timbercreek, I think many appreciate your thinking about letters gone awry. Anyone with a little “hair” in their app such as C grades are going to rest peacefully until that certificate is in your hand. That said, when your day comes, my guess is, much more thankful too…keep the faith. Won’t be long now. Two weeks or less and the schools will know. Good news for many coming.
I’m a class of 2017er, but I wanted to express my admiration. Even if you didn’t get finalist, getting semifinalist is a HUGE accomplishment. I really look up to every one of you.
<<< GPA 3.9, couple B’s /semester, no letter yet>>>>
<<<<@mom2collegekids UW 3.996 >>>>
I think he’s ok, but his GPAs seem strange. an UW GPA of 3.996 with a couple of B’s each semester would be a lower UW GPA…unless the scale isn’t on a 4.0.
No letter for me today, thankfully. Thanks for the kind words everyone!
@mom2collegekids Sorry, the 3.996 is W, we don’t know the UW.
no letter in STL. breathing is getting easier.
Well, unless someone has lousy mail delivery or storm delays, it would seem that rejection letters would have been received by now. .
@timbercreek16 Your SAT score doesn’t matter as long as it’s beyond the 1960. If you get rejected, it won’t be because of your 2050. Unless mail irregularities is the problem, you are probably safe.
@RedbirdDad Do you know if the school puts semester grades on transcript or just year-end grades? I wish more schools just put year-end grades on transcripts. Those that do probably have fewer NMSF’s with these issues.
@mom2collegekids, from what I gather, I think you are exactly right. You have some idea the relief we have about that given some conversations we have had in various threads over the last 10 months or so. Want to thank you personally as your knowledge helped put Alabama on as a backup, influenced our college applications and final merit “risk mitigation” steps, and influenced other college targets. Son is now in a much better place with great contingencies as you made a great difference.
To answer your question, our school doesn’t have year-end grades. We have progress 1, quarter 1, progress 2, quarter 2, semester final, semester grade on report card and only the semester grade goes to the transcript. If two semester, two transcript grades.
For those reading in future years, If our son truly does makes finalist, there may be some magic to what state we’re in potentially OR there is a lesson. In our case, it looked a bit dim and we were very concerned, we called the school, had them verify how many days were missed in school (40 total, 19 in Junior year), got verification from doctors on medical causes, attempts and solutions, asked counselor to write up commentary about it (didn’t see) and showed recommender same material and asked them to make comment (did see). We don’t know if he made it yet obviously and if he did, we don’t know if that helped or has something to do with our state. It is indeed what we did. We thought he would need to have a rebound in first semester senior year after picking up two C’s in Junior second semester and that success would make a difference. We do know that the class performance change didn’t and won’t help him with National Merit. They told us flat out that they get no record of those grades. While we could make a case in an appeal, it looks like that is rarely successful from what I’ve read. The accelerated health efforts in the summer included going to the gym daily to work on strength and stamina. Again, can’t say that those efforts were the cause, but he hasn’t missed any days for the first time this year and he has had all As for first time first semester and all As to date for his second semester. We are happy to report that the medical history and reversal of trend in grades did help with hold letters for early acceptance at Rose Hulman and Purdue, resulting in acceptances which made us happy.
Thanks College Confidential community for help on understanding all this, sharing information, college tips, college visit information, and support. What looked sad for our son, right now looks great. We are hoping for USC for Viterbi School of Engineering and a half tuition merit scholarship. With Finalist standing to help potential two weeks away and my brother who is adjunct professor at USC, we are hoping Finalist status will provide one more reason to help him get the dream at USC and then, half tuition to pay for it. If not, the National Merit scholarships at Oklahoma, Alabama, Baylor, and Arizona State are stunning and maybe not bad at Arizona and Minnesota. We are in optimistic waiting mode for acceptance and scholarship information at Santa Clara and Virginia Tech. He’s been accepted and not counting on merit at Purdue and Rose Hulman, and we have some time to wait at Illinois, Cal Poly, and Georgia Tech and not expecting scholarships at any.
PS Four more years and we hopefully get to do this all again with our youngest!
i’ve been scouring past NMF threads and I found this post from two years ago from someone who was rejected from National Achievement:
For anyone’s future reference NMSC now has no appeals process for a rejection due to grades, what they call a “grade withdraw.” I asked about ap/honors coursework, upward trends, extenuating circumstances and overall GPA and the guy claimed it was holistically reviewed but coming down to a couple of grades is in no way holistic.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1599528-rejection-letters-p6.html (post #90)
Can anyone confirm this elimination of the appeals process? Without it, it’s hopeless
I think I’ll give NMSC a call tomorrow and just flat out ask if I’m a Finalist or not. Can’t take much more of this waiting.
@timbercreek16 I don’t think NM will reveal anything until letters are mailed to finalists on Feb. 10. I’d rather be in your position and not have a rejection letter 
@icgusa National Achievement is a little different per say. Fingers crossed you can appeal.
@Hope2achieve I wasn’t sure what that poster was referring to–I wasn’t sure if he meant one could no longer appeal for grades for NM or NA or both.
Fingers crossed for you.
@Hope2achieve thank you. I think I’m gonna go to my GC so we can begin this appeal, whatever the outcome may be.
Well, another update: I went to my GC today and she called NM. They said that they won’t consider an appeal unless something on the transcript has changed–a grade or something. They always assume students with low grades get “accommodations” for any extenuating circumstances–however that’s not always the case, but I’m sure NM believes that smart students are capable of making A’s and B’s. My GC will do her best and write about the circumstances around the rocky transition I had when I was transferring schools, and how that “WF” shouldn’t be on the transcript because it isn’t calculated in the GPA. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be in this mess if I hadn’t transferred, but such is life I guess.
Any chance on getting the WF taken off?
@Hope2achieve my GC is talking to the principal about getting it taken off, because I took algebra 2 and then made an A.
@lcgusa
I think hope2chieve hit the nail on the head… time to think outside the box. Would it really hurt the school to leave the WF off your transcript. Why couldn’t they just replace with the grade you got when you re-took the course?
I think focusing on the circumstances is not going to get a good result for you. Instead, I would focus on getting the WF taken off your transcript.
Wishing you the best. We moved twice in high school and it really messed up my education. Hoping that you can get this straightened out so that moving does not continue to make things harder for you via increasing college costs.
Best of luck
Could you ask your school to leave the class on your transcript so that it shows that it was repeated but not issue the WF? I would research schools local to your high school that have a more favorable policy and ask if your school could use the more forgiving policy. If they will not make an individual exception, perhaps they would make district-wide new policy. As a last resort, contact board of education for possible policy change.