Hello. I’m a high school senior that is participating in the NMSC c/o 2018 competition. I know that the press release for semi-finalists was about a week ago. I found out about my semi-finalist status via a post on my state’s DOE website, which had all the semi-finalists in the state listed. As far as I understand, my school should have received an official letter ahead of the press release. However, when I told my guidance counselor the news, she said my school had not received any notice from the NMSC. I found this alarming, as the OSA deadline is coming up extremely quickly.
Basically, for those of you that received official notice, what context did you receive it in (Principal gave it to you, guidance counselor, etc.)? My guidance counselor reached out to the principal to check with him about the semi-finalist letter, but I haven’t heard back yet. I was actually thinking of contacting NMSC directly to find out more in case this letter never arrives, as I am CONFIRMED a semi-finalist by the state’s post.
The school needs to call nmsc and get a copy of the letter for you. The letter has the codes you need to apply. Do you have a parent that would be willing to call the school for you? They really need to take care of this for you asap, which means Monday. My son’s school also did not receive the letter. He eventually got the letter from his guidance counselor after l spoke to the principal.
I got a letter from my counselor, who had recieved my access code from NMSC. They’ll have to contact NMSC to recieve it, and try to have them do this quickly, as the application is due next month. Try to go straight to your principal and ask him to do so, since this will make him take care of the issue immediately instead of losing it amidst a full email inbox.
I also received my OSA login credentials through a letter from my guidance counselor.
It might be a good idea to start preparing the information you need to put on your application now in case you get your access codes late, so you can just copy-paste everything and submit it quickly. This includes 6 extracurricular activity/volunteer service descriptions, a list of awards received, and a 500-600ish word essay on the topic “describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you.” (I am not certain if I am allowed to disclose this- if that is the case I am happy to edit this out.)