<p>What have other homeschooled NMSF done about getting a letter of recommendation for for the NMF application? D would really like to try for the NM Scholar and it appears this required letter carries a good deal of influence.</p>
<p>If you don’t find a good answer on this forum, check out this homeschooling board or ask your question there:</p>
<p>[Parents</a>’ Forum High School and Self-Education Board - The Well-Trained Mind Forums (aka Hive Mind)](<a href=“http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5]Parents”>http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5)</p>
<p>There are many parents of homeschooling NMF and NMS on there and it gets far more traffic for a question to be seen and answered. I hope to be in your shoes next year.</p>
<p>CC appears to be a great board for college info of all sorts, but not so much for homeschooling to college.</p>
<p>My son is homeschooled but he took classes at the community college, and one of those teachers wrote him a letter. Does your son have contact with any outside adults? I also found the NM corp. to be very helpful - just call them and ask.</p>
<p>It looks like I will be calling with several questions - like where to put D’ half dozen or so CLEPs. She did 1 Dual Enroll at local U (4.0) but the disorganized professor had large lecture style classes so no personal relationship (he has since left the college). She did DE online through Cedarville U, so no personal relationships. Looking at asking parent advocate from Homeschool Honor Society.</p>
<p>^^ Thanks Creekland, good advice - I lurk there occassionaly.</p>
<p>Regarding trying for the scholarship - keep in mind 16K kids are semi finalists and about 15K will make finalist. The application is more to prove you are worthy. That your academics and character match your PSAT scores. </p>
<p>Those 1K that dont make it - they did not have the SAT scores or grades, or completely shined on the application process.</p>
<p>I understand about the 15K finalist, I want to know what it takes to get the $2500 scholarship money offered to the 2500 NM “Scholars” (about 8400 of the 15K) the other “scholars” received college money or corporate money. I haven’t really found what in EC’s/leadership/classes that takes you from “just” a Finalist to a Scholar.</p>
<p>Luck? A reader who resonates with what ECs you have done?</p>
<p>Curious about why it’s so important to get the $2500 “Scholar” scholarship when so many schools offer so much more to NMF’s. Or is your D not interested in any of those schools? </p>
<p>As for how they narrow it down, there is information in the packet you receive. It says they are “allocated on a state representational basis…”. A committee of “experienced college admissions officers and high school counselors” meet to determine the winners based on: academic record; school’s recommendation of the Finalist; a student essay; extracurriculuar activities; and scores on the PSAT and SAT. It goes on to say that the letter of recommendation and the student’s own essay carry the most weight. “Winners in each state (or other selection unit) will be the Finalists judged by committee members to have the most distinguished credentials and potential for academic success, without consideration of financial need, college choice, or major and career plans.”</p>
<p>As for the Letter of Recommendation and Characterization of the Semifinalist section, the instructions (last year) said it is to be completed by “the principal or designated school official”. In many states, the homeschooling parent is that person unless the student is enrolled in an umbrella organization or distance program. In our state, the homeschooling parent is the legal principal.</p>
<p>During the process, I did get the impression that the corporation wants to help the students maximize their opportunities. The students have to let the corporation know what their 1st choice school is. If it’s a school that offers one of the big scholarships to NMFs, then the corporation doesn’t want to take that big money away by awarding only $2500.</p>
<p>
Oh yeah - now I remember. When I called NM Corp to ask what to do, they told me to find someone who has taught him and ask that person to do the “principal” stuff. She had to do the mailing and everything. Even though I was the principal, NM Corp wanted some separation of Mommy and Principal.</p>
<p>This year they send a special letter to HS’ed parents. Maybe this is the first year they have done that. They make it clear you need someone else. </p>
<p>According to the directions, I need to "arrange for another educator to provide the endorsement (Section F) and write the recommendation (Section A) and return the completed application to NMSC by October 13, 2010.</p>
<p>Also new this year is an online applications - and for homeschoolers you have to fill in the email info for your other educator. Then the stuff gets transferred to them and when they hit submit, it has been officially submitted.</p>
<p>NeedAVacation: Her first choice doesn’t offer anything for NMF and she will only be able to go to 1st choice is she gets enough scholarship money.</p>
<p>The actual “Scholars” selected by the NM Corp. from among the Finalists (it is easy to make “Finalist”–just do the paperwork on time, have decent grades and SAT scores) are only the TOP Finalists. They are the students with the highest PSAT/SAT scores and the best ECs, best talents, outstanding achievements, etc. Unless your kid has TOP scores and ECs, she is unlikely to make “Scholar” with the NM Corp. The recommendation letter is probably not going to be the deciding factor. Also, I think homeschoolers are often at a disadvantage with the “academic record.” Unless your kid has lots of AP classes, college classes, etc. on her transcript, IMO a homeschool transcript would probably not look as good to the committee.
