Announcing National Merit Semi-Finalists

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your school announce the names of National Merit Semi-Finalists on its website or in a press release or social media? MCPS posts the list of names on its website. What do private schools normally do? Do they prefer not to post since NMSF isn’t as big of an accomplishment in a private school setting?

Apparently this year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided not to publicly announce the names as they normally do and schools have to tell the kids themselves. The schools were notified by snail mail, which they may have missed. Also the list was sent to the press. It sounds like it was poorly handled. Especially for a city like DC where we really don't have any local paper that would normally announce something like this.

You are incorrect. This year's process is no different from prior years' (at least the last several). The NMSC has always left it up to schools to notify commended and semi finalist students and they have never published the list of names, but have always sent the list to the press.

To add to PP, if you are a student, you can call them up and check if you are on the list. NMSC does know that sometimes the school bureaucracy is not as competent as it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t to diss kids with high scores on the PSAT. They are certainly smart! But they aren’t smarter/better prepared for college than kids with middling scores on the PSAT who go on later to attain a high score on the SAT during their junior year or fall of senior year. NMSF success just means that the students prepped earlier. It’s bizarre that there is even a metric to weigh the test scores of 10th graders by individual states let alone to award prizes and have schools publicizing the results. In what other realm do we lionize those who excel *in practice* thanks to extra/early tutoring?

Agree that plenty of students don’t do as well on the PSAT as they do after prepping for the SAT. But my NMSF did zero prep for the PSAT so in that, you’re wrong.

Well of course there are kids who take the PSAT cold and become NMSF. But for every one of these there are many others who do 3 months of intensive prep the summer before junior year. There are literally hundreds of test-prep companies that offer tutoring packages for this.

Well, of course. But the PP said NMSF success just means those students prepped earlier. Not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your school announce the names of National Merit Semi-Finalists on its website or in a press release or social media? MCPS posts the list of names on its website. What do private schools normally do? Do they prefer not to post since NMSF isn’t as big of an accomplishment in a private school setting?

Apparently this year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided not to publicly announce the names as they normally do and schools have to tell the kids themselves. The schools were notified by snail mail, which they may have missed. Also the list was sent to the press. It sounds like it was poorly handled. Especially for a city like DC where we really don't have any local paper that would normally announce something like this.

You are incorrect. This year's process is no different from prior years' (at least the last several). The NMSC has always left it up to schools to notify commended and semi finalist students and they have never published the list of names, but have always sent the list to the press.

To add to PP, if you are a student, you can call them up and check if you are on the list. NMSC does know that sometimes the school bureaucracy is not as competent as it should be.

The cutoffs for each jurisdiction are announced. Students know their scores so they should know if they are NMSF. Why do they need the school to tell them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your school announce the names of National Merit Semi-Finalists on its website or in a press release or social media? MCPS posts the list of names on its website. What do private schools normally do? Do they prefer not to post since NMSF isn’t as big of an accomplishment in a private school setting?

Apparently this year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided not to publicly announce the names as they normally do and schools have to tell the kids themselves. The schools were notified by snail mail, which they may have missed. Also the list was sent to the press. It sounds like it was poorly handled. Especially for a city like DC where we really don't have any local paper that would normally announce something like this.

You are incorrect. This year's process is no different from prior years' (at least the last several). The NMSC has always left it up to schools to notify commended and semi finalist students and they have never published the list of names, but have always sent the list to the press.

To add to PP, if you are a student, you can call them up and check if you are on the list. NMSC does know that sometimes the school bureaucracy is not as competent as it should be.

The cutoffs for each jurisdiction are announced. Students know their scores so they should know if they are NMSF. Why do they need the school to tell them?

The deadline for proceeding to the next step is in early October. That steps involves the school too. It’s kind of silly how the whole process is run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^my top public HS was at 5.4%. New Trier (top public school of wealthy kids in Chicago suburbs) is over 4%.

Should the DMV beat those public school percentages, particularly since we are talking top privates?

This year, Blair and TJ are, respectively, at 4 percent and over 20 percent. The DC private school NMSFs don’t seem to be available publicly yet. But based on the Maryland list above, Holton is at 12 percent.

Blair always has over 40 kids a year, most out of the 100 kid magnet.

[Anonymous]

POST THE LIST!!!