<p>Yeah I've never heard of school nominations, there's certainly nothing about it on the Robertson website...that's kind of the reason I applied for it...you might be confusing it with the Morehead which does often entail a school nom?</p>
<p>No, at my school one is nominated every year.</p>
<p>At some schools the guidance department selects one or more designated student to apply and gives them the supplemental forms. It sounds like one can either find out about Robertson that way, find out on their own on the Duke or UNC website and apply on their own, or not fill out the supplemental form at all and Duke and or UNC admissions identifies them as good candidates and they get reviewed by the Robertson selection committee.</p>
<p>Oh. Well, you could still fill it out even if your school didn't nominate you. I wonder if other applicants at your school know that?</p>
<p>I guess that most who are interested in getting a merit scholarship research the scholarships at the schools they are applying to and see which ones need nominations and which ones one can apply to on their own. I know that for the Emory Scholars Program one had to be nominated from their schools. It is interting because for Virginias Jefferson scholarship at some high schools there is a detailed selection process with nomations and interviews until one is selected as the designated nominee while at other high schools one can get their guidance counselor or Principal to nomiate them.
As for the Robertson Scholar program there must be so many in the pool they are considering in addition to those who filled out supplemental forms and had them sent directly to the Robertson Scholar Program, since both schools can and do select many semi finalilsts who did not even apply.
The odds of being named a semi finalist seem small merely because if there are only 75 for UNC andf 75 for Duke, that is less than 2 per state who will be named semi finalists. It also depends on how many in that state typically apply to Duke and UNC. Of that number there is no way to know how many applied for the scholarships, and how many who did not apply were added into the pool for consideration. Of course the odds may be higher where these schools may get only 15 applicants versus 250, or even 500.</p>