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Can we talk PSAT and National Merit Scholarships?


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Let's see if I have this straight.

 

The prep recommendations for the PSAT that have been floated previously include SAT prep books, the College Board question of the day and online free programs like number2.com (SAT prep).

 

For those who are wondering, the PSAT is always administered in October. One does not register through the College Board but at a local school (public or private). The PSAT can be taken before 11th grade, but it only counts for National Merit Scholarships in 11th.

 

Regarding National Merit Scholarships: Could we flesh out this subject? If a student taking the PSAT in 11th has a sufficiently high score in his state, he is recognized by the National Merit people. The student could be "commended" or a "semifinalist". Question: when a student is recognized by the National Merit program, does he know immediately whether he is commended or a semi-finalist? The move from semi-finalist to finalist relies on an SAT score and an application. What is on the application? Are students writing essays for the National Merit?

 

Students specify a single college (say College A) on their National Merit applications. If they change their mind about College A, would any National Merit funds be transferable? Even if your student did not specify College A on his application, did his college recognize and reward his National Merit status?

 

Now that my son is taking the PSAT "for real" in October, I am trying to see how National Merit could fit into the picture. It just seems to me, though, that students who are torn between a couple of schools (because of their programs or financial aid packages) may not be able to capitalize on National Merit--or do I have this wrong?

 

As always, I thank you for sharing your wisdom.

 

Jane

 

P.S. Please correct any misconceptions that I may have!

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I always thought that the score was the determining factor as to whether one was commended or a semi-finalist. The semi-finalist makes the score (or better) determined by the state, and the commended is a score close but lower than the semi-finalist. However, I'm not sure where I gleaned this information :D

 

My son will be doing a trial PSAT this fall. Depending on how close he comes to last year's cutoff for Oklahoma, I will either really ramp up his studying or just let it go. I found that my oldest increased his score by about 13 points (he didn't work very hard on it) so I'm looking for something about 10-15 points lower than the cutoff of last year.

 

We have had 2 NM Finalists come out of our co-op the past few years. One wanted to go to Harvard but was not accepted. She went to Wheaton and received a partial scholarship. I think NM Finalists are quite common there. The other has a full ride (tuition, r & B, books, and spending money) at a private university here in Tulsa.

 

That's the sum total of my PSAT knowledge :-)

 

Good Luck to you and your son.

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an e-mail or a PM to Kathleen (her blog is Rock Creek Rumblings) on these boards. She may spell her name with a lowercase "k". At any rate, I believe both of her sons have been National Merit finalists. Anything she could say would trump anything I might be able to add. Both of her kids are very, very well read and have done great academically.

 

The reason I'm suggesting you send her an e-mail (I think that's the route I would take) is because I don't see her on the boards very much anymore. I think this is her last year of homeschooling!

 

HTH!

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Dd was a National Merit Scholarship winner ($2500 -- the kind actually given by the Natl Merit folks, not a college or corporation). Ds was a Natl Merit Finalist.

 

Timeline -- We heard in the late spring of junior year that they were commended students. Both commended students and Semi-finalists are chosen SOLELY based on PSAT scores by state, with NJ and CA having about the highest cut-off scores and Mississippi having one of the lowest.

 

We received notice in VERY early September of senior year that they were Semi-finalists. The notice comes with an application for Finalist status. The application had several parts --

 

1) A personal essay -- a statement by the student detailing past achievements, goals, etc. Basically a get-to-know-you essay. Both of my kids used the essay several times in college applications, so it was a useful essay to have written.

 

2) Transcript -- but done on a Natl Merit form. A real pain to get together just they way they want it, but again once it was done it was handy to have around.

 

3) Recommendation from a TEACHER, NOT a parent. My kids both had a teacher who had taught them several classes write the rec.

 

4) SAT scores. Rumor has it that the SAT scores are just a check and that they don't need to be that high -- over 2000 will do. (That is gossip from College Confidential and is totally unsubstantiated!)

 

5) First-choice college. This is useful if your child will be attending a college that gives money to Natl Merit Finalists. Most colleges only give the Natl Merit award money to students who list their college as first choice on this form! (You can change the choice up to early February -- but that doesn't help folks like my son who really changed his mind.)

 

Be careful choosing which college to select -- ds ended up not attending his first-choice school so he did NOT receive the Natl Merit award that the college he is attending usually awards.

