<p>I'm not going to bother with really "standing out" with my NM essay, because frankly, I don't have the mental strength to write another expressive, insightful essay. NM's expectations for essays are not as high as colleges' are, so I don't think it would hurt me too badly in the competition, but the real hurt could come if someone else, like a school, read my bad essay and took it into consideration with my app. Does National Merit share their essays with colleges, etc?</p>
<p>I don’t think so. You do know that only half of the NMS finalists get scholarships, right? For the amount of money, it ought to be worth it to put in some time.</p>
<p>I’m putting into the essay almost the same amount of time I’m giving my common app essays, just not all of it.</p>
<p>Nope, most places don’t care about that stuff you give them. Esp since they most likely already have that info and more. But yeah you should be fine with an essay like that.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks. I figured, since most of the schools will already have a couple essays from me with their supplements, that they wouldn’t look at this one.</p>
<p>Colleges are not going to see it.</p>
<p>If you want, you can just adjust another essay to fit the NM prompt. </p>
<p>The essay doesn’t have to be a “standout”…it should just be grammatically correct, etc.</p>