<p>My son and five others got called to the Principal’s office today (10/14/2011). According to my son they were told they were National Merit “Qualified”. But after coming home and checking this and other sites it’s not clear if they are just “Commended” or in the running for Semi-finalist. We’ve received nothing in the mail or have any other information. It’s seems the cutoff for the Semifinalist to enter their information was a couple of days ago so I’m assuming he’s “Commended” but how can I tell?</p>
<p>ChuckvB - Have you checked to see what your son’s score is vs the semi-finalist for the state? I think they are now starting to announce the commended, and other race based awards. I drove by a school yesterday where they had a brand new sign saying they congratulate the hispanic scholars. They announced national merit semi-finalists back on 14th of September.</p>
<p>My daughter submitted her part, but I don’t know if the counselor has done anything. The counselor emailed me today and said that there is a new deadline of Nov. 12. Is that her deadline?</p>
<p>A new deadline a month later than the original one???
I would call NM Corp. to check that…</p>
<p>Plan to Monday. Her incompetence makes me want to pull my hair out.</p>
<p>I don’t have his score handy but I think he was just below the semifinalist score. He’s done great and we are proud. Most recently he got perfect Math and Science scores on the ACT and a 33 overall. Had we known that the PSat was critical for the National Merit Scholarship maybe just a bit of prep would have put him over the top.</p>
<p>I submitted my application by the deadline, including my portion and the GC portion, but due to my stupidity, I did not order my SAT score report to be sent until today. I took the SAT in November 2010.</p>
<p>Will this disqualify me from the competition? :(</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>SAT score reports have a DEC deadline, since the Dec SAT is still ok to use</p>
<p>*The counselor emailed me today and said that there is a new deadline of Nov. 12. *</p>
<p>Don’t know if this is true, but it wouldn’t surprise me since it seems that this new method this year caused some hiccups.</p>
<p>When I spoke to a woman at NMSC on October 11, she said that the Oct. 12 deadline was a “working deadline.” When I asked what that meant, she said that the deadline wasn’t final, that they would still be accepting application materials past the 12th. She said that I could tell the guidance counselor at the school to take her time in sending in the material. I’m happy to say that NMSC confirmed that the application was complete on the 12th, but just wanted to let others know so that you don’t give up at this point because of the “deadline.”</p>
<p>Would we have been notified if we are a commended student by now?</p>
<p>I got a 206 (97 percentile) in NY state and our regional semifinalists have been publicized already, so I was wondering if I would be a commended student. I’ve found that in the past years, commended has been at 201.</p>
<p>^Yes, you are commended and you should have been notified. You can call College Board and/or check with your GC.</p>
<p>When I spoke to a woman at NMSC on October 11, she said that the Oct. 12 deadline was a “working deadline.”</p>
<p>That makes sense…they know that some schools/GCs are really bad about getting info out and doing “their part”, so the deadline can’t be hard and fast.</p>
<p>Semifinalist from Georgia here–I’d never even heard of National Merit until they sent me a letter of recognition; my school is a large public school, and the only other person at my school even recognized, a friend of mine, is commended.</p>
<p>I completed the application on time, and my counselor completed her part on time. But I’m very stressed about my chances of making it to Finalist, and I would love some realistic advice.</p>
<p>In ninth grade, my mother went through a nasty divorce, she and I moved halfway through the year (I switched schools then), and my father petitioned for custody. I moved states and moved to his house the summer before tenth grade (again switching schools). I was at a notoriously difficult school the first half of ninth grade–one which I’ve heard college admissions counselors lend some credence to–and my grades dropped horribly. I failed two classes. Switching schools helped only moderately. Since then, I’ve made almost entirely straight As (only four Bs, and two were in after-school, online credit recovery for the courses I failed), taken all the AP courses I could, and made up the classes I failed. My GPA is now approximately a 3.4 unweighted. I do have some ECs, though not many–3 years of chorus, 1 of swim team, 1 of Tri-M, and 80 volunteer hours. (I’m not sure exactly what it is weighted, because my transcript has some issues that I need to get fixed.)
My counselor is aware of the circumstances of my ninth-grade year and mentioned them in her part of my application. In addition, my essay was written about the lessons I learned from my difficulties and failures that year and how they have made me a better student and person than I feel success might have. My chem teacher from last year/physics teacher for this year, who was a commended student himself in high school, wrote a fantastic recommendation for me.</p>
<p>Realistically, should I even hope to achieve Finalist standing, or simply give up? I would really appreciate the advice, because I know that my chances simply aren’t as good as those of most semifinalists…</p>
<p>Have you seen what your high school transcript actually looks like? If not, ask your GC to see a copy of what the school is sending out.</p>
<p>You may or may not have an issue based on what your transcript actually shows.</p>
<p>I was unfair to my daughter’s counselor who has actually been coming through lately. Her part was turned in, my daughter’s part was turned in, and my part was turned in in time. I am not exactly sure what it was that the counselor saw and wanted to alert me to, but the NMSC people confirmed that all is well, and it’s nice to know that the counselor was trying to be alert even if she did make my stomach ill all weekend. :/</p>
<p>Yes, I have seen my transcript–it shows everything, bad grades and all. It doesn’t look pretty, or even neat, mostly since one of the schools I went to school at ninth grade took it upon themselves to “make everything look a bit better”, (read: rearrange all of my courses and retitle them according to their own course catalog.) to my dismay. My counselor is basically useless outside of what she did for her part of National Merit, so in three years I haven’t been able to get the **** thing fixed…</p>
<p>S got a 227 in CA on the PSAT 10/2011 and just found out from GC on Tuesday (9/4) that he’s a SFinalist.</p>
<p>That puts him in the class of 2013 not 2012. This thread is a year old. Congratulations though, on your son’s achievement.</p>