(By the way, I just read on the NM website that there are only 2500 of the $2,500 NM awards–I pasted info. below. The 8000+ includes ALL the college and corporate sholarships, too.)</p>
<p>“Of the 15,000 Finalists, about 8,200 receive Merit Scholarship awards. All Finalists are considered for one of the 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships, which are awarded on a state representational basis. NMSC’s own funds support the majority of these awards but corporate sponsors help underwrite these awards with grants they provide to NMSC in lieu of paying administrative fees. About 1,100 Merit Scholarship awards are provided by corporate sponsors for Finalists who meet criteria specified by the sponsor. Most of these awards are for children of the sponsor’s employees, for Finalists living in a particular geographic area, or for Finalists who have career plans the sponsor wishes to encourage. These two types of awards can be used at any regionally accredited college or university in the United States. There are also approximately 4,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who plan to attend a sponsor college. Finalists report to NMSC their first choice college (College-Sponsored Merit Awards). In addition, about 1,500 program participants who are below the Finalist level receive Special Scholarships provided by corporate sponsors)”</p>
<p>If you need merit aid, I’d look for the bigger school-based scholarships. $2500 from NM Corp., while an honor, is not going to make much of a difference in college costs.</p>
<p>My homeschooled kid had a real problem getting an outside recommendation. We moved twice while he was in high school. He had three ECs–two of which were individual hobbies not involving teachers/mentors. The other was piano. He had 3 different teachers. The one who really knew and liked him, who had him junior year was a foreigner with very poor English.
I asked a friend of mine, who’d known my kid for 7 years and had directed some church plays, youth group activities that my son was in, to write the recommendation. My son and her daughter were friends, and her D had also been a homeschooled NMF the year before so she knew the process. This lady wrote for a newspaper and was a good writer. She reluctantly agreed to do it, only because she could see the kid had no other options.
S was attending 3 classes at a public high school–for the first time-- starting his senior year. Upon finding out that there was a NM Semifinalist in the school, the counselor pieced together a rather generic sounding rec letter based on an essay the kid wrote about himself, a brief interview, and a few comments by his teachers who’d known him less than two months
It was a good thing she did that, because my “friend” actually deliberately missed the deadline for the letter and later “apologized”, saying, “I just couldn’t think of anything to write.” (I was happy to be able to tell her, “No problem. The counselor did it.”) Anyway, the kid made finalist (but not “Scholar”)</p>
<p>Anyway, though my kid’s situation was unusual, I’d advise parents of homeschooled high school students to help their kids cultivate some sort of relationships with adults/coaches/teachers/mentors outside the family so they can have someone to write these letters.</p>
<p>^ you have made some very good points. S is a freshman headed the same direction so I will start on the relationships now.<br>
D is going to ask her Research/Debate teacher for a letter, she was also Into & Interm. Logic teacher. I am hoping that if the kids with the highest test scores get the Corp scholarships and college scholarships then the not so high (d’s) will get some of the $2,500 type. Her GPA is very good, EC’s are not bad (Pres. of Honor Society, 4 years as Junior Counselor for girls group, 3 years as volunteer at Therapeutic Riding Center, National Spelling Bee, plus more). Only 3 AP’s and three Dual Enroll. @ university (4.0’s), half dozen or so CLEP’s. I know she won’t be able to compete with the kids who do the 12 AP’s and who study astrophysics for fun so we will need to just wait and see. I see problems in the questions on the form comparing the difficulty of her classes compared to what else the “school” offers, class ranking and such.</p>
<p>The corporate sponsored scholarships are sort of a toss up–if you or your spouse works for the company, or your kid has ECs/proposed major in something the company wants to sponsor, then your kid will probably get one. But there aren’t many of them. Most of them are: any Finalist who is an employee’s child gets $X from the Company. </p>
<p>The highest scoring/superstar finalists ARE the ones who get the $2500 National Merit Scholar awards that can be used at any school. I just want you to know that the odds aren’t that good-- 2,500/15,000 (less than 17%–and all of those 15,000 are great students).</p>
<p>The most valuable awards are college sponsored scholarships–many schools offer them to ANY Finalist who designates that college (you can only designate one college) at his/her first choice. One well-known such scholarship is at U. of Oklahoma–they offer up to 5 years tuition–you could get a Master’s degree–, plus room, board, laptop, and $ to study overseas. ANY finalist–even the lowest scoring finalist–who designates the school can get one. These are the scholarships that most of the “lower scoring” finalists get. Another example: U. of Dallas (small Catholic school–one of top private schools in Texas) offers full tuition to any finalist. Here’s one I just looked up: U. of Texas at Dallas:</p>
<pre><code>"The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recognizes UT Dallas as a collegiate sponsor. National Merit Finalists who list UT Dallas as their first choice with NMSC will automatically receive eight semesters of support for tuition and mandatory fees.
