<p>I'm hoping my D will be a National Achievement Finalist. I'd like to know what kind of scholarships this year's finalists received and where they were admitted. Any advice will be helpful.</p>
<p>D was a finalist. Did not receive scholarship from NM corporation, but received it from her college instead. Better deal: from NM corp, one-shot deal, from her college, renewable!</p>
<p>Either way, NM scholarship is $2500, I believe. Not a whole lot of $ for something that is treated as prestigious.</p>
<p>D admited to Rochester, Colgate, Bucknell, Clark, Union, waitlisted at Colby.
She was not interested in the Ivy/NYU/etc. schools.</p>
<p>It is $2500, single-payment. I was admitted to Cornell, and recieved the scholarship.</p>
<p>does anyone know an average score of the national achievement finalist?</p>
<p>See these links. One of the links is about national merit, but A lot of schools that give scholarships to national merit scholars also give scholarships to national achievement scholars.</p>
<p>In making finalist, what's important is their gpa, not their SAT scores. My older S had a 1410 on the old SAT, younger S had a 1540 on the new SAT; neither made finalist because their gpas were about 2.9, 2.8 -- because they were very smart guys who underperformed</p>
<p>I know National Achievement scholars who had 1250 on the old SAT.</p>
<p>As for $, there are some public universities that give big bucks for NM finalists. University of Florida and Florida State used to be among them, but I think now they may not give as much, at least not to out of state students.</p>
<p>Many colleges that have scholarships for National Merit Scholars have matching ones for National Achievement and National Hispanic ones. </p>
<p>Historically black colleges are very generous to N Achievement Scholars. Some like North Carolina Central give full rides plus, I think, laptops. </p>
<p>The designation also will help at many LACs particularly those that are not in the top 12 or so in the country. It's hard to attract black students to many LACs because such schools often are in isolated, overwhelmingly white areas and lack football teams, something that often is a big attraction to male students in general.</p>
<p>While my sons were only National achievement semifinalists, National Merit commended, my older S got basically a full ride to University of Minnesota, was offered about $9 k in merit aid to U Wisconsin and about $9 k in merit aid to Syracuse. He got into Vanderbilt and Michigan, but neither offered him merit aid. He was rejected by Columbia. </p>
<p>Younger S got $10 k in merit aid from Rollins College, which he had fallen in love with. He also got into a second tier public that didn't offer him any money. He didn't apply elsewhere, but even with his relatively low grades (but excellent ECs, very rigorous curriculum) he probably could have gotten into at least a top 30 college.</p>
<p>One caveat: Being a National Achievement Scholar isn't an automatic in at places like Ivies. It's a nice honor, but there are many black students -- including non NA scholars -- who may get in over a Nat Achievement Scholar with great grades, but weak or nonexistant ECs or a passive personality.</p>
<p>i was a national achievement finalist last year and received a full ride to all the public schools i applied to and the hbcu i applied to also. for all the private LACs i applied to and the Ivies, all i got was the one-time $2500 scholarship</p>
<p>oh, and i applied to:</p>
<p>columbia
northwestern
harvard-attending
yale
washu
spelman- full ride
university of illinois- full ride
miami university- full ride
pomona
williams</p>
<p>and i forgot the other ones...</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info.</p>
<p>Congratulations hotpiece.
