grrrrrrr what is it about Texas that makes them make us wait ?!?!?!?!?!
Not a peep from MA!
@Phlipper: I think schools don’t want to be on the bad side of NMSC by telling the kids too early. For DD15, it was handled like a top secret operation prior to the Big Reveal.
@Yas2022 that is so frustrating. We are waiiting for MA here, too.
Small rant here - all this secrecy is weird. So is the fact that it took almost a year after the test to figure out who the semi-finalists are. We would have done our summer college visits very differently had we know for sure. OK, rant over now.
^^^ This. We planned our visits as if S would make it, and every time someone asked me why those schools, or why we were visiting so early, or anything else where the answer was “Because we think S will probably make NMF” I would get this sinking feeling like I was being arrogant, or flaunting my chicken counting, etc.
Plus, we’re still waiting for official notification. /headdesk
So . … . . it does NOT take almost a year to figure out who the SF’s were. That was proably known last spring when they established the 211 commended.
It takes almost a year because NMSC needs to do a few housekeeping items. Like get school administrators to confirm enrollment, contact info. and citizen status. Also, they are in the midst of distributing scholarships for the previous class. That will mean something when you all are named NMF’s and are waiting on your NMSC scholarships. Not everyone is plannning to attend OU and 'Bama and UCF and all the schools giving full rides (and good thing too, else the funds would be less than they are now for you all). Some are making other choices and depending directly on the NMSC scholarships in order to assist with cost defrayment.
We visited OU as soon as we had my oldests score,
she was high enough that she would make it in any state. I arranged through the scholars office when we got their and they were meeting with us privately the woman sheepishly asked my daughter what her score was, when she heard she seemed relieved and said “my that is a good score!” I think she was glad that she didn’t have to explain that she might not make the cut!
@TexanIndian - D18 typed in the info for activities/employment/awards right on the online app & then we also played around with them on the app itself to cut some words out or whatever to make sure things fit without parts of words being cut-off and all of that.
We pasted her essay from a Word document & didn’t really have to play with that because it fit in their box. The application doesn’t give you a word count, just the box & they tell you not to go past the red line when you use the preview function. Her essay (@650 words) fit if we didn’t double space between paragraphs.
By the way, for whatever reason, the preview function didn’t work for us. The box just popped up as a blank box (the essay didn’t show up at all). I thought that maybe if it’s too long it won’t show-up, but even if I deleted lines and made the essay very short, it still didn’t show-up when we hit the preview tab. I guess this might be a glitch they have to address.
To get around that, I used the “preview application” PDF tab on the main menu to view the whole application & it seemed like a way to see that everything fit in the essay box, because it all printed out nicely with no words cut off.
@traveler98; @crazy4info - as said above, no specific word count given on the app, but her @650 word essay fit in their box. I don’t know what last year’s prompt was, but I’ve seen posts that say it’s the same. @suzy100 posted this year’s prompt in post #1596.
That’s about it (I think) - compared to all of the other college apps, this one seemed pretty easy actually.
We haven’t submitted it yet, as D18 doesn’t have the contact info for her counselor & teacher recommender on hand, so we’ll send off whenever - no particular rush I guess. I’m thinking there’s a place to put the recommender & counselor info in when you hit the finalize button? I don’t know, because I haven’t hit that button yet.
In the meantime, some of us are still WAITING…!
Frustrating I’m sure @dowzerw !! We’ll keep you informed so you’re not behind the curve when you finally get notified. Still PLENTY of time, you have the prompt for the essay and an essay word count of @650 words or less (based on what fit in the application box for us) & you can have the other info (ECs/volunteer/awards/work history) ready beforehand & then it will take you about an hour or less to just input to the online application.
Hang in there!
@LMHS73 THANK you!
Has it been confirmed that NJ is 223? I’m at 222 
@Burrito12 THANK YOU!!! DD 224. Knew chances were good but unknown is unknown.
and of course, thank you, Art! 
@PandaTX, scores from Oct 2015 to Dec 2017 appear to be ok but some conversion may happen to scores from prior to Mar 2016. Per NMSC
Scores earned on national administrations of the SAT from October 2015 through December 2017 will be considered by NMSC. NMSC will not accept scores from a national SAT administration taken earlier than
October 2015 or later than December 2017.
For SAT scores earned prior to March 2016, your converted critical reading score, mathematics score, and writing multiple-choice subscore will be the basis for determining whether you meet the confirming score requirement. For SAT scores earned in March 2016 and later, NMSC will calculate an NMSC Selection Index
score using the Reading, Writing and Language, and Math Test scores. Please note that NMSC will only consider the highest set of scores from a single administration of the SAT.
So apparently my GC was informing students of their NMSF status on Friday. Too bad I was at the dentist getting my wisdom teeth taken out. :(( :(( :(( Guess I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out. (221 in SC if anyone has a definite cutoff for my state.)
My twins both got 224 in PSAT. DS got 1510 and DD got 1550 in a test administered by the state. Is it okay with 1510 to become a finalist? He doesn’t have a C in his transcript.
1510 should have an NMSC Index from 222 to 231 (depending on the Math/Verbal split). Since the lowest possible score is still higher than 211, the commended cutoff your DS should be safe. Your DD has an even higher NMSC Index.