<p>"This is particularly sad as qualification is based on the thinnest of standards - performance on an abbreviated exam, the underlying questions of which were developed for a different purpose, and which show the thinnest of relevance to college performance. Yet we fall for it, and salivate over the outcome."</p>
<p>Not to quarrel over your analysis, but is establishing an scholarship contest with little more than an essay and self-reported community service really any more fair? </p>
<p>Of course, my attitude might be different if my S weren't a Finalist. ;)</p>
<p>Marite, newmassdad: I agree, the recs, essay can't count for very much if 90% progress from semifinalist to finalist. My impression though is that grades DO matter, and they weed out the bright kid who slacks off in school and gets mediocre grades. (That was certainly the case of the last person at our school who didn't make it from Semifinalist to Finalist.)</p>
<p>What I hadn't realized until I read the article is how FEW scholarship the NMC actually gives out--it's NOT 15,000--and how small many of them are. More than a million kids take the PSAT/NMSQT each year, right? And National Merit gives out just 2250 scholarship and administers 1050 corporate scholarships? Plus, I guess, saves colleges some paperwork in deciding on another 4900 students to give scholarships to. Seems like an awful lot of kids are being put through another hoop with very little prospect of benefiting. Besides, if kids want practice, better they should just try the real SAT. The only advantage I can see is that some high schools pay the fee for taking the PSAT. Another advantage I suppose is that colleges don't see your PSAT results.</p>
<p>"Not to quarrel over your analysis, but is establishing an scholarship contest with little more than an essay and self-reported community service really any more fair?"</p>
<p>I am not aware of any scholarship programs meeting the above description that pretend to identify the best and brightest kids in the country, as the NM seems to do. No, usually, we see something like "Johnny had the best essay, and oh, by the way, gets a scholarship for his efforts". </p>
<p>Your same argument about fairness could be raised about all sorts of other scholarships, such as athletic, but begs the point that NM, IMHO, misleads the public, IMHO.</p>
<p>correct, their is absolutely no principal or GC that is NOT gonna prepare a good rec for any kid in thier school that is eligible to move to Scholar status -- it's in his/her own personal interest to look good to the community and school board. In reality, the 1,000 kids that don't make scholar status are those that have low gpa's or just bomb the SAT which is extremely rare.</p>
<p>aparent: while a prep course may cost $700, it is worth the money for kids applying to Tier 2 schools which offer their own scholarship money solely to NMF's. As noted previously, Tier 2 schools, which want to buy better stats to improve their ranking, offer 50-100% tuition scholarships to any NMF. A possible $15-25k savings over 4 years is definitely worth the $700 investment, IMO. Heck, a few weekends of test prep which can be self-studied by the Xiggi method, potentially has a bigger financial payoff.</p>
<p>In our community, neighborhood kids are extremely knowledgeable about the value of the PSAT and start prepping in July! The ones who are comfortable with the process also take the SAT fall in Jr year - and move on to SATIIs in spring.</p>
<p>What if the grants were based on scholarship? For example use several AP scores to earn grants: earn three 5s on AP tests and earn a $1000, get 6 5's and earn $10,000. Something that at least showed scholarship over a variety of subjects.</p>
<p>There are so many different kinds of scholarships offered today that I don't think we need to add to the mix. I think we need to re-allocate our PR, resources and our expectations away from NM. Won't happen, though. The machine behind NM is just too big, too successful.</p>
<p>There is no "ONE" way to award achievement, nor should there be, IMHO. We just need to get away from thinking that NM recognizes the best. It does not.</p>
<p>Marite, that is incorrect. Fifteen thousand out of 16,000 make it from semifinalists to finalists. Of those, 2,500 become NMSC-sponsored NM Scholars.</p>
<p>not a bad idea for the national MERIT program, but many would argue that that too, is discriminatory against inner-city kids since many of those schools only offer 1 or 2 APs, if at all..</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction. But we have no way of knowing how the 2,500 become NM Scholars and receive the $2,500 scholarship which is far less generous than many corporate scholarships or the full rides or even partial tuition awarded by colleges seeking to boost their scores. If it were on pure merit alone, NM would not be asking which college you expect to attend and check whether your parents work for companies that sponsor NM scholarships. It should be absolutely irrelevant.</p>
<p>I don't get that, marite. I assume they ask those questions because they want to know if you wish to be eligible for funding from those sources. Kids who don't wish to be know that they are putting themselves in line only for the $2,500. Even though they realize this is less $, to some (including those who keep track of the statistics about such things for colleges), those are the "real" NM Scholarships. However, that topic has been discussed here before, and so I will shut the can of worms I've just opened!</p>
