<p>just wanted to share our story, My son was on bubble last year and missed by one point. While getting ready for college a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned, huh, had i made the national merit cutoff, i'd likely be on my way to University Central Florida. he was quiet for a couple of seconds and then he said something along the lines i'm glad that didn't work out. This is said with no disrepect to UCF, who at least last year, offered phenomenal scholarships to national merit scholars. We even visited the school, lovely campus; he would have been happy there. but during the course of the summer between his junior and senior year, he realized he wanted to be close enough to come home whenever he wanted to, live in a big city, and other priorities that put other schools above UCF or any other generous NM schools. He ended up with full tuition at a school he really liked and had other scholarship options too; the scholarships were not as generous as the big NM scholarships but they were still sizeable. So it worked out very well for him, it also worked out well for other bubble kids, and it will work out for your kids too. being on the bubble was a beyond maddening experience. i think it is silly for the NM folks to drag things out this long with the technolology advances since the program began decades ago. to those who make it, hurrah!!! You will have some amazing scholarship options and it is a nice thing to add to one's app. but for those who don't make this cut, things will still work themselves out. Mine is loving college so far and is happy he is where he is. </p>
<p>My daughter also missed by one point and came home at Thanksgiving of her freshman year with the same exact message “I’m glad I didn’t make NMSF because I wouldn’t have been at this great school”. It all works out! She also got a very generous scholarship. </p>
<p>Thank you both for adding perspective to this trying time. I will be sharing this with TW1 who missed by 1 pt (while TW2 made it to NMSF). It all works out :)</p>
<p>@twinsmom15 </p>
<p>That has to be tough. On one hand you want to celebrate TW2’s success, but not make TW1 feel bad. But, I guess you face this sort of thing often and it will be part of your future.</p>
<p>Very likely, TW1 also has good test scores (and may retest for better), if so, then she still will have lots of merit opportunities if that is desired. </p>
<p>What are TW1’s test scores and what schools is she looking at? major? career goal?</p>
<p>yeah, i was thinking that would be hard with twins too 
and agree wiht mom2collegekids, both kids will have plenty of merit aid options if their SAT/ACT scores are comparable to the psat scores. </p>
<p>Thanks mom2collegekids. I took tw2 out to eat for a private celebration while tw1 was busy with something else. Tw1 handled the cutoff news extremely well though - better than I did! And now tw1 happily doesn’t have to re-do the college list to include all the great NMF options.</p>