 

6) There were also some short answer questions and the students needed to include a list of outside activities.

 

After the student send in the Finalist application, you wait.....and wait....and in early February you hear if your child is a Finalist.

 

The National Merit Scholarships that are handled through the corporation are not announced until late March/early April, but if the college your child will attend does NM Scholarships, you will know he received one as soon as you receive the Finalist notification.

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By the way, my son received a nice letter from Washington University in St. Louis today. Maybe I'll just send the boy your way to mother for me! You needed an adopted son, don't you? ;)

 

Jane

 

With no sons here, we need to adopt! Washington University is a really great school; I'd consider it for myself, but their graduate school English program doesn't terminate in a Master's in Lit. It goes straight through to a PhD, and I was told I'd have to live there, because the program is full-time; there is no part-time option available.

 

But, check out Wash. U.---ranked 12th in the country!

 

Gwen---great answer! I forgot that your dc was a National Merit scholar, too!

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National Merit is kind of a wierd thing, I think. It's a very nice honor, but unfortunately doesn't translate into huge monetary rewards for the winners. There are some corporate awards linked to NM that are probably really great (if you happen to work for one of the corporations that sponsor the awards) but few substantial college awards based on NM--at least as far as I can tell. They might give you $1000-$2000, but that's about it. Gwen, have you seen differently? Maybe some take NM into account when making decisions on their big scholarships, but I'm talking about money that is directly based on NM.

 

A couple of years ago there was a funny article that appeared which pointed out that a National "Text-Messaging" champion (in a contest sponsored by one of the mobile phone companies) won $25,000, whereas a National Merit Scholar won $2500. So maybe it's better to work on text-messaging skills than practice the PSAT? :tongue_smilie:

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Lynn,

 

You are right that for the most part NM Finalist doesn't translate into huge sums of money. Mostly the colleges give $1000-$2000 freshman year and that's it.

 

It depends on the college, though. Some give lots of money to NMF's. U. Dallas gives a generous award to NMF's that is renewable for all four years. Arizona State University, which supposedly has more NMF's than any other college in the country, gives full-tuition (or full-ride -- I forget) to NMF's.

 

If you go fishing around on College Confidential you can find a list of which schools give full-tuition/full-ride scholarships to NMF's -- there are quite a few. If your child is a finalist, you CAN afford to send your child to college -- though of course it may not be his/her dream school.

 

I think that NMF is about prestige -- the colleges can brag about how many NMF's attend.

 

Is NMF status over-rated? Possibly -- but if your child gets a generous scholarship (or even a smaller one) from it, that's wonderful!

 

A different way of looking at it -- dd figures that she spent about 20 hours prepping for the PSAT and 3 hours taking it. If she then spent another 25 hours on the NMF application, she was paid for her PSAT/NM work at a rate of about $50 per hour. Not bad for a girl in high school!

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How odd that this thread was active today, since ds just brought a little packet in from the mailbox...!!!!!!

 

BTW, ds wouldn't get ANY money from his top two schools for NM, but he's also not likely (statistically speaking) to get accepted at those schools. His third choice, however, has a fabulous NM package. I guess I've just been surprised to find that few other schools of similar size/reputation have similar funding.

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National Merit is kind of a wierd thing, I think. It's a very nice honor, but unfortunately doesn't translate into huge monetary rewards for the winners. There are some corporate awards linked to NM that are probably really great (if you happen to work for one of the corporations that sponsor the awards) but few substantial college awards based on NM--at least as far as I can tell. They might give you $1000-$2000, but that's about it. Gwen, have you seen differently? Maybe some take NM into account when making decisions on their big scholarships, but I'm talking about money that is directly based on NM.

 

Maybe, but as other posters have pointed out, NMF can translate into $$$. My oldest was awarded a full ride--tuition, books, room and board, plus stipend--at ASU. Now, ASU isn't known for being a public ivy, but she has been accepted to Barrett Honors College which is a well-funded and highly selective school within a school where she seems to be getting a private school education for free. Can't beat that.

 

Here is a list of schools that give at least full tuition for NMF status: http://homepage.mac.com/l_j/secondhome/National_Merit.html

 

Seems like a good starting point to me.

 

Barb

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My only PSAT experience is from when I took it my 10th grade year of HS. I didn't know that it was standard to take it in 11th grade now. It was at that point that we got the ball rolling with scholarship apps. I was a awarded one of those corporate-sponsored National Merit scholarships that was mentioned above.

