National Merit

<p>So which 2 universities are you picking?</p>

<p>MIT & Yale!!</p>

<p>i <3 them!</p>

<p>has everyone recieved a letter concerning commended/semi merit?? Do they come to your house or your school? I'm in NJ and havent got anything yet..</p>

<p>They go to your school. </p>

<p>I'm sending to Northwestern + Cornell =]</p>

<p>I did USC + UCLA</p>

<p>I chose Northwestern and Dartmouth.</p>

<p>Columbia and Harvard. I probably should have chosen more realistically (not so far reaches), but those are my two favorites.</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon & Tufts</p>

<p>alright...i should ask my school tomorrow, but i guess i would choose columbia as my first choice. Second, i'd probably go with a school that's less of a reach.</p>

<p>DS1 -- Chicago and Mudd</p>

<p>Folks -- the Ivies DON'T CARE if you send them your scores. You won't get NMF $$ from them anyway!! Send your scores to schools that will WANT you to attend. (End of parental advice :))</p>

<p>Countingdown, do you think other universities care if we send them our scores? It demonstrates that we're interested in them. Do they not take that into account?</p>

<p>Besides USC, any other California or West Coast (not AZ) colleges that give a darn about this letter? I'm assuming the UC's don't care about such things?</p>

<p>I sent to OSU and Johns Hopkins.</p>

<p>I have no idea which i'm sending mine to</p>

<p>what exactly does it mean for us to send our scores there? are we actually sending our scores or just the recognition that we are in the competition? do they offer scholarships for this or just semifinalist? can we change the schools?</p>

<p>basically my situation is that i'm pretty sure i will get semifinalist (got 227 and last year my state was 223) therefore i've started looking at schools that give large scholarships or fullrides to NMFs in the event that i get it (uflorida and uarizona) however all of their websites say that i need to list them as one of my two schools to receive my scores..is that for this or do we have the chance to list two more if we get NMF? because if we get a chance to list them again for scholarship opportunites than i would definitely want to list other schools (wake forest and vandy) for this i guess just for the mere act of impressing them</p>

<p>sorry about all the questions but my school doesn't typically get many national merit kids (we haven't had a semifinalist in years) so the counseling department is of very little help</p>

<p>Aquamarinee,
We worked off the assumption that flagship state schools and some of the super-selective elites wouldn't measure PSAT scores being sent as a sign of interest. I wouldn't pay to have PSAT scores sent anywhere (if that's even possible) -- they'll see SAT scores soon enough. </p>

<p>Our state flagship sent him a personal letter within two days of DS getting his SAT score report -- no need to use one of the two NM freebies there. He chose four from his list to report SAT scores to in March, and will list the other four when he takes the SAT-II in June -- so that by June, everyone on his list at least will have his SAT scores, if not all his SAT-IIs.</p>

<p>In any event, DS is already on all his prospective schools' mailing lists, so I don't know that it does anything except show a little love to places who like to feel it.</p>

<p>In any event, as things develop next year and you start figuring out where you want to go and which schools offer NM $$$, then there is "strategery" in choosing to change to "undecided" or to list your top choice, etc. But we haven't gotten that far yet -- I'll have to hit the archives when the time comes! :)</p>

<p>sarebeth,
You can change your schools until late April of next year, I believe. This is round is more or less a round of "Hi, I might be interested in College X - here's my PSAT score, which is pretty decent."</p>

<p>Now, my question is which universities actually like to feel "loved" by its applicants? Those are the ones I should be targeting I suppose. But I'm looking at top 25 schools, so I'm guessing none of them care...</p>

<p>My s received a letter from Wright State University (Dayton, OH) which stated that they will give full tuition (in-state, I believe) to commended students. Does anyone know of other colleges that give scholarship money for commended status? (My son's 2 choices for sending his scores as of now are OSU and OSU.)</p>

<p>Ohio State gives full in-state tuition plus $4,500 to National Merit Finalists who designate OSU by March 1st. It's basically a 3/4 ride. My S is heading there on that scholarship in the fall. They have some lesser scholarships for Semi-finalists as well as their Maximux scholarship competition. I don't think they do anything for Commended though.</p>

<p>so PennilessParent, that would be like march 1 of next year for me right?
soo i guess that means i can change it before then</p>

<p>this process is so confusing and i feel like nobody actually understands how it works like if we send them twice or we just change them and ahh i dont get it</p>