DD’23 received an email yesterday that she’s a U.S. Presidential Scholars candidate. We aren’t sure how/why she was nominated - perhaps by her high school? She’ll complete the application but, in the meantime, is this worth emailing her colleges about? She has decisions coming in late January and in March. Thanks for any guidance.
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One of my kids was a candidate in 2020 by virtue of his SAT score (1600); perfect or near-perfect SAT/ACT is how most students become candidates. I think it’s also possible to be nominated by a state’s chief educational official, but these are less common.
My kid did complete the application but did not move beyond the candidate stage – it was tough to convince him to spend a lot of time on additional essays after just having endured college application season.
Assuming your daughter was nominated based on a high standardized test score, the admissions offices at colleges she is applying to already know her scores – being named a Presidential Scholars candidate wouldn’t be providing them any new information. A nomination by the chief state education official would be a result either of really amazing accomplishments (probably already evident in the student’s college essays) or parental connections with someone who knew someone who could make the nomination, which obviously is less impressive to AOs.
If she makes it to the semifinal round or is actually named a Presidential Scholar, I think that would be noteworthy enough to notify colleges, but those rounds are announced so late in the admissions cycle that they would only help in the case of your daughter being waitlisted.
In any event, congratulations!
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Thanks for your response. We are somewhat baffled because DD does have very good ACT and SAT scores, but not perfect ones. She plays an instrument, but not for her school. She has won some national awards (not for music though), so maybe the nomination stemmed from her national awards.
I’m not sure who our “chief state education official” would be, nor do we have any connections to secure a nomination. I think DD is supposed to receive a packet in the mail, so maybe we’ll learn more once she gets the packet. In the meantime, I hear what you’re saying and won’t encourage DD to send an email if it would seem over-the-top or annoying.
I hope DD will be willing to write more essays and, agreed, the prospect of that is probably not appealing to most seniors coming off the essay grind. However, it’s neat just to receive this level of recognition, however it came about.
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Note that even if your D does win an award, it comes too late for regular decision. However, an award can be very useful for colleges where she is wait-listed.
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I do not see why you would email that to colleges.
She’s a candidate, not a scholar.
And there is nothing in it that changes what she’s done, accomplished.
In other words, someone said - hey, you’re a candidate for this. It’s different if you won a scholarship due to doing this, that, or the next thing.
But this is - and the analogy isn’t right - but take AP Scholar with Distinction for example - an actual award. It just means you took X amount of APs and got a 3. That’s the important part. The award isn’t.
And this isn’t yet an award - so I see no reason to share this for that reason as well.
Are there asterisks next to her name? The legend at the top explains Arts and TechEd qualifiers.
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Thanks for attaching the PDF. There is no asterisk next to her name, so I guess the nomination must be based on her SAT or ACT. DD’s high school hasn’t mentioned anything about this to her, but I don’t know if that’s something they would do anyway. We’ll just go with it and be happy for the nomination.
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Congrats.
Candidacy is mainly based on SAT/ACT scores and qualifying score depends on the state. In our school, administrators never mentioned anything during the candidate round as well (but for semifinalists and final awardees rounds, they made a social media announcement). How school inform these awards may change from school to school - our public school generally ignore/downplay any academic accomplishments by their students - maybe the same at your school.
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Could I ask how high the score was? My highest single test scores are 1510 and 34.25 respectively. I’m thinking this probably isn’t enough but just curious.
There are a couple different pathways to qualify (more info here: U.S. Presidential Scholars Program Selection Process), but to qualify on the basis of your highest SAT/ACT score (one sitting, not super-scored), your score would need to be in the top 20 scores for your gender in your state.
So if you live in a state with a larger population, that means you basically need a perfect score to be tied for the top 20.
If you’re in a small population state like Wyoming or North Dakota, you might get in with a slightly lower score. But I very much doubt a 1510 SAT or 34.25 ACT would be enough in any state – unless you qualified though one of the other pathways that don’t depend on raw standardized test scores.
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