The scholarship includes a $5,000 per year cash stipend via a combination of UT Dallas’ Academic Excellence Scholarship funds; a $2,000 one-time NMSC Scholarship for international study abroad after completion of two academic years in residence; and a $2,000 per year contribution toward rental expenses at University on-campus housing. This award will be made only when NMSC has notified UT Dallas of the student’s selection of our University as their first choice. The estimated value of this award is $71,300 over four years."
</code></pre>
<p>You might wonder why only a little more than half (8200/15,000) of the Finalists receive scholarships. Many are receiving other scholarships that aren’t attached to NMF designation. Many are going to highly selective schools that have so many NMF’s they don’t need to recruit/pay for them. Some are from wealthy families who can easily pay full tuition, so they aren’t that interested in collecting merit aid. Anyone who needs big $$ from NMF needs to look at less selective schools. (Sort of a Catch-22–because most top students want to go to the most selective schools.)</p>
<p>My always homeschooled son did not get the $2500 scholarship. He had 9 AP’s (8-5’s and 1-4), was an Eagle Scout, Senior Patrol Leader, Order of the Arrow, played football, taught 8th grade confirmation, and was active and volunteered in many other ways. He had an unweighted 4.0 but I don’t think that they give much weight to a homeschoolers GPA. It all worked out in the end because the college that he ultimately decided on supplemented his merit scholarship with a $2000/year National Merit Scholarship. BTW, the Oklahoma University scholarship was VERY tempting. We visited the school and they made my son feel very wanted. It just ended up not being the best fit.</p>
<p>I agree with atomom’s comment: </p>
<p>If you need merit aid, I’d look for the bigger school-based scholarships. $2500 from NM Corp., while an honor, is not going to make much of a difference in college costs.</p>
<p>We took a strategic approach to the scholarship options. We wanted dd to choose one school from those that offer big rewards for being a Finalist so that she’d have at least one option that would definately be affordable for her and allow her the option to graduate with little to no debt. She applied to two of these schools: Texas A&M and University of Dallas. (I am from Texas and still have family there, but we do not live in Texas) She also applied to 3 others schools that did not have big rewards for NMFs. In the end, she chose to attend University of Dallas. Their full tuition scholarship allowed her to attend this private school which would otherwise have been unaffordable. </p>
<p>I do want to note that University of Dallas appears to have placed a limit on their National Merit Finalist scholarships. There are 24 NMFs in this year’s freshman class of about 300 students. However, I believe they also increased the Academic Achievement scholarship to “up to full tuition”. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that was offered before. Here is what is noted on their website about the National Merit Finalist award:</p>
<p>National Merit Finalists</p>
<p>The University of Dallas recognizes and applauds those students who have achieved National Merit Finalist status. Seventeen National Merit Finalists will receive a full tuition scholarship when they name UD as their first choice college with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. This scholarship is inclusive of all other scholarships and grants offered through UD and is based on the competitiveness of the applicant pool. This scholarship is renewable annually.</p>
<p>We did visit one college that offered full tuition scholarship for NMF(Dad loves the idea) - but the programs did not seem very rigorous. Her heart is set on a college that does not give NMF scholarships but she can compete for half to full tuition scholarships with SAT scores and ECs. From what I am hearing here she better bump up the studying for the fall SAT and start looking for a job :)</p>
<p>My daughter has two friends who are on full rides because of their NMF status. One is at Texas A&M and the other is at Arizona State. Somewhere on CC there is a list of schools that give automatic full or partial ride scholarships to NMF.</p>
<p>After years of putting down USC (so cal) I find they give an automatic half ride scholarship. I think we are going to check it out. </p>
<p>She has also received four or five ‘fast track’ applications, which seems to come with the high likelihood of scholarship money. I assume she is getting these letters/email because of NMSF? She applied to one this weekend - it is always good to have a safety!</p>
<p>As I remember, the hurdle from semi-finalist to finalist was more a matter of submitting the paperwork than anything else. I honestly can’t remember who did the recommendation for my daughter, but I suspect it was me.
In our family, the general NM experience has not been good. First, my son hit our state’s numbers as a Sophomore, but missed by a point as a Junior. Fair enough. My daughter had a 236 PSAT in a middling scoring state (Illinois) and didn’t win a scholarship.
I think what bothers me about the program is the lack of transparency. It isn’t clear why one qualifying person is picked over another. I don’t think there is a systematic bias against home schoolers, but they hire high school guidance counselors and others to review scholarship applications and make recommendations. I have a touch of paranoia in my daughter’s case. The rest of her resume was strong enough to be admitted to Princeton (where she is a Senior now). Princeton of course did not have access to her official PSAT score. As a final touch of sour grapes, she and our family could have used the money.
Please apply, and your luck could very well be different from our family’s experience. A potential source of money from an odd program.
I want to note that the NMF opportunities in the previous post are “untouched by human hands”, in that once a student hits the numbers and submitted the paperwork, they were “in”. The folks who determine who get the NM money are a different story in my book. The suspect part of the program, IMO.</p>