<p>hilary6:
I believe WashU tracks nmsf. It is an excellent school with a lovely campus set in a very nice suburb of St. Louis. The undergraduate school has become very competitive and the med school is ranked 2nd or 3rd in the country. The majority of students come from the East, and it is definitely not ultraconservative. Recently, several students staged a sit-in and fast to protest the low wages of campus service employees. St. Louis offers 3 major league teams, an excellent symphony, opera, Shakespeare in the Park, the largest urban park in America, and plenty of Anheuser-Busch products!
I would love to see either one of my sons there, but since its all of 4 miles from our house...there's no way. They will probably end up in your state or Rhode Island or NJ, NY, etc.
Good luck.</p>
<p>Should you put your two top choices even if they don't track interest? And how do you know if they track interest? For instance, should I even bother putting down Swarthmore, even if it is one of my top choices? Thanks!</p>
<p>apparently not jaimie, according to other posts on this thread (read through, someone asked a similar question). maybe you could do your #1, just because its your favorite, and then one that you still like a lot but that DOES track interest, thats what i would do).</p>
<p>thanks runmanstl! (i totally know what you mean about your sons not wanting to go to a nearby school though... i live right in the middle of some of the best colleges in the country [boston] but i just want to get OUT! i loved everything about tufts, but i just couldnt see myself going somewhere so close to my house... )</p>
<p>do you know if wash u has a strong english/creative writing program? if so
i think i'm going to send my letters to emory and wash u!!!</p>
<p>thanks hilary, I tried to skim through these posts, but my skimming consists of skipping large chunks :). Do you happen to know how to tell if a school tracks interest?</p>
<p>hilary-According to the Fiske College Book (so take this for what its worth) English is one of the "strongest programs." It also identifies the sciences as the strongest though.</p>
<p>thanks jaimie! haha i was looking for my fiske college book to check that exact thing but theres about 3 piles of books/papers/crap in my room right now that are approximately my height that i'd need to sift through haha so thank you for telling me! i think the best way to see who tracks interest is to either go through the websites/talk to admissions officers (kind of a hassle) or just ask around, people on this site seem to know. i know a few so if you wanna tell me which colleges youre looking at i can let you know. i think we should make a thread to ask people in general which schools they know of that track interest though, if there isnt one already! i know ivies dont, while a lot of schools that people [obnoxiously] consider "ivy safeties", such as emory, washu, tufts, etc, do, because they dont WANT to be ivy safeties!</p>
<p>Rice gives NMS to all accepted NMF who are accepted to and attend Rice. Rice is great and southern....</p>
<p>isnt it really tough to get into though?</p>
<p>You don't have to fill this out to be eligible for National Merit Semifinalist/Finalist, right?</p>
<p>right, its optional, but if youre eligible you will have gotten the letter (or your gc did, and shouldve given it to you)</p>
<p>Does anybody know any other schools similar to Tufts and WashU that track interest or would care if you named them as one of the colleges?</p>
<p>Hilary, Rice isn't crazy hard to get into if you're out of state; I would say it's about on par with the other schools you're looking at. If you're a Texan, though, it's extremely selective, just because so many Texans apply. (Also, I hear that it's slightly easier to get into for students applying to the school of Humanities or Social Sciences that those applying for Engineering or Natural Sciences.) Rice seems to be a perfect fit for you:great school in the South, a nice change of pace from Boston, but still retaining an overall politically liberal feel, size of about 5000 students (2800 undergrads, 2000 graduates), a nice package for Merit Finalists (Rice enrolls close to 400 a year, I think, in a freshman class of about 720 students), a definite work hard/ play hard mentality, and lots of green located smack-dab in the middle of a huge city with tons to do. Plus they have a very strong English department (it's the most popular major, about 10% of the graduating class chooses it) with a good creative writing program embedded, and you could easily pair an English major at Rice with another major you're interested in (I think Rice has more double & triple majors than single majors, and it is certainly more common than at other schools). All in all, I would say Rice is a very good fit for you, and even if you were not awarded a scholarship, tuition there is much more reasonable than at other schools. Plus, Houston is a fantastic city.</p>
<p>Rice also has a lot of other merit scholarships. That coupled with the endowment discount on tuituon makes it a best buy on most college lists.</p>
<p>My son is a Semifinalist!! We live in Florida</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son, Echi! I'm sure you're very proud of him, and he'll have a wonderful college career ahead of him.</p>
<p>I'm a semifinalist as well! I live overseas. Two other kids got semifinalist status, as well (out of ~90 students in my class). Good luck to everyone else waiting on those packets..</p>
<p>motherlove and others,</p>
<p>will you clarify for me then what is your exact understanding of the semi-finalist application process relating to naming the first choice college on the Merit Scholarship Application due back to the school in September. here's my take on the first choice college designation....am I correct?</p>
<p>semi-finalists complete application in September and name a first choice college OR can list "undecided". some colleges track interest, some do not. </p>
<p>the confusion seems to me that if you name a first choice college on the semi-finalist paperwork "Merit Finalist Application", this remains as the first choice if chosen as a Finalist, unless a change naming another college or changing choice to "undecided" is submitted to NMSC by the April deadline. If using "undecided" in September or later, then ultimately, finalist can notify NMSC by the May deadline of the choice of First Choice School.</p>
<p>does listing "undecided" on the September paperwork hurt chances of becoming a finalist?</p>
<p>From what I have seen in past years, selecting "undecided" has no effect on achieving finalist status. I believe you have until May to submit the name of the first choice college; you notify NMSC by using the yellow postcard you should have received with your information packet.</p>
<p>thanks firefly.</p>
<p>My S put two schools down as his choices, but ended up changing it in March because of a scholarship offer. It doesn't matter what you put down, you are not bound to any choice until next spring. The only thing that happens by filling out the choice card is that the two schools are notified of your intent to apply and your interest. My S had not even applied to the school he eventually decided to attend. They knew about his status and offered the scholarship anyway. Prepare to get a ton of mail from here on out!</p>