09

Today I'll review the most active threads over the weekend. The three most active threads were threads that I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip. That left a thread titled, "How many here had students that missed being NMSF and were Commended instead" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum as the first to be described. Probably some background is in order for this thread. The "National Merit Scholarship Program" or NMSF is an academic competition for scholarships based on students' Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) scores. Students whose scores are above a certain level but below the cut-off point required to continue in the competition are recognized as "Commended Students". There has been a recent controversy — one that was even the topic of a most active thread about which I've written — involving the recognition of Commended Students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ). I don't know that this thread is related to the TJ situation, but the original post which asks whether Commended Students included that recognition on their college applications, addresses one of the main points of the TJ debate. A major argument of those upset with TJ was that Commended Students were harmed by not being able to included this recognition on their college applications. Others argued that since Commended status was more like a participation trophy and signaled that students were not at the level needed to continue the NMSF competition, it was not worth being mentioned and might even have negative ramifications. I haven't read all of this thread, but it looks like it consists mostly of a repetition of these two arguments. Many of those responding said they did include the recognition and considered it an important indication of academic success. Others argued that the recognition was meaningless with one poster saying it was considered a source of shame.