 

Basically, I wasn't a NM finalist or anything (good scores, but not stellar), but my dad's company turned all the applications, money, etc. over to NMSC and had them choose 100 winners and disburse the money to the colleges. I was one of the winners and got $6000/year x 4 years. The kicker was that the private college I attended, because the $ was coming from NMSC, gave me scholarships for the rest of my tuition/room/board (less $250/year because NMSC said I had to pay something). It didn't matter to them that it was corporate-sponsored and not the real-deal NMSC. It was a total, blessed shock to my family.

 

My point is for you to seek out those types of scholarships also and don't give up just because the scores aren't NM finalist quality. Talk to the financial aid officer at the schools you're interested in, especially the private schools. I think it looks "good" for them to say they have $x coming from NM.

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My son will be doing a trial PSAT this fall. Depending on how close he comes to last year's cutoff for Oklahoma, I will either really ramp up his studying or just let it go. I found that my oldest increased his score by about 13 points (he didn't work very hard on it) so I'm looking for something about 10-15 points lower than the cutoff of last year.

 

Where do you find the cut-off scores for your state? And they will send parents the test results regardless of how well your child tested?

 

I am planning on having my son do a trial run this October, and this will be our first experience with any of this. However, I second the comments about other scholarships being tied to the PSAT. My husband's employer is one of many that offers a full-ride scholarship based on PSAT scores.

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Back in the 80's, after you got your scores, you had to send in your family's financial info. The result of that ludicrous plan was that they believed my parents could spend more than half of their income (before taxes) on college tuition and therefore, would only give my sister (finalist) $500 and me (semifinalist) $0.

 

In this whole thread, no one has mentioned the parents' financial info. Is that no longer taken into account?

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I think if you have other things to back it up, not just the test scores, you stand a better shot, of course. But I had many full-ride offers from state schools and some half-scholarship offers from better schools for my NM Finalist status. I ended up going to a state school on one of four yearly Presidential Scholarships (tuition, room & board, overseas trip, perks, etc.) that was only open to Finalists (after which backing it up with volunteer work, activities, etc, came in to play.) It wasn't bad for a Saturday morning's work; my parents sure couldn't have afforded to send me to college.

 

We never had to submit financial info, either. This was early 90's.

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We got one of those packets yesterday too. I guess I'm a bit confused about how scholarships are awarded.

 

It seems like approximately half of the Finalists actually receive NM scholarships in one of three ways ... NM itself, the first-choice college, or a corporation. Do they pick the receivers of scholarships (presumably those with the strongest test scores, essays, grades, whatever) and then figure out which one of the three types of scholarships to offer? Or do you have a better chance of getting a scholarship if you have more possible sources ... like, say, a first-choice college that actually offers a NM scholarship (I notice that none of the Ivies, for example, do, while many smaller LACS do) or an employer who offers a scholarship?

 

Maybe I've just made this even more confusing!

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Hilary,

 

I wish I knew if 1) the NM Corporation fully is in charge of the whole operation and it makes sure that everyone only gets one scholarship or if 2) the scholarships can piggy-back.

 

I BELIEVE (though I am not sure) that they can piggy-back. Dd1 received the $2500 scholarship through the NM Corporation. Her college specifically mentioned that she was not elgible for the college's NMF award ($7500) because she already had a full-tuition scholarship. So we assumed that W&L would have paid the $7500 in addition to the $2500 if she had received no other merit aid. But we don't know for sure.....

 

Confused here too -- we just responded to what came in the mail!

 

If how the award is handled would make a difference as to whether your child will be able to attend a certain school, I would call up the school and/or the NM folks. We did call a few times, and the NM folks were great about answering questions.

 

:confused:

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I was a Commended Student, but didn't make Semi-finalist or Finalist. I still received a full tuition scholarship. Their policy was that if they accepted you, they would make it financially possible for you to attend.

 

By the way, my son received a nice letter from Washington University in St. Louis today. Maybe I'll just send the boy your way to mother for me! You need an adopted son, don't you? ;)

 

Jane

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  • 1 month later...

My son has received two letters with BIG numbers: 92.000 from Arizona State(for 4 years) and KU:16.500 each year for 4 years if he put their name on the NM application as first choice college. So , this is a real thing!...But he will not be applying to neither one.:glare:

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