College Board National Recognition Awards

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good shorthand for saying "I took a lot of AP classes and tests and did really well on most of them" if you don't want to list all the scores somewhere else on the app.

While it's possible to get a College Board National Recognition Program award with AP tests, most get the award for their PSAT score.

OP's question is confusing.

College Board has I think two or three awards based on how well you do on your AP tests. I think the highest is AP Honors with Distinction which is an average of 4 or higher on 5+ AP Tests. There are other similar awards. They don't come with any $$$s or any special recognition with colleges.

Then of course there are NMSF or NMF awards for PSAT Tests.

The College Board also recognizes anyone that scores a perfect score on an AP Test. I don't know exactly what they call it...but they definitely send a letter to anyone that achieves this.

None of those things you just mentioned are National Recognition Awards.

Well...yes they are. I don't know how you are defining "National Recognition". They are not awarded by specific regions or districts but on a National basis.

They aren't anything special, but they are in fact National awards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good shorthand for saying "I took a lot of AP classes and tests and did really well on most of them" if you don't want to list all the scores somewhere else on the app.

While it's possible to get a College Board National Recognition Program award with AP tests, most get the award for their PSAT score.

OP's question is confusing.

College Board has I think two or three awards based on how well you do on your AP tests. I think the highest is AP Honors with Distinction which is an average of 4 or higher on 5+ AP Tests. There are other similar awards. They don't come with any $$$s or any special recognition with colleges.

Then of course there are NMSF or NMF awards for PSAT Tests.

The College Board also recognizes anyone that scores a perfect score on an AP Test. I don't know exactly what they call it...but they definitely send a letter to anyone that achieves this.

None of those things you just mentioned are National Recognition Awards.

Well...yes they are. I don't know how you are defining "National Recognition". They are not awarded by specific regions or districts but on a National basis.

They aren't anything special, but they are in fact National awards.

It’s not a question of defining national. It is specifically the CB’s National Recognition Awards. It’s a specific, named program.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/help-center/what-are-eligibility-requirements-national-recognition-program

[Anonymous]

Seems like they set the bar too low. A B+ GPA is low for high school and top 10% of psat is also not noteworthy. Basically, everyone who is an NMS commended person should qualify for the National Recognition Award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The award itself isn't necessarily impactful. However, there may be value in listing the award in the honors section of the application, as the award title may indicate that the student is an underrepresented minority by race or ethnicity.

I don't know about the rural one, which covers about half the high schools in the US, many of which are actually suburban.

College Board has gotten rid of the race and ethnicity awards! They recently announced.

I think this is move of a game changer than has been discussed in the news - or here. I saw time and time again, families who seemed perfectly willing to say, "sure" about to the hispanic box to the college board who would not do the same on college applications. "Larlo thinks my mom is Latina! where does he get this stuff??" (um, from when you said, "go ahead and check that box"). and then they were quick to include the Hispanic National Recognition Program Award on the college app, signaling to colleges race when there wasn't any race in fact to signal

? You cannot get the Hispanic recognition without at least a grandparent being Hispanic. What are you talking about?

it's totally self reported. what are you talking about?

DP. No, Hispanic ethnicity was verified by the high school counselor on a form where the counselor also provided GPA. Usually they simply looked in the high school records system to see what your parents registered the student as, though every year someone would post about a counselor asking for proof, usually via parent birth certificate listing one parent from a list of countries.

NP at our private school, we have no records on grandparent ethnicity. We self report on college board and then counselor will ask kid to confirm. that's it. what kind of proof would a kid even have? half the time the grandparents are dead. and also the grandparent doesnt have to be born in a different country to be AA or Hispanic.

[Anonymous]

I always though that if you identified as Hispanic (it is an ethnicity, after all) you can call yourself Hispanic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to just spell out the info re:APs in the last two links, you can either show that you are in the top 10% of the class OR submit 2 or more APs with a score of 3 or better. That’s after getting a qualifying PSAT score. So even folks choosing to use APs have a low bar to clear - colleges very likely do not take away a message that a student “took a lot of APs and did really well on them” from this designation.

Yes, the criteria here are set so that although facially neutral the award will be essentially meaningless for students at affluent suburban high schools, where a majority of the class will qualify based on AP scores, but significant at under-resourced schools where it’s rare to even take two APs by 10th grade.

Yep. That was my take as well. It may help bright kids who are FGLI, from rural areas, or from lower achieving high schools, with PSAT scores below the commended threshold but still relatively strong. It will do nothing for the kids who are already getting NMSF or commended awards or who are attending an average to high SES school.

My kid qualified for the school based recognition award. She's also going to earn NMSF. She's filling out the paperwork because there's no reason not to do so, but it's unlikely that this award will be useable in any way.

[Anonymous]

A hispanic can be of any race. white, black, indigenous, even Asian (think Brazil, Peru, some Caribbean nations with notable asian immigrant communities)

[Anonymous]

How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always though that if you identified as Hispanic (it is an ethnicity, after all) you can call yourself Hispanic?

this. nobody asks for "proof"

[Anonymous]

Low bar for grades and getting a 3 on an AP point to nothing more than a data grab, fill out your profile in time for us to sell your data for the next admissions cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know what the top 10% of psat scores are?? My child has no idea if that’s what qualified her.

I’m assuming my daughter qualified because of her PSAT score. Her FCPS school (one routinely bashed on here) is an IB school so she has not taken any AP classes.

[Anonymous]

DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a good shorthand for saying "I took a lot of AP classes and tests and did really well on most of them" if you don't want to list all the scores somewhere else on the app.

While it's possible to get a College Board National Recognition Program award with AP tests, most get the award for their PSAT score.

OP's question is confusing.

College Board has I think two or three awards based on how well you do on your AP tests. I think the highest is AP Honors with Distinction which is an average of 4 or higher on 5+ AP Tests. There are other similar awards. They don't come with any $$$s or any special recognition with colleges.

Then of course there are NMSF or NMF awards for PSAT Tests.

The College Board also recognizes anyone that scores a perfect score on an AP Test. I don't know exactly what they call it...but they definitely send a letter to anyone that achieves this.

But why do you need to fill this out - in the past it was on the college board website

[Anonymous]

The fact that you need to "Claim Your Award" by June 27th - is evidence that this is intended as a data grab for college board to sell you data

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is up for school recognition award? What does that mean? No idea if she is in top 10% of PSAT (didn’t prep for it and not a national merit candidate) but did get 5s on 3 APs taken in 9th and 10th.

Does the school get to pick who wins the award(s)? Is it more than one per school? Won’t the national merit scholars just win everything (at our W school at least)?

The criteria for getting the School Recognition Award is on their website. Your DD qualified by getting the 5s on 3 APs and possibly also being in the top 10% of PSAT (college board has all the data on both).

There's no "winner" - literally everyone in the top 10% of psat takers at your kids' school AND everyone who took 2 or more APs by end of soph year is getting the same award. That's why it's a meaningless recognition since your kid will be compared to other kids at their school.