Just to clarify, 219 will get me Semi-Finalist in North Carolina, correct? My guidance counselor refuses to see me until next Tuesday for some reason…
I agree about the scholarship cuts for OU. The $4200 housing cut first year is a biggie. Dropped OU well down the list.
I really wish there was another data point for Oregon. I’m looking for another confirmation that 221 was too low for NMSF.
Thank you for the info on OU, @HeliMom74! They offered DD15 a nice NMF but she turned it down. Now DS18 is not even thinking about OU’s NMF program…and I won’t make him apply now it’s not like what it had offered before.
@Texasmommy90 has your school sent word? Ours still has not…grrrrrr
A New York student reports qualifying with a 221. This is not necessarily the cutoff, but (if accurate) anyone 221 and over will make it.
Washington were art thou? >221 is not very helpful.
@Phlipper: Nope. I don’t expect to hear anything until Sep. 11. In 2014, school sent summons to all NMSFs on 9/8 in advance of 9/10, the date of Big Reveal. Our school district has been having one of the highest numbers of NMSFs in the state.
Last year’s news coverage also included a link to the actual booklet: https://www.scribd.com/document/324118293/Texas-National-Merit-semifinalists-2016-17#from_embed.
@JBStillFlying I was the one who said it was the same as last year’s. The prompt you wrote in your post is indeed the prompt that shows up in my portal
Does anyone have info on Michigan? Art says MI>217, which is above his predicted cutoff.
Not a peep all week on Mississippi. :((
So my principal confirmed my Semifinalist status in CA at 222! She did not however give me access to the application. Also, I saw a small book that may be “The Book” but I wasn’t allowed near any of it, so this remains a mystery. Thank you guys for so being so supportive and informative!
D18 & I filled-out her NM Scholarship Application this evening. Not much to it - 2 pages.
Page 1: just a little bit of personal information: address, phone #, intended major, parent employment info; page 1 is also where you can either declare your 1st choice college or (like we did) choose “undecided” for now.
Page 2:
Room to list 6 ECs/Volunteer Activities - you can only fit in about 9 words in the little boxes to explain each entry, then there’s a box for hours/week spent on each EC & a box for the grade level(s) student participated in the EC;
1 line for awards/honors - we were able to squeeze in 4 (room for only @20 words total for the whole line);
1 line for employment - room for about 15 words;
and the student essay - we recycled one & there’s room for @650 words.
That’s about it - it didn’t take us all that long to fill it out. The longest part was playing with the boxes for a while to get the right amount of words in.
Of course it would taken us longer if she actually had to write the essay and we also had work sheets on hand that we made over the summer listing all of her ECs, work history, and volunteer activities, hours, awards, etc., so all of the required info was at our fingertips for this one.
@LMHS73, “playing with the boxes for a while to get the right amount of words in” <- can this be interpreted to mean online instead of offline (hard copy)?
@LMHS73, thanks for this! And the essay prompt is definitely identical to last year’s? The ~650 word limit is new info to me, so that may help S. I had told him previously that I thought the limit was about 500, and last night he was saying he might need to pare his essay down a bit. I’m not sure if that was because of word count or because he thought he was rambling.
Congrats @sewin2music! Good luck in your college search!
I’m sure it has already been said, but what is the essay prompt? Thanks!
To help the reviewers get to know you, describe an experience you have had, a person who has influenced you, or an obstacle you have overcome. Explain why this is meaningful to you. Use your own words and limit your response to the space provided.
@TexanIndian … Yes, the essay is posted online through the student’s NM portal. You can just cut and paste from and existing essay. IIRC, it allows you to “preview” the essay as well to see if it fits within the allotted space. There are several posters every year that panic when they realize their posted essay exceeded the character/word limit and was “cut off”. Don’t stress about the essay. Unless you’re posting something that is rude or totally critical of the NM process (yes…someone was stupid enough to do that one year) you will be fine.
Our HS here in TX won’t inform students until late next week.