<p>aparent5, I think you are giving NM too much credit. </p>
<p>Isn't it interesting how little we know about the process? And their web site is no more informative. It states "All winners of Merit Scholarship® awards (Merit Scholar® designees) are chosen from the Finalist group, based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishmentswithout regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference. A variety of information is available for NMSC selectors to evaluatethe Finalist's academic record, information about the school's curricula and grading system, two sets of test scores, school official's written recommendation, information about the student's activities and leadership, and the Finalist's own essay."</p>
<p>Note the choice of words "A variety of information is available for NMSC selectors to evaluate" - they do NOT say what they base the decision on. </p>
<p>If I remember correctly, my S, who had put undecided on his statement last fall, was asked to update his college information by April 1. For students who will have to decide among different colleges (including based on availability of aid), I wonder why it is important to notify NMC by April 1?</p>
<p>Aparent - I don't know what criteria is used for the 2500 NM-sponsored scholarships, but the NYT article was about UC wanting to pull out of offering COLLEGE-sponsored scholarships. Each college can set their own criteria, but the point is that at if college A. is sponsoring 20 scholarships, then they have to fund 20 students who are using dollars that could be allocated to different students with a more broad criteria. When it comes down to it, the question of whether a student will have a college-sponsored scholarship depends entirely on what college the student chooses to attend.</p>
<p>I suppose that there is a counter-argument to be made, though: NM fights elitism by encouraging students with great test scores to attend lower status, public universities like ASU or OSU rather than pricey, high-status private colleges.</p>
<p>Marite, unless they have changed things since the year 2001, NM doesn't require students to provide college information until something like May 5th, several days after the May 1st notification deadline. They might "ask" for info along the way -- I don't know -- but their deadline for designating a first choice college is in May.</p>
<p>Here is the excerpt from a Feb. 9 letter my S got:</p>
<br>
<blockquote>
<p>Every Merit SCholarship award must be used for full-time attendance at a college or university in the US that holds accredited status with a regional accrediting commission on higher education. Therefore a Finalist (/u/) cannot be offered (/end) an award until he or she has reported such a choice to NMSC. Our records show that as of January 31, 2005, you are (/b/) undecided (/end) and have not reported your first choice college.
We will begin mailing Merit Scholarship offers to winners in March. Finalists who have not been chosen to receive a Merit Scholarship award will be informed in mid-May, after most selections have been completed.>></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think it's a lot of fuss over the scholarship money issue. For most high-level colleges if you have NO financial need, you only get $750. a year. That's chicken-feed. If you have financial need you get more, which you would get anyway because you HAVE need. So, it seems silly for UC to be making a fuss about this.
Although I agree that it seems silly to base an award on a test, most NMF are good students, with good grades and lots of smarts. Why not give them $750 a year???</p>
<p>Marite,
It was a few years back so I don't remember specific mail my son got. I know that he did not designate a first choice college until May, after he had decided on his school. About 3 weeks after sending in the designation, he received a notice from NM saying that he had NOT been awareded a NM-sponsored scholarship. A week later, he got a second notice saying that he HAD been awarded a college sponsored scholarship.</p>
<p>It may be that by not designating first choice college the student removes himself from early consideration for the 2500 NM awards -- I can't say, because at the time we had decided that strategically we did not want the NM award unless my son chose a college that did not offer its own award. We had this strange idea that $8000 is more than $2500 - so the last thing my son wanted was a $2500 award that would disqualify him from consideration for the college award. We thought the whole thing was screwy, but we knew we wanted to go for the largest award possible.</p>
<p>It might not seem like a lot to you, but $1.4 million could buy 246 full-tuition scholarships for deserving low-income students each year at UC-Riverside. That's HUGE! (especially when the Legislature cuts your budget virtually every year.)</p>
<p>My S will be attending H, which does not award NM scholarships. I suppose that $2500 is not much against the 4 years' worth of tuition, room and board that we'll be paying, but he might enjoy having the money to spend or to put aside. We'll see.</p>