Would you share your SAT scores with us. I know my D doesn't have the GPA for the Ivies. She's about 3.5 unweighted.</p>
<p>Texasmama - Last year, my d was a Nat'l Merit scholar and a Nat'l Hispanic Scholar here in Texas... and I noticed UT-Austin gives extremely generous packages to Nat'l Achievement Scholars....</p>
<p>texasmama,</p>
<p>i sent my act scores and i got a 35. </p>
<p>but what is your daughter's weighted gpa and how rigorous is her school?</p>
<p>My D was a National Achievement & National Merit Finalist for this academic year and a member the National Honor Society at her school. What Hotpiece101 implied is correct all this must be package with a very high gpa in a rigorous high school curriculum and excellent SAT I and/or ACT scores. As an example my D has a 4.4 gpa with 10 honors classes and 9 APs, two of which she self studies, from a well regarded high school which sends students to the elite colleges on a regular basis. New SAT I score 2130 which is ~ 32 ACT. She applied to 13 schools, D made no assumptions, had both academic and financial safety schools:</p>
<p>D's College Application Results
Spring 2007</p>
<ol>
<li> Yale University – attending - regular need based financial aid received @ 40% of EFC due to special circumstance <a href="no%20loans,%20work%20study%20or%20student%20contribution%20due%20to%20renewable%20local%20outside%20scholarships%20and%20the%20one%20time%20$2,500%20National%20Achievement%20Scholarship">H lost his job</a></li>
<li> University of Cincinnati - Full Ride, Academic Scholarship = Cincinnatus Scholar</li>
<li> Miami of OH - Full Ride, Academic Scholarship = Harrison Scholar</li>
<li> Kenyon College - Academic Scholarships = Diversity Scholarship & Swartz Scholar (no loans) + need based aid = all but S1,600 covered</li>
<li> Fisk University - Academic Presidential Scholarship Award, Full Ride</li>
<li> Spelman College - Academic Presidential Scholarship Award, Full Ride</li>
<li> Agnes Scott - $20K Annually, Presidential Award Merit Scholarship</li>
<li> Mt. Holyoke - $30K Annually Merit Scholarship</li>
<li> Bryn Marw - regular need based financial aid received upto EFC</li>
<li>Wellesley - regular need based financial aid received upto EFC</li>
<li>Swarthmore - regular need based financial aid received upto EFC + Swarthmore Scholar = no student loans</li>
<li>Washington University in St. Louis - Ervin Scholar, 4 year full tuition + 3 year match to the National Achievement Scholarship of $2,500</li>
<li>Tufts University - regular need based financial aid received upto EFC + Balfour Scholar = no student loans.</li>
</ol>
<p>Note that D had excellent EC including a Varsity letter in scoccer, a county wide leadership position, excellent recommendations and is extroverted.</p>
<p>Check out Howard University, great scholarships for National Achievement Scholars.</p>
<p>I had approximately a 3.6 uw GPA, a 2180 on the SAT and 2310 over three SAT II tests. 13 AP classes by end of senior year. ECs were crap compared to standard admits on this board. Still admitted to (and shall attend) Cornell.</p>
<p>Kman,
Those are good scores. Congrats.
Mizo, you must be very proud.
It's certainly going to be an interesting ride. Guess I'll find out if she makes the cut for semifinalist in September.
Daughter's weighted GPA is 4.7. She's at a very competitive high school. She's not even in the top ten percent.</p>
<p>DD is a National Achievement Finalist. SAT I was a 2240; SAT IIs 780, 760, 740; ACT 32 Composite. Unweighted GPA was a 4.0, with the most rigorous classes in her high school. She had various ECs, including TASP. Her National Achievement Scholarship will total $8000 - $2000 per year.</p>
<p>DD was accepted to HYPSC, and wait-listed and eventually rejected at Brown. Additionally, she was accepted to the University of Oregon, Middlebury, Syracuse, USC, LSU, and Lewis and Clark (Oregon). Lewis and Clark offered a full scholarship (as an aside, this is a really nice school - very nice staff). USC and Syracuse offered half-tuition scholarships. The others offered one-quarter to half scholarships, with the exception of Middlebury, which offered only very little need-based aid </p>
<p>DD will be attending Harvard in the fall.</p>
<p>MSMDAD: Congratulations to you and DD! Would you mind sharing why your DD chose Harvard over YPSC?</p>
<p>grantedin, First of all, welcome to CC - I see that this is your first post. I have to tell you that DD waited until the last possible day to decide which school she was going to attend. Up until the last minute she vacillated between H, S, Y, and to a lesser extent C. As a parent, I tried as much as possible to be supportive and to make sure that it was her decision, not that of my wife and I - active listening skills were utilized, and we did not tell her if we had a preference.</p>
<p>In any case, I think that she chose Harvard based on a very subjective "feel". DD visited the campus twice, including two weeks before having to make her decision, and really liked what she saw (this was also the case with Y and S). She had the opportunity to meet the niece of a co-worker who was a senior at Harvard during her last visit, and this student gave her a really good feeling about Harvard. She also liked Boston and the opportunities that Harvard has for students to volunteer in the community.<br>
DD ruled-out P early on - read something about eating clubs that she did not like. And she decided that C was a good fit (she spent six weeks in Ithaca last year), but would rather live in a large city.</p>
<p>MSMDAD: Thank you!!! I have enjoyed gaining experiences and wisdom from CC parents and students. My son is a junior in high school. He would like to apply to HSY and he is working hard toward it. I wonder what will make his applications stand out when there are so many brillant students applying to those colleges.<br>
Thanks again.</p>
<p>Very helpful thread. Corgrats to all of you successful parents and children! I'm hoping my DD will be named one this year.</p>
<p>My sons were National Commended but didn't make the cutoff in our state for national merit. I never heard anything about national achievement finalist- what are the cutoffs? My son had UW GPA of 3.9/W was 4.5 and his SAT was 1430/2170. (PSAT 2140)</p>
<p>hmmm, doubleplay, assuming your son is a minority, he should have made the cutoff...</p>