<p>If I did not apply to be a National Merit scholar (I did not take the SAT and my schedule just would not permit it plus I had to focus more on apps than on standardized tests) does my Semifinalist status get revoked?</p>
<p>No, you keep Semifinalist status but you just can’t move on to Finalist. I don’t know about what went on in your life in the past half year or so, but I think you made a big mistake by not filling out that application.</p>
<p>I don’t think your semifinalist status is revoked but you might become one of the 1000 that don’t make it to finalist. Better check with NMSQT.</p>
<p>I agree with Fred.</p>
<p>what was i supposed to do? i hadnt taken the sat when i heard of my semifinalist status at which point the first available sat was when i was out of the country. the next available one waas november which could have been possible but i did not feel confident that i could prep for the sat (which i have never taken before) in three weeks. i had too many apps to do and my parents explained it to me correctly: the applications are the top priority and NOT the national merit thing. i was gonna take the ssat subject tests in november and then december but then felt that i could not study well enough with the time so i switched my subject tests to december, at which point i figured i could either take the november ssat annd do poorly, thus risking my college apps to schools where i have to send subject test scores or not take the sat and lose the opportunity of 2500 dollars. was it a great opportunity? no doubt. was it worth risking applications? absolutely not. it’s really complicated but out here in the midwest people dont generally take the sat so it was kinda annoying. had i taken the sat earlier with more prep, i would def have sent in the application.</p>
<p>The requirement for semi’s to become finalists is something like 2000 SAT. The majority of semifinalists score well above 2000, at least at my school. Even with minimum prep, you probably could have pulled off a score above 2000 since your PSAT is already decently high. I think you made a mistake not taking it. All you had to lose was.. what, 65 bucks and one Saturday morning, plus a few nights of study? Did you at least take one entire practice SAT at home to see whether your score was good enough for you to take the Nov SAT without much studying and still make it to NMS finals?</p>
<p>You are still a semifinalist, but you won’t become a finalist. It’s not a huge deal to be a finalist as far as awards go, but depending on what kinds of schools you are looking at, you could have lost some merit money right there.</p>
<p>You are from the Midwest, did you take the ACT? It counts just the same.</p>
<p>No, it doesn’t count the same. National Merit needs the SATs not the ACTs. I have to be honest OP, I think even still you could have made time to take the SATs just to qualify. But, to each his own.</p>
<p>i feel bad that yur schedule is that tight…NM can be worth a lot more than 2500 bucks…im looking at Alfred U, and they offer full rides to winnners</p>
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<p>I think you would have done fine on the SAT if you scored high enough on the PSAT to get semifinalist status. In my day, people didn’t prep for tests like that beyond just doing the sample test in the test information book the week before, and that was fine. But I guess that is water over the dam now. You can still tell the world that you are a National Merit semifinalist, because the PSAT score is all you need for that honor.</p>
<p>I know that we’re the exception and not the norm (at least here on CC), but neither of my kids studied or did any prep at all for the SATs. Not even a practice test. Back in the olden days, the premise of the SAT was that it was intended to measure what a student was capable of - to a certain extent all the studying and prep defeats the original purpose of the test.</p>
<p>Son took the SAT last October before the PSAT. He did reasonably well (2030) and it’s good enough to get him into the schools he’s interested in. He ended up NMSF and had no plans to retake the SAT, figuring that his original score was good enough. The night before the November test, he found out at a high school football game that a kid in his class was re-taking the SATs to try for better scores. This particular kid is really annoyingly competitive. Son decided he “couldn’t risk” the other kid outscoring him (other kid’s original scores were ~100 less than son’s scores). So he decided that night to go retake the SATs the next morning as a standby - all this as more of a joke than anything else. He got in standby and took them - I’ll be very interested to see how he did, taking them on the spur-of-the-moment after a late Friday night out.</p>
<p>Again, I know that our way of doing things is not the norm for the CC crowd, but I’ve always figured that I want my kids to go to school somewhere that they will comfortably fit in academically. If they have to cram for the SAT and take all kinds of prep classes and practice tests to get the scores they need to get into a certain school, then I’d be concerned that they would struggle too hard to keep up academically.</p>
<p>All that said, I would have recommended taking the SATs cold with no prep. As a previous poster said, you had absolutely nothing to lose. At worst, your score would have been too low to make the cut. Not likely, and by not taking it you eliminated the possibility of becoming a finalist altogether.</p>
<p>It’s not the end of the world and the semifinalist standing is still something to be proud of.</p>
<p>yea i agree with posters above. it’s water under the bridge/no use crying over spilled milk. the money was a good offer but not enough to force me to worry about an SAT and such. besides, only two of the schools listed as giving scholarhsips are schools i want to go to and one of them, wash u, gives hefty merit scholarships anyways.</p>
<p>C3Baker, you are not completely alone, even here on CC. My older kid took the SAT with zero prep. However, he is a natural test taker and a very strong student so I knew it wouldn’t matter. On the other hand, my next one would benefit from taking a couple of practice tests, and I will encourage her to do so.</p>
<p>tryin2Bcool, it is too late for you, but I think you would be doing a lot of other students in your school a big favor if you politely pointed out to the guidance counselors that they should be warning students that if they think they will be doing well enough on the PSAT to become semifinalists, they should be including an SAT sitting in their early senior year plans. I’m in the midwest also, and several of my son’s friends found themselves scrambling when they discovered the ACT wasn’t enough for finalist status.</p>
<p>Another thing to note for others that might reason themselves into the same situation is that it isn’t just the schools that are on the official National Merit list that give merit money to National Merit semifinalists. </p>
<p>My daughter’s #1 choice school is not on that list. We asked the admissions department if they do anything for NMSF applicants and they explained that they offer additional money for NMSF even though they are not on the official list. It doesn’t hurt to ask.</p>
<p>well, i admit, sheepishly, that i did know about the sat requirement but was so freaked out about the possibility of getting a bad score that would then show up on my sat ii score reports that i decided not to take the test unless i was absolutely sure that i was a sf. so that aspect of bad planning was on my part. wwith hindight, i probably should have done that but its not worth worrying about (there are things much more worthy of my concern) and it’s not the end of the world either.</p>
<p>ps jml: had i known that it probably would have spurred me to take the sat even further. oh well.</p>
<p>When you have demonstrated through the years that you are a really good student, you should not be afraid. Like I’ve said in other threads, it all boils down to a lack of confidence in what you know.</p>
<p>well i guess the moral of the story here is have confidence in yourself. nuff sed.</p>
<p>As a student from the midwest I understand the pressure of the SAT. My school never mentioned the SAT test when I asked about it, and found out when I read the NMSF packet. I took the test after working a closing shift at work (11:00 pm), not prepping, and driving an hour away to the location.
Actually, Mom drove so I could nap in the car. I blew the CR section with at 660, but got a 750 M and 720 W, so 2150 overall. I hope its good enough, but will have to sweat it out for a few months. I wish the Midwest schools would let their students know of the potential for scholarships and the need to take the SAT when possible, instead of trying to cram everything in the last minute when you get semi-finalist notification. Stop beating yourself up…congrats on being a NMSF!</p>
<p>Sylvia, if you’re worried about whether the 2150 is “good enough” for NMS Finalist, it’s definitely fine. Those are good scores for someone who didn’t prep at all :)</p>