@vistajay at about 3:00pm on Friday my dignity will go out the window and I will become “that Mom!” if I haven’t heard by then.
Waaaah! I want a definite cutoff for WA!!
I contacted our school counselor in charge of the process and she was very kind in her email back to me that they haven’t received the notification yet and that they are all at lots of prep meetings getting ready for school to start next week. She said she would check again Tuesday and email me with any news. I don’t want to wait until Tuesday!!!
If any Alaskans are lurking, 217 made it here, but not sure if that is the final number.
@RoonilWazlib99 yeah, me too! I’m assuming, because we have so little information, that most mail hasn’t reached us yet.
USPS has been unable to deliver any mail in my area since Saturday, and they aren’t even trying to put a date on when they will start delivering mail to any Houston area zip code. Even though our school district was only minimally affected by Harvey and will go back to school September 5, I still expect I will end up having to call NMSC after the 13th because the GCs will probably be too busy to call before that. Houston metro alone has hundreds of NMSF, and it’s certain that some of them don’t know about the program and/or don’t realize they’re in the running. If their GCs don’t tell them they’re not going to even know to call NMSC. Hopefully NMSC has some kind of plan in place to manage the special circumstances this year…maybe an effort to reach out to students or at least an extension on the NMF application deadline if an affected student requests it.
I need to ask S whether he’s opened any college emails lately. With paper marketing out of the picture for some time, I bet plenty of colleges have emailed him.
Why is there so much confusion/discrepancy over letting students know what is going on with their status? Is this schools/GC’s not understanding or is this poor communication from the NHS corp?
We had “Back to School Night” last night. I brazenly approached the principal in the hallway and asked when they were going to announce the National Merit Semifinalists. He looked blank. “You mean, from last year?” Not a clue. He came from a middle school. I hope he checks his mail.
@Kelman13, from the posts here it seems there are a lot of factors:
- The language in the NMSC letters seems to be somewhat open to interpretation by GCs.
- Turnover of counselors and principals can result in administrators who are not very aware of NM.
- Schools that only rarely have NMSF or Commended students don’t have as much experience with the process and/or don’t have parents who know to prod the administrators.
- And this year there’s the added chaos in swaths of Texas and Louisiana because of the hurricane. Mail isn’t being delivered, and even when the letters finally come the schools will be busy dealing with students who have lost their homes. NMSF is going to be very low on the GC priority list in affected schools.
Any MI home schoolers out there with scores? Art’s site says it is > 217.
I got a call from our OH principal yesterday on a different topic so I asked if my D18 NMSF letter had been received and she said they received the letter the day before and she qualified. I asked her if the letter write up indicated that she wasn’t supposed to tell us and she said yes, the letter said not to share unless the official press release date but if we kept it confidential and didn’t put it on Facebook with D18 name it was ok to know now. She said she could go to GC and get the letter. Maybe NM should have more advice like school can inform students confidentially but don’t post on social media? She seemed very clear that she wasn’t planning to share until press release date but only shared because I happened to be on the phone with her about a different matter.
I’m guessing one thing a GC or Principal has to be careful not to do is to respond to an email from a parent or student that a kid made it. In this day and age, an image of that email can be out on social media in a matter of seconds. Then it is if they have made a public announcement, upending the official public one on 9/13. So if you are waiting for an email response from an administrator, if they are smart you probably won’t get one.
That aside it seems to me if I were in their shoes I would want to call the kids into the office and privately congratulate them and help the students start to grasp the process ahead. Let them tell their families but otherwise keep things private until 9/13.
@LOUKYDAD , you are exactly on the money. I got no response when I emailed the GC and I wasn’t even asking if D qualified.
I’m not sure if people saw my above post, but the language in the NM is clear that the info is to be kept confidential with the exception of family and the HS Principal. The way D’s GC handled this was to send an email to the Semifinalists congratulating them and asking them to stop in her office before leaving school. She blind copied the (two) Semifinalists. In the GC office they were given a letter written to them from NMSC.
When D called me after school to tell me what happened I was surprised it was so low key (versus an announcement at school like last year). Then I read the letter. It’s explicit in saying the news is confidential until Sept. 13th and includes their login information, etc. I’m guessing the school will announce it after that time but again - it’s very clear in its instructions. I think it’s safe to assume that any letter to school (versus to the student) is the same.
I honestly tried to post on Art’s blog, but cannot figure out how to do so. Comments start at Feb 2016 or some crazy date like that and they just keep going and going… No idea how to “comment” because there’s never an “end” to the comments that I see.
If anyone else is over at Art’s and can report 219 as the KS Cut-Off, that may be helpful to someone. Hopefully most people are toggling back & forth between CC and Compass.
I did update the Class of 2018 NMSF Cut-Off thread for KS at 219.
For some reason, between this thread with lots of “just-missed NMSFs” and a bunch of bad luck happening among DS’s classmates, I’m just feeling a bit down. I’ll hope for good news from some of our posters today, because that would be a nice change.
I do agree that NMSC is clear about not publicizing NMSF status until the press release date @kayak24; however it seems many schools interpret the letter to mean that they shouldn’t inform the students before the press release date. If I were reading the letter it would seem obvious to me that the information is for students, their families, and their principal and GC, but from the posts here it’s clear that some schools are not willing to share with students prior to September 13. Maybe it’s lack of experience, maybe it’s unwarranted caution, maybe they’ve been burned in the past by a student or family member blasting it out on social media. Who knows, but some schools clearly refuse to inform students before the official press release while others have no problem doing so. This inconsistency could easily be remedied by NMSC explicitly requesting schools to confidentially share NMSF status with the students upon receipt of the letter.
@GoAskDad … just posted… you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. It does take forever …
Good luck!
@traveler98 … my thoughts exactly! Or, specify that information can only be released on the 13th, or whenever they plan the press release for. That way, everyone has the information at the same time.
With this current modus operandi, where things are open to interpretation at schools, everyone who hasn’t got information, is so much on edge (though I must say, between Art’s blog and here, people are so generous with their help and sharing information…)
DS got the word from his GC that he made it this morning along with the lecture of not telling anyone other than parents until the 13th. I can breath better now.
Congratulations, @3scoutsmom … glad you didn’t have to become “that Mom!”
Wow, just read the following over at Art’s.
Fun fact: CA has as many Semifinalists as the smallest 24 states combined.
No news over here, but S hasn’t started his school day yet.
I wrote to NMSC to rectify this by adding the language to educators guide. Here is their response. It looks like it is the GC/Principals that are just plain unaware and misinterpreting it and getting confused with Sept/13 media release deadline. My principal does not want to release it until then.
I feel NMSC language is clear.
–
This is the language that we use in the Online Scholarship Application (OSA) letter that is sent to principals informing them of their Semifinalists.
“We are very pleased to notify you that each of your seniors named on the enclosed list is a Semifinalist in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program and has an opportunity to continue in the National Merit Scholarship competition. Except for Semifinalists and their families, this information is confidential until Wednesday, September 13, 2017, when National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) will release the names of some 16,000 Semifinalists to news media nationwide (sample enclosed).”