<p>Ruzanne, I have to agree. Why even have “semifinalist”? Just choose the scholarship winners from those 16,000.</p>
<p>I don’t blame NMCorp for having a NMSF to NMF process. I’m glad that those who are discipline problems at school don’t move forward. I can understand why NMCorp wouldn’t want those who aren’t able to score at least a 1960 on the SAT to move forward. </p>
<p>However, this idea of rejecting a strong GPA student for having a C or two is too much. There should be a more holistic view about the GPA. Those who take a rigorous schedule should get some brownie points and be allowed a C or two.</p>
<p>I think that they have the “weeding out” in order to protect the word “scholar”.
I teach high school. I have had extremely bright students get C’s and D’d in my class, but who were excellent test takers. These type of kids are not scholars. The kids mentioned in this thread, however, seem to fit the definition just fine.</p>
<p>Have all of the “Finalist” letters been sent and received? D did not received any rejection email/letter, but has not received finalist letter either. She had very good PSAT, SAT (2350), and all "A"s, good behavior, so based on what I’ve read, she has the high probability to be a finalist. Her school also told her that they had not received anything either. Just wondering.</p>
<p>I have received anything for being a finalist yet, and I haven’t been rejected. I am identical to your daughter. NMSC says that they will notify principals tomorrow (Jan. 31) of finalist status for their students.</p>
<p>I know that 1/31 is the day that Natl Merit is supposed to notify the principals. However, does that mean that they send the letters out to the principals on 1/31? In that case, there will be a 2-4 day lag before the principal gets the letter. Or do they fax the principals so that the principals would actually have the news on 1/31?</p>
<p>jennieling…I’m wondering the same thing. We are waiting on sending in a few scholarship applications until we know for certain that DS is a finalist. I’m sure he is, but we don’t want to finalize anything until we get confirmation.</p>
<p>“I teach high school. I have had extremely bright students get C’s and D’d in my class, but who were excellent test takers. These type of kids are not scholars”</p>
<p>Not exactly sure what you mean by this - a child who is a good test taker yet receives a C in some class is not a scholar? I believe that some children, especially those who are quite gifted are not especially inspired by their high school curricula and are therefore sometimes lazy, and don’t earn the top grades. However, I’m not sure I would say they aren’t scholars - they are always willing to learn which is how I would like to think of a scholar.</p>
<p>ruzanne, we think a lot alike. I teach (24 years), and I can’t stand the grade grubbers. Most of them can’t think at all. But they have 4.0 GPAs…</p>
<p>“Not exactly sure what you mean by this - a child who is a good test taker yet receives a C in some class is not a scholar? I believe that some children, especially those who are quite gifted are not especially inspired by their high school curricula and are therefore sometimes lazy, and don’t earn the top grades. However, I’m not sure I would say they aren’t scholars - they are always willing to learn which is how I would like to think of a scholar.”</p>
<p>I tend to agree. My oldest son is brilliant and is a great test taker, but was a major underachiever in high school because he was bored and just didn’t care to play the game. He made a mostly As and Bs, but did have some Cs and even a D. Grades weren’t important to him because he felt like they didn’t really measure intelligence or true achievement. He took two years off between HS and college and is now quite “scholarly”. He is studying Chemical Engineering at a private college and is making fantastic grades. The difference? He’s challenged and interested in what he’s doing. FWIW, the college gave a lot of weight to his test scores and his work experience (he worked full time those two years) and gave him a really nice scholarship…but he’d have gotten a lot more had he made better grades in high school. </p>
<p>Having said all that, I also understand that organizations who give scholarship money don’t want to see their money wasted, and they have to have some kind of criteria for awarding scholarships. The only thing they have to go on in terms of judging future achievement is past achievement, and that’s what they bet on. I told my boys this when they started HS. One listened to me and one didn’t. ;-)</p>
<p>However, I think that rejecting NM kids for a couple of Cs when the rest of the student’s record is good is harsh. I wish the process wasn’t quite so arbitrary.</p>
<p>freein2012
"I teach high school. I have had extremely bright students get C’s and D’d in my class, but who were excellent test takers. These type of kids are not scholars. "</p>
<p>I think there are different kinds of “excellent test takers”. Some are bright but lazy to do their parts well in classes (for whatever reasons) to get As. Some achieve high scores as a result of cramming for the tests. Few may become excellent test takers by cheating. The first type of students still have potential to become future scholars as long as they find their passion to pursue with proper mentoring. The second type shows that they are willing to make efforts to reach their goals or at least to make up for their previous lack of efforts. Both types mentioned above possess either high intelligence or effort-making, which are important qualities of a scholar. How can anyone assert such students are not fit to become a scholar in the future?</p>
<p>I notice that there are many straight A students who are not excellent test takers, which is fine, for they usually do not suffer from their bad or mediocre scores in SAT/ACT and get into good colleges. It is true that an excellent test taker with C grades has little chance to get into any of the most selective college, but one should never assume that such a student cannot become a true scholar later in life.</p>
<p>I understand that teachers probably dislike bright slackers much more than the ordinary students who value their grades a lot. But, shouldn’t teachers, along with parents, be concerned about the reasons of the slacking and try to help the student to bring out their potential?</p>
