<p>I’ve never been contacted by my kid’s guidance counselor about anything. The score report for sophomores has an asterisk next to the score explaining that it doesn’t count for NM qualifying. In a perfect world, the kid would know that, and the parents, and then there would be a kindly GC making sure every deadline was met, etc. The world is not perfect though. It’s unfortunate but a reminder to students and parents to be on top of things.</p>
<p>I know it’s no comfort but my oldest did better on the soph PSAT than the jr year one. That’s not that rare from what I hear because the curves are brutal on the high end of the PSAT. your daughter lost the chance to win money but not money itself.</p>
<p>Curious as to what state you live in, laffter, as the NM cutoff scores range widely.
I am sorry your dau didnt take the jr yr PSAT (our school required it of all students-- administers it during the school day) and I won’t pour too much salt in your wound- but in addition to direct scholarship $$ for NM finalists, it is also a nice item on one’s resume that makes them desirable to several schools (who like to “boast” about how many NMS’s they have) and may thereby increase chances of acceptance to that school, possibly with merit $$.</p>
<p>I am sure your daughter will do fine. Best of luck!</p>
<p>*I will be far more on the ball with the THIRD child…my gosh how many children does it take for me to get it right?!? *</p>
<p>Maybe children should be like waffles, the first one is practice to make sure the settings are correct, and then you get to throw it out if it’s not right. ;)</p>
<p>When my son made NM, we had a talk with the principal. He loves having NM students, but the school wasn’t doing anything pro-active to ensure that there were more. </p>
<p>All the kids at the school take the PSAT during the soph and junior years. However, once the soph scores were in, nothing was being done to identify potential NMSF students. Nothing was being done to ensure that their parents were contacted and told about the potential for their child on the next year’s test. Nothing was being done about informing parents about scholarship potential. </p>
<p>We discussed some ways the school could be pro-active and he and the GC agreed to implement them. </p>
<p>However, when one NMSF failed to make NMF because of a sarcastic/rude essay, the principal learned another lesson and now has the GC read all NMSF essays before they are submitted to NM Corporation.</p>
<p>From my small data set , things vary hugely in regard to PSAT. A lot of private high schools automatically sign up all juniors and a fair number sign up all sophs as well. Some give sophs a ‘private testing’ which means the scores aren’t recorded. Public high schools can’t automatically sign up students unless they get the money somewhere which is a harder thing than for private schools. Most mention it to sophs, and lean on juniors a bit.
The schools hand out the scores to the students. They don’t hand them out to the parents. I know of some kids who never got around to showing the scores to their parents.
Our private school signed up kids as sophs and juniors, and told us when scores would be out and a bit about NM (via email and , probably snail mail). But, for a public school to do this, again, costs time and money which they may or may not have. It’s a shame because some of the kids that could most benefit - smart kids with modest incomes happy to go to flagships - may never know what they missed. On the other hand - if all of the money does get handed out, the good work is done, even if it is your kid who didn’t know to get in line.
I’m not sure about the stuff needed to go from sf to f status. The only kid at my child’s school known to have not gotten f was just overwhelmed with work and knew that no school he/she was applying to gave nm money so she/he didn’t finish up the ap.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - one of our guidance counselors developed a lovely color coded senior brochure. Why is it not being used? Because we can’t afford to print a color coded, tab indented brochure.</p>
<p>College Board is the business world - and obviously not everyone takes the time to read their information either.</p>
<p>For those of you wondering why schools pay for sophomores to take the PSAT and leave juniors to their own devices, it’s a simple formula. College Board encourages schools to use the PSAT to track students into AP classes, which they develop tests for and thus make money from. High schools are now nationally ranked according to the % of students taking AP tests, so it is to the school’s benefit to work for the best school rankings, so paying for sophomore tests makes sense. </p>
<p>I have known high scoring students to pass up on taking the junior year PSAT for a number of reasons ranging from family vacations to conflict with EC’s. It’s hard for me to understand but no matter how many hand outs we send or classroom presentations I give, I know the positive response will never be 100%. </p>
<p>Last year I sent out letters to over 100 parents whose students might benefit from meeting an early FAFSA deadline at the state U. and thereby qualifying for exceptional FA if their income fell within the scholarship limits. To characterize the response/turn out from parents as less than ideal would be an understatement. Parents on this forum are not the rule - they are the exception.</p>
<p>I truly hope that parents who do spend time on CC also talk to other parents and share their knowledge and awareness - it would help all students, especially those who have no one looking out for them at home.</p>
<p>^^ I think the world needs a new set of tests. I volunteer to come up with them and in doing so will set the fees, which will come directly to me. I will let anyone take the tests at any time, as long as they pay me. Corporate sponsors will provide the generous awards.</p>
<p>I figure within a year, I’ll be able to buy Harvard.</p>
<p>Sorry, somebody beat you to it. They’re called the collegeboard. Good Lord those people have a lot of power, they can get away with treating everyone like peons. Not only do they control the PSAT and SAT, now I read they are in a position to influence school districts to pay for all students to take one of their exams (PSAT) to track them into special classes to take another one of their exams (AP). </p>
<p>People complain about Big Government, Big Oil, Big Business, Big Wall Street. What about Big Test? Rise up against this sinister hegemony!</p>
