My DS was notified today in MCPS |
My son was notified he was a semi-finalist. I found this thread when I was looking around for information. Is this a potentially big deal or more just a nice bullet-point to list on his accomplishments and maybe a few bucks for some text books?
He's completely adrift on where he wants to go to college. He seems mostly focused on Big Ten schools and has an interest in computer science and/or music. |
I think it depends. Some schools give full rides, but generally not top 25 schools. Did he qualify through the PSAT or SAT alternate entry? Colleges care about his SAT for admissions. |
PSAT. He later got a 1490 on his SAT, so he's got solid college credentials, but we're probably not talking Ivies or anything. |
It could be a huge deal depending on where you and spouse work. My mother's employer (Fortune 100 company) awarded a scholarship that back in the day covered a third of my HYPS tuition/room/board simply because I was a National Merit Finalist. |
Meanwhile, a friend's child was at a school that didn't offer the PSAT, didn't counsel the kids about alternate entry, and he scored 1600 on the SAT, but is not a NMSF. Weird year. |
+1 My kid's Title I school never has NMSF and never bothered to tell students about the alternate entry. A number of kids this year scored 1550+ on th SAT but aren't semifinalists. A few disappointed kids but at least colleges look at SAT scores for admissions. |
Yes, we head very little about alternate entry, but somehow DC heard about it somewhere and was able to submit the form in time (maybe from this site even), but still didn't know they had to submit the scores. Fortunately, they still can, though they're not on this list. Feel bad for all the kids who are totally iced out because they didn't have the AE info. |
Looks like a kid on Reddit got a full book listing semi-finalists by state from his or her counselor and is posting pictures of the book.
https://www.reddit.com/user/lil-catfish/ |