<p>I agree with you Meliora- the kid that I mentioned earlier who got a reject for finalist letter had one C+ (when his grandmother was dying) and one C. The C was from a teacher who counted homework as 25% of the grade. This was in Honors Pre-Calculus. This kid scored in the high 90s on every quiz and test and just wasn’t willing to put in a couple of hours of homework every night. He asked the teacher to let him do partial homework to show he understood it, but that he was gaining nothing from doing 40-60 problems that were basically identical every night. She refused. He was involved in several other activities, both sports and volunteering and just felt that this homework was not of value. Too late as it turns out it will cost him a couple of thousand dollars as his college gives more for finalist than Semi. I haven’t heard from them this week to know if he won his appeal or not.</p>
<p>Well said. I think my daughter belongs in the same group as your son. She has a wonderful mind, but high school just really wasn’t motivating or interesting to her much of the time. I pray that she finds motivation through a challenging environment at university, wherever she goes. </p>
<p>I know that must have been hard to allow your son to take those two years off before entering college - I’m not sure I can see doing that with my kid, but I can definitely see how it has advantages.</p>
<p>fredsfam -
We think alike and our kids are in the same situation with NM :)</p>
<p>ruzanne…it was very difficult to support his decision not to go directly to college, especially since the crowd he ran with were all high achievers who went straight to college. You wouldn’t believe how “not” supportive some of our friends were about our decision to “allow” him to take time off. And, to be honest, there were times when I would worry that he’d never get it together and would always be living upstairs. ;-). I distinctly remember the day he came in and told me that he was tired of his life not going anywhere and he was applying for college. I was doing back handsprings in my mind, but I played it cool. </p>
<p>In retrospect, not pushing him to go to college was one of our best parenting decisions ever. We’ve had a couple of friends in the same situation who pushed their kids and it was disastrous. They wasted money, the kids wasted time and ended up very lost. I think many kids are ready to move on to college right out of HS. My second son is one of those kids. However, many aren’t ready and I really think it’s ok (and wise) to encourage them to wait.</p>
<p>Jtmom,
I am sorry to hear another competent student with a C got rejected by NMS.</p>
<p>Grades have limited value for they cannot tell the whole learning process and ability. Different teachers teaching the same course in the same school may grade differently, not to mention that teachers of different schools grade differently.</p>
<p>I know a student who is a quick learner and a victim of a public school district that did not offer any substantial gifted/accelerated programs. He disliked school learning because he was never adequately challenged but was only given the busy work by the teachers. He managed to finish all the homework at school. He didnt have to study to get As. After his freshman year, he transferred to a highly selective high school offering challenging curriculums in a nontraditional way. He has been happy to take the academic challenges there but his GPA dropped to below 3.5 due to some issues. One issue is the subjective grading by his foreign language teacher. He consistently scored 95-100 in all the written tests/quizzes. He got a few zeros in homework due to reasons like not meeting the teachers format requirement. He got low grades in class participation/discussion for the teacher allowed some super-aggressive students dominating the class time. The teacher did not approve this student to take the next level class in junior year before the parents intervened (even though the student had a B average). In the junior year the subjective grading repeated and this was enough to keep the student from taking that language course in the senior year. Now this student is determined to take the SAT subject and AP of the language he has been self-studying to prove his language ability to the college hes going to. </p>
<p>This is just a singular case of how grades can be distorted to reflect a students ability. In my local high school, some teachers generously give extra credits for bringing tissues to classrooms or donating for food drive etc., which are good deeds but not relevant to the subject learning. It is common to see grade inflation in many public high schools and grade deflation in some elite schools. The first high school the student mentioned above has 1/3 of the class (of 250) in the high honor roll (4.0) and produces a dozen valedictorians every year. In the students current high school, there are only about 10 students graduating with 4.0 in a class of 200. </p>
<p>Nowadays more and more colleges are de-emphasizing SAT/ACT. Many people are questioning the NMS program, which is solely based on PSAT and SAT scores in its initial selection. Like GPA, standard test scores cannot tell the whole reality of a students learning ability, but, at least, they are given by the same standard. Moreover, one can take it more than once to prove his ability if he messed up earlier for whatever reason. However, one cannot retake a course he underperformed earlier. Without standard tests, more subjectivity may be at work in evaluating students’ abilities.</p>
<p>myboby- there never has been a “clear” cut off that was published any where that I know of. What so many people are unhappy about is that when 15,000 of 16,000 have advanced in the past, and it seems the only ones who did NOT advance either did not complete the paperwork, had disciplinary issues, couldn’t get the required SAT score or wrote a rude essay. In past years, two Cs would not keep you from making finalist if all else was good. This year, with no warning, they changed that- leading many kids to be disappointed and not able to afford the school they thought they were set for.</p>
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