<p>BTW bchan1 - Lest you think I am being sarcastic about your post, I’m not. The stranglehold these people have on perhaps one of the most signifcant processes people ever go through is appalling. They set the score ranges, they write the tests, they hold tremendous influence over who will earn 100s of thousand of dollars. I only hope that what people say is true and that universities only use them as a minor factor in determining admissions. From the way many of the kids on this site jump like marionettes when CB pulls the strings, I sort of doubt they’re buying it.</p>
<p>“Maybe children should be like waffles, the first one is practice to make sure the settings are correct, and then you get to throw it out if it’s not right.” mom2collegekids - that was hysterical!</p>
<p>I think the best advice to give anyone - and one of the reasons we all read and post on CC - is that you are your child’s best advocate and you have to research, learn and ask questions all the way through this process - and acknowledge that even if you do that religiously - you will still make some mistakes. It is a complicated process. Remember the NY Times article about the mom who quit her high-powered career solely to oversee her daughters college process? It can be a full-time job. I think many of us who have gone through the process with our first kid have a whole list of improvements for the 2nd kid. And chances are we will make mistakes with the second kid as well - perhaps different mistakes - but still we will probably beat ourselves up when we do so. You just have to do your best moving forward and let this PSAT snafu go by the wayside.</p>
<p>Last year, I read a lot of misinformation on CC about the first choice school. It is true that a student won’t get a school sponsored scholarship unless they put the school as their first choice. However, they can change the first choice designation whenever they want up until a deadline which is after they find out where they have been accepted. </p>
<p>A few schools have their own deadline. S put school A as first choice when he took the test, then found out that school B would give big scholarships if the student notified NMC that that school was the first choice by Feb 1. So S changed his first choice to school B. When all was said was and done, S decided to attend school A and just faxed in the form to change the first choice back to school A and received a (small) NM scholarship from them. </p>
<p>Also, some schools offer non-monetary benefits for NMF. Our flagship only offered a small amount of money, but did guarantee honors program admission and a spot in the best dorm.</p>
<p>One thing I’ve learned on CC is that there is a lot of variation of how things work state to state and also school to school. My D took PSAT her sophomore year, and I was not aware that she had good potential for NM until we were looking for jobs out of state and talking with a GC there. I guess it is possible for scores to increase significantly junior year (hers went up 24 points with minimal study).</p>
<p>laffter- don’t obsess about the lost NMS chance. In the long run it will not matter ( I got a one time award, son was a finalist but didn’t need money and didn’t name a NMS awarding school as his #1 choice). You couldn’t count on any money even with a great PSAT score, either. The chances for money were slim even with the NMS finalist designation, only about 1 in 3 (around 5,000 of 15,000) get any money from NMS and those are often determined by first choice school. No burden of looking at schools for NMS financial aid instead of better schools. One family benefited greatly on this site but that’s a single case. Not being a NMS or even finalist will not exclude your D from the best education or all other merit and need based scholarships. Having perfect SAT scores likewise is no guarantee of admission to colleges.</p>
<p>Why should AP classes and test scores be minor factors in college admissions? AP classes are often harder and more in-depth than the college classes that are considered equivalent. If College Board does what most public schools and many private schools are unable to do—create meaningful incentives for kids to learn at the highest possible level, and provide the means for doing so—then I’ll gladly send them my money, and I hope they become billionaires.</p>
<p>We live in New York State. We produce a good number of intelligent, disorganized parents who miss deadlines, appointments, parties, forget to sign documents and almost invariably fail to read the fine print.</p>
<p>*In the long run it will not matter ( I got a one time award, son was a finalist **but didn’t need money **and didn’t name a NMS awarding school as his #1 choice). *</p>
<p>Well, good for your child. Are you certain that the OP is similarly affluent? </p>
<p>*
You couldn’t count on any money even with a great PSAT score, either. *</p>
<p>That’s not true. Do you know if that the OP’s child would never apply to a school that would give an assured big NMF scholarship or that the OP/spouse might work for a company that gives all dependent NMFs money? </p>
<p>Being able to apply to a school that will give assured big merit (NMF or otherwise) is a really nice financial safety. Even those like you who have children with no concerns about money sometimes find themselves in a financial bind at some point between the application process and acceptances because of parent job loss or a surprise break up of the family. Having such a financial safety in one’s back pocket can be a life-ring in such circumstances.</p>
<p>*
One family benefited greatly on this site but that’s a single case. *</p>
<p>Do you REALLY think only ONE family benefited greatly with NMF status on this site?</p>
<p>It’s a shame that this one avenue to merit money isn’t available to OP’s D, but that just means that they’ll have to look harder at other avenues, and there are many.</p>
<p>GTalum-
I can’t for the life of me find the score report to refer to so I can refresh my memory, so who the heck knows! If he gets a packet in September that will be news to me!!</p>
<p>The waffle analogy is funny, as we have the biggest waffle maker known to man. It makes six at at time…not kidding! With three teenage boys it’s the only way we can get then on the table in a reasonable amount of time.</p>
<p>Although this is my second child, I will say in my defense that my first son’s needs were totally different. We knew early on, despite his relatively high scores he would be staying home and going to cc for at least a year. The extensive research, and the world of ‘reach, match & safety’ is totally new to me. While I know the information I learn going through this with S2 will be helpful, S3 is different as well and we’ll need to adjust to his individual goals. If he decides to go to a LAC, I’ll be totally out of my element and back to square one in the learning curve!</p>