letter next week. This is so lame!</p>
<p>RhineandRoses, the thread clearly states grades under B-MINUS. I think you're okay.</p>
<p>No magneticpoet, I think they do not all say the B- is the common factor. Look at the initial posts. Some with high GPAs got The Letter. It just all seems kind of odd that this many people on CC alone were eliminated. I kinda thought CCers were a bit more on top of things than the general public??? But I'm going to take you're opinion and assume I'll be okay unless I find out something else I'm tired of worrying about stuff i can't control anyway. Now I sound like my mom. I just need to get through semester finals and quit looking at these ^&%^*&!!!! posts!</p>
<p>This is definitely a weird year for NMFs. I believe a previous poster went through last year's thread and people with a few C's and B-'s were accepted.</p>
<p>What kinds of courses were all of these students taking? That has to make some kind of difference.</p>
<p>Well, with my 3.45 GPA I have taken 5 AP's including senior year, plus a couple of honors math and writing courses earlier in HS. I have a number of B-'s I believe, which sucks considering at our school a B- = B = B+ as far as GPA goes, not sure how it works at other schools. I've probably had 3 C's though, all in AP, but I'm too lazy to check my transcript. I'd hope the C's plus the comparatively low scores (217/2100) had more of an impact than the B-'s. I'd be incredibly disappointed if I was rejected based on B-'s.</p>
<p>I know they won't look at grades to determine finalist status but if they are rejecting dd because of a "downward trend", shouldn't they recognize the one lower semester was followed by two strong semesters? dd has unweighted 4.0 this semester taking classes she could have taken last year but got closed out of...they have block scheduling and she got two really rough classes in the same semester. Still sending the letter, feels better than doing nothing.</p>
<p>This is all very surprising, as I was not rejected and am worse than many here. I have 3.5 uw with very downward trend and 4 semester grades in the C range. Hopefully I don't get the letter still, and if I don't I guess I'll just consider myself extremely lucky.</p>
<p>guy i know has 2370 SAT, 34 ACT, 4.73 GPA W (4.0 UW) and 228 PSAT, got a letter saying he won't be a finalist.</p>
<p>The only way he didn't get NMF is he didn't fill out the paperwork (possible if he only applied to schools that don't consider Nat'l Merit and didn't want the extra work) or he got a bad rec from the GC.</p>
<p>Okay, I just realized why I got rejected. My GC was hospitalized for a few weeks during the time my recommendation was being written. A different GC was given the task of writing my rec even though I had never met her before. Chances are it wasn't a very good rec huh? Didn't think it would have that big of an impact, but that sure would make a lot of sense.</p>
<p>did the NMF letters already come? either i didn't make it, or my gc is being a lazy ass as usual.</p>
<p>talkingwhale: nope, but the rejection letters did. finalist letters come out sometime next month</p>