<p>Does being commended count for anything ( other than warm fuzzies)?
I mean to ask, do any colleges offer merit based scholarships on being commended rather than a finalist, or does it even help with admissions?
Just curious. Thanks for any insight!</p>
<p>Yes, My last two were Commended. The advantage is with the colleges which offer merit scholarships.There are many threads on C.C. about who gives good merit money and some colleges have charts that easily read if you have this you get that scholarship- if you have applied for it! Also, to be considered are large colleges with Honor's programs. And some of these colleges have cut and dry scholarship policies, but make it clear you are applying for the scholarship and get the application in early.
If child is a rising senior what you need to do is apply to all colleges child is interested in before December. Because merit aid does run out. You also must make the admissions office aware you are interested in what scholarship so that you child has his interview on time to be considered. (often by December)Now this summer, go through many colleges, visit them, get the list to together (and the money for the applications!) and you will be all set to procede with applications as soon as they become available.If your child is interested in a large college with an honor's program, be ready to file that application as soon as they become available.There are all kinds of stragedies to get into these programs. One is to apply for the next summer admission, when there isn't the Fall admission crush. Then as soon as all your applications are in start working on applying for all the local scholarships you can. YOu have a heck of a year coming up!</p>
<p>Also, don't assume anything. When your child goes to the interview make it clear to him/her to make a good impression.Of course, he has to want to apply to that school!You can nudge but he makes the decisions.</p>
<p>Our son was commended and did extensive college research for colleges which suited him academically and might offer merit aid. I don't think he stumbled on any that guaranteed merit scholarships for NMS-Commended award.</p>
<p>However it seems logical that it had to be of some unspecified benefit w/r to admissions and scholarship consideration. BTW he applied to state flagship. RPI, Case, Oberlin, Wooster and Allegheny and receiving nice merit offers from all except Obie.</p>
<p>There are a few colleges that offer some merit aid for commended students. St. Olaf is one.</p>
<p>If you check the cc archives, you can find some posts that I did a year or two ago that list those colleges. </p>
<p>Any student who scores high enough to be NM commended on the PSAT has the ability to do well enough on the SAT to get very nice merit aid.</p>
<p>D was commended and rec'd offers of merit aid from a number of schs (inclu Case and Wooster). I believe, however, that those offers were not based on her commended status per se, but as Nsmom indicated, on D's strong SAT scores.</p>
<p>Two specific prgrams where a Commended status could produce a cash award for a junior would be the Centre Fellows and the Furman Scholars program. Both have PSAT criteria that would be met with Commended status scores but need to be applied for junior year. Get hopping. I know last year they accepted apps later than their posted cutoffs.</p>
<p>Thanks all.
Curm - I checked out both of those - great info to have on the forum. Unfortunately , my d would not qualify for either ( class rank ) but might work out for another reader here! Also , she wants BIG university LOL</p>
<p>I did check out the other post mentioned here as well. Thanks for that info.</p>
<p>She did fill out an app for my husband's employer a few months ago so it would be great if she was able to get that scholarship. I guess we'll just have to see whether there were a lot of high scorers that applied. At least she has a shot.</p>
<p>Right now her first choice school should be a match for her ,so I am hoping that this recognition will just give her a little boost in admissions and maybe even help a little with a merit award ( I think she will be close). She is only a junior but I have a feeling application season will sneak up quickly so we are trying to get this all figured out.</p>
<p>Make sure that she studies for the SAT and considers taking it a couple of times so as to maximize her scores.</p>
<p>Many public universities consider SATs strongly when giving out merit aid, so since she wants a big university and is a good test taker, she may be able to reach her dreams along with merit money. This particularly probably is true at your in-state publics.</p>
<p>I strongly suggest having her take the SAT this spring. If she does very well, she won't have to bother with it again during her busy fall semester.</p>
<p>Wait a minute!!! Did I read ^^ right? SAT is important for college and parents should push their kids to study it to get a high score? </p>
<p>When I said I want my D to do the exactly the same. Many this Mom or that Mom throw their shoes at me, telling (I am using a nice workd here) me to back off or my DD will run to a train or jump off a building etc. </p>
<p>I see a double standard here.</p>
<p>Northstarmom- Thanks. She actually took the SAT in Dec and scored about where we expected based on PSAT. However, her math section was a little low since she is just now taking algebra II.(on the other hand she rocked the written - too bad most schools aren't counting it! ) We signed her up to do a repeat in June and are hoping that her math score will go up just a tad to put her in a little better position for merit aid.
No pressure here - just being smart about trying once more. I'll be extremely proud of her whether the score goes up or down, whether she gets a dime or nothing. : ) She's a great kid regardless of scores or schools or scholarships.</p>
<p>At the very least, your daughter can include National Merit Commended in the Academic Honors section of the Common Application. Our HS does not offer academic awards or honors so it was nice to have something to write there.</p>
<p>Good point - she really didn't have anything to put there so that will be nice!</p>
<p>laserbrother; I'm a great believer in SAT prep. It can make a world of difference and has for my kids, 100's of points. Of course it won't change the knowledge or skill you child has, but it gives him experience and comfort with the test.</p>
<p>My S was Commended and put it in the high school achievements/honors section of applications. He applied/was accepted to 3 state u's and was invited to join honors/scholars programs at each and received merit scholarships from each. Have no way of knowing if the Commended designation held any sway in those decisions though.</p>
<p>laserbrother,
The reason you got a reaction from me (and I never said anything about jumping off a bridge, train, whatever...) was that you indicated that your child's disappointing scores were affecting your moods- yelling at your wife, making you cranky throughout the day, and stuff like that. </p>
<p>If your child is motivated to improve his or her scores by prepping, I say go for it, and support him or her in a positive manner. </p>
<p>I guess I'm sensitive to parental reactions because of all I've seen watching my kids play sports- parents jumping all over their kids for striking out, making them walk home from games, getting all cranky, cursing, yelling at coaches, umpires, and other parents... It's not good for the kids if they see their parents internalizing their performance- it just makes them more nervous and they end up doing worse. The kids who did the best of all were always the ones whose parents were happy and supportive cheerleaders. Same goes for anything kids do.</p>
<p>Bottom line: positive, supportive parents = successful and happy kids = happy parents.</p>
<p>Sorry- not to change the topic but I felt it needed to be said.</p>
<p>About the commended- my younger son was commended and received a bunch of invitations to apply for honors programs and what not. My older son was not commended but he too received a bunch of invitations, but not to all the same schools (his were mostly to engineering schools because that's what he put on the PSAT as his intended study). </p>
<p>My younger son DID get a lot of materials from much more selective schools than the older, so the higher PSAT score probably had something to do with that. In the end, some of the schools that were sending him invitations did not accept him and some did. </p>
<p>Having two sons with nearly identical grades and scores, but one commended and one not commended- I really didn't see a big difference in their success with scholarships or acceptances.</p>
<p>About Furman- my son never applied for the junior year scholarship that Curm was talking about but he received a scholarship anyway after submitting a regular application. Another girl at his school had the same thing happen to her.</p>
<p>That reminds me - my d must have "opted out" of the "receiving info from schools" section because she has received NOTHING except a couple of things from schools we signed up for on websites. By this time, her older sister had scads of stuff and she had scored slightly lower.
Is there any way I could reverse her decision ? LOL
I kind of liked reading some of the brochures - many were very creative!</p>