<p>I have a daughter who is a junior in high school. We live in Oklahoma. She made a 226 on her PSAT so I am pretty certain she will be a National Merit Semifinalist. She has already taken the SAT last fall and received a 1460. My understanding is that she will have to take the SAT again to become a finalist and that 15 out of 16 semi-finalists become finalists. Once you are named a finalist are you then an actual Merit Scholar and eligible for National Merit programs offered by schools such as the University of Tulsa...or is it the 8,000 students who receive money from National Merit who are National Merit Scholars?</p>
<p>My daughter has an unweighted GPA of 4.0 and is second in her class of approx. 60 students in a private catholic school. She has taken a number of pre-ap courses and honors courses and she will have approximately 9 AP classes by the time she finishes as a senior. So far she has all A's, even in her AP classes. She is very active in many organizations including: Key Club Treasurer for two years, Key Club President, STUCCO treasurer, Spanish Honor Society treasurer, Reps & Hosts, Food Bank Volunteer, Birth Choice Volunteer, National Honor Society, attended 5 Math & Science summer camps at Oklahoma colleges, and is active in youth group.</p>
<p>Can anyone give me an idea of the probability she will become national merit scholar? </p>
<p>I would say your daughter has an excellent chance. My daughter also took the SAT the fall she took the PSAT and scored 1600. She was not required to take the new SAT by NMSC. All the NMSC wants to know is that their PSAT score is predictive of SAT scores. She doesn't have to ace it, just do well and it sounds like she won't have a problem if they require her to take it again. My D was required to take the new SAT by two schools that would not accept the old score. Are you leaving out the writing component when you mention the 1460 SAT score? I think she will likely have to take the new SAT if she has not yet done so.</p>
<p>We learned some valuable lessons in naming schools which cost us NMSC money, but I'm not sure it could be helped. My D applied to six schools, two ivies that don't participate in NMSC and four that offer NMSC sponsored scholarships. She named one of the ivies as her first choice school. As the winter went on, we discussed the choice and asked for input from CC posters. Perhaps we misunderstood, but the gist was that it made no sense to name a non-sponsor school as your first choice. We switched her first choice to a NMSC sponsor school because quite honestly, we didn't think she would get accepted at the Ivy, nor could we afford the Ivy even if she was. We also thought that it might help her in receiving other scholarships from the named school. It worked - she was offered a full-ride at the NMSC school. But she was also accepted and offered a generous financial aid package from the first choice Ivy, not close to a full-ride, but enough to make her vascillate about her decision until the last minute. She chose the Ivy (and we supported the choice), and we found out that the full-ride offer from the other school included NMSC award which she had to decline. Had she stuck with the Ivy first choice, she perhaps would have received one of the $2,500 awards from NMSC not contingent upon school selection. The whole school selection process and award is VERY convoluted and confusing. Whether or not she receives money, she is still a National Merit Finalist, which is a wonderful achievement! Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions.</p>
<p>OhMother,
I really don't think your change of first choice would have made a difference for the $2500 awards. When my son was up for NM awards, we called the NM Corporation to ask whether he should list his true first choice school (one which did not give NM awards) or his second choice (which did) as NM first choice. They said to list the second choice school, that it would not hurt his chances for the $2500 awards. And it didn't. My son received a $2500 award, even with the NMSC sponser school listed as his first choice. When he was accepted at his true first choice, he notified NM and had the award moved to that school.</p>
<p>As I had it explained to me, the $2500 awards are given out first, before corporation awards or school awards.</p>
<p>Susantm, I wonder if there is not some communication between the sponsor school and NMSC. DD was offered a "insert famous name here" scholarship at a State university - a four year full ride. She would therefore not have been able to receive the $2,500 from NMSC as it would have exceeded the cost of attendance. When the financial aid packet came from State U, it included the NMSC sponsor award. I cannot say for certain, but would venture that there are other "insert famous name here" scholars that were not NMF and their full-ride scholarship did not include a NMSC award. The criteria used for the $2,500 cash award directly from NMSC seems to be obscure to say the least. Not that my DD is any more qualified to receive the cash award than those that did, but with a 4.0 gpa and 1600 SAT, excellent recs and EC's, I can't believe that she was any less qualified. Perhaps they communicate with the first choice school and find out if their NMSC sponsor scholarship exceeds $2,500, then if it does, then they defer to the sponsor school?? If we had to do it all over again, though, I'm not sure anything would change. Unfortunately, DD did not come to a decision until 4/30/06, too late to change the first choice school. Just putting it out there for others who are about ready to go through the process.</p>
<p>In answer to your question about the SAT writing, my daughter did take last fall the SAT with the writing. I think she got a 670 on the writing. What I did understand from National Merit was that they only use the multiple choice portion of the writing portion. (I suppose because essay scoring is so subjective.) Apparently you need about a 53 (some type of subscore or something) on the writing multiple choice and my daughter has a 73 so I think we are good.</p>
<p>Thanks for information on the 1st choice, 2nd choice etc. I think the whole thing is so confusing!</p>
<p>Did your daughter apply for many types of scholarship and stack them?</p>