@momrath It is great to hear your son had a great experience at Williams. You have eased many of my concerns, thank you.
I think part of why D21 likes Williams so much is beauty of the locations. She had never been in New England before, we arrived in Williamstown the night before when the sun was setting. We stayed in the only hotel in town, The Williams Inn, she had never been in a Inn, and to top it off she really clicked with the tour guide. The rest of the trip all the other schools were compared to Williams.
@carlson2 : Thanks for the NMSF essay prompt. Can you also give us the character limit? Also, is there anything else she should could get started on? (D21 confirmed as NMSF in local press which publishes all the state qualifiers, but no word from school GC yet) TIA!
@UpNorth2019 - I donât recall a character limit, but it does have to fit into a box. I think you would be safe keeping it between 500-600 words. There is also an activities section that they ask you to fill out - itâs pretty limited though. I think it was 6 rows, and they want activity, the year(s) participated, etc. As a parent, there is an email that gets generated and sent to you that asks for permission for your kid to participate. In general, it is not that time consuming.
A neighboring high school is hosting the ACT this weekend. Seeing Facebook posts of people from our school who are trying to print their ticket and realizing nothing is there. Apparently the school decided only their own students could test there and others had their registration canceled. Either no emails were sent, or they missed it!
@homerdog , sorry for my belated response. Where did your son end up going? Did you and he like Grinnell? That is one of the schools that we probably wonât be able to visit. It sounds great, but I am a bit concerned about it being in the middle of nowhere. My daughter likes that it has no Greek life.
Hi @Momminit , sorry for my belated response. Looks like your daughter had an almost identical list to D21âs! My daughter is also not into the Greek scene, and she has some concerns about Denison for that reason. Did you get a sense of the Greek life there? Itâs interesting that your daughter liked CWRU. I canât get my daughter to consider it â she thinks it is too focused on science, and she is interested in the humanities. What made Wooster your daughterâs first choice? Is she there now? What does she study? How is she liking it? We already got a generous merit estimate, so that puts it high on my list. My daughterâs latest thing is trying to avoid places that have too much of a preprofessional vibe. Which of the schools that you visited seemed more intellectual and collaborative?
S19 is at Bowdoin. He did like Grinnell but he had a lot of choices in the end and really wanted to get out of the midwest. He really has nothing bad to say about Grinnell except that it was just too sleepy. Also, we were a bit concerned because he wants to work after undergrad and it seemed like so many Grinnell kids were going to grad school. Itâs just so far even from Chicago and the career center just seemed less focused on job placement than others.
Now that our district has started in person leavening, I got confirmation that the Sept 26 SAT that S21 was registered for at one of our local high schools will take place. Also, his high school is holding a free School Day SAT for seniors only on Oct 27âŠso looks like he will be testing after all lolâŠsuch a roller coaster this has been!!
@UpNorth2019 D21 asked her school college counselor about the NMF application and said she could use her common app personal statement, so I think around 600 words. I think it is very similar to the common app, and activities sections and needs recommendations. If you have not received to login informations, you might want call NM, I saw on reddit kids were about to get the information and start the application.
I agree. S19 used his common app personal statement for NMF. Some huge percentage like 98% of the NMSF become NMF. You just have to jump through these last hoops.
Late September SAT canceled here (California). Hopefully I will get the automatic refund since we are for sure done with SAT. GC said they did manage to arrange for early October school only ACT after much difficulty with ACT admin and it has a back up date of late October, which would be good. Fingers crossed but not studying.
The only thing we are hearing from the school and local news media is crickets. So, I called NMSC to see if they will be able to give her Login creds to start the finalist application. They confirmed again that she is a semifinalist, but they told me that no one from my daughterâs school logged into the NMSC Server. The semifinalist letters and individual login information for the students will only be generated after the school official logs in. So they were not able to help me. And currently we are getting automated replies to emails and Voicemails when we try to reach the school counseling dept. It is is really frustrating.
We went through the National Merit process last year with my D20. Itâs SLOW. Just a heads up and our school did not help or cooperate much. In fact, they never even announced she was a finalist or a scholar. My one piece of advice, is if you are looking at schools that offer full rides, start applying and doing those schools soon. Some of the deadlines are earlier then others and also some have special programs that have separate applications and deadlines (thinking of future medical scholars/ honors colleges etc). Lastly you might want to check, in the current environment, that if you are looking at school sponsored awards that come from the state government, that they are guaranteed through the school if the state cancels funding. A lot of states are hurting right now and it would be a shame to loose a scholarship due to canceled funding. I am so happy we asked that question prior to D attending because her school does pay the remaining years of funding if the state cancels the program. It was a large part of our decision of where to go. Good luck. Like someone else mentioned, most go on to be a finalist and the essay is more of a hoop to jump through. The biggest part of moving on is transcript grades.
@Momof0ne - I am sure you will get your info soon. I just looked at the NM Corp letter and it says that your respective HS needs to transmit it to NM by October 7, 2020. Just wanted to give you that date.
October 7 is also the date the applicant needs to transmit his/her application to NMSC. So, hopefully schools will get going well prior to that date on giving applicants the login info.
D21 was working this summer, and she wasnât motivated to do anything virtual. Since she was out in the sun all day with 8 year-olds, I didnât push it.
When she finished working, she tried a virtual tour, and it turned her off to the school. Since her list of schools is already short, this wasnât a good thing! Iâm not going to encourage her to do more virtual events, other than interviews. She has found some good sources of info online, such as English department newsletters which had faculty articles and letters from graduating seniors. Sheâs also thinking about signing up for âtalk to a majorâ for various schools, because itâs one-on-one and could be more personal.
Weâre lucky that she did get to visit three of the schools that are still on her list. Sheâs leaning toward ED at one of them (not a super-reach). I really wish she could visit more schools in person, and I worry that ED isnât a good idea without that. I know the schools are doing the best they can with the virtual options, but itâs like lectures about different species of trees vs walking in the forrest.