Do you think being named a finalist carries any meaningful significance with respect to college admissions? I never see # of finalists enrolled as a stat offered by schools, so I wondered.
<p>THey are definitely a plus...but chances are at ivies practically everyone is</p>
<p>"Practically everyone" is wrong, but a significant percentage of the class is.</p>
<p>At lower tier schools (such as UF and Alabama), the colleges will do practically anything to get you to come if you're a NMF.</p>
<p>It's true. Being a NMF didn't keep me from being rejected from Harvard and Yale, but it would STILL allow me to apply late and receive a $90000 scholarship to UF or ASU.</p>
<p>Here's a list of the top-10 for the 2004 freshman class.</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard University -- 312</li>
<li>University of Florida -- 259</li>
<li>University of Texas -- 242</li>
<li>Yale University -- 224</li>
<li>Stanford University -- 217</li>
<li>University of Chicago -- 198</li>
<li>Washington University at St. Louis -- 197</li>
<li>Princeton University -- 192</li>
<li>University of Southern California -- 183</li>
<li>University of Oklahoma -- 170</li>
</ol>
<p>BTW, Slip...UF is not a "lower tier" school.</p>
<p>Thank you for that list - it's VERY interesting!! From where can I get that information for other schools?</p>
<p>Do you think most schools are looking for finalists. I am related to someone who's a finalist with great sat's(1500+), sat2's(750+ on each), 4's & 5's on ap exams, top 10%, etc., with good but not great ec's, plus he's a wonderful person (though my view is obviously biased), and he's been waitlisted at his 3 favorite schools - northeast liberal arts colleges, one of which was supposed to be a safety. I'm having so much trouble understanding how such a good kid (in so many ways) can be sidelined like this, it just seems so wrong. He may have to take time off, reapply to other places next year, or for January admission somewhere - it's really quite a problem.</p>
<p>All colleges have strange reasons to reject someone. For example, I know someone who got rejected from UC Davis with a 4.0UW GPA, 1470 SAT and SAT2 in the 700s. He got into UCLA and UCSD though, but for some reason he was rejected from UC Davis. However, he really wanted to go to Davis and tried to appeal, but he still got rejected.</p>
<p>Anyway, the point of this is that all colleges accept or reject applicants for strange reasons. There's no such thing as guaranteed acceptance. Its probably a good idea to apply to more than 1 safety school.</p>
<p>rogracer, by "lower tier" I meant outside of the top 25 or so. I would have thought that you would have known my respect for UF after all my posts in that forum...</p>
<p>Yeah, Slip, I was a little surprised by your comment. Anyway, "Top Tier" usually refers to the US News rankings of schools in the "Top 50". UF qualifies for top tier by that definition. "Lower Tier" would imply schools in the 3 or 4th tier of the US News rankings.</p>
<p>So it sounds like being a finalist is a good honor, but in the scheme of things doesn't actually carry that much weight in the admissions process. i.e., they're not especially sought after or coveted in general, only by some particular schools. Would you say that's right?</p>
<p>I was a finalist and I got flooded with mail from colleges I had never considered offering some sweet scholarships. Basically, it sounded like I could be a felon with a 1.0 GPA and still get into the honors colleges of AZ state, OK, AK, etc. OTher schools like Northwestern, Case Western, Grinnell (there are a ton of these) will give smaller scholarships to NMFs.</p>
<p>RoboK:</p>
<p>sorry, a 1.0 gpa would keep you at the semi-f category....one of the prime reasons kids don't make finalist from semi is a low (relatively!) gpa.</p>
<p>USC also gives scholarshps to finalists</p>
<p>Do the NM Scholarships come from the individual college itself, or from the Natioal Merit Corporation?</p>
<p>^^^<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php#merit%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php#merit</a></p>
<p>Being a National Merit Finalist won't help you since by the time you find out, it's over a month after the RD deadline. Being a semi-finalist helps too though.</p>
<p>JimmyEatWorld, the answer is both. There are $2,500 awards given out by NMSC, and if you don't get one of those you can get awards from your college or corporate sponsors.</p>