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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 05:38 pm |
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The National Merit semifinalist packets are out, although it is supposed to be confidential until Sept 12, when there will be a public announcement. (Since we're anonymous here I figure it's safe to talk about it.) Apparently they do this because the kids have until 9/14 to fill out their portion and return it to their school. which hten has about a month to do their part.
I was amazed at the length of the application, which requires yet another 500-word essay. The amount of information that must be filled in by the high school is if anything worse. I can see why they give them a lot of time. Since I think there will probably be a number of semifinalists in my son's class, the guidance department will definitely be earning their $$ this fall, between this and the college application stuff they have to do. (ONE counsellor writes the guidance recommendations for the entire class, which is at least 180 kids.) I don't remember all this from the days when I was a NMF. Perhaps my memory is faulty... I know we submitted SATs and the school submitted a transcript.
Last edited on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 05:40 pm by Consolation
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed Sep 5th, 2007 07:37 pm |
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| Congratulations to your son, Consolation! One thing you may want to do is review the list of schools that sponsor NMS finalists to see if there are any that might interest your son.
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riviera
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| Joined: | Tue Jan 30th, 2007 |
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 05:53 pm |
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My son got his packet last Thursday to be returned today. He also had to complete the High School recommendation request form, including a Parent Brag Sheet, which helps the counselor write the recommendation letter. I can tell you that this suddenly pushed the whole family into an active College Admission mood!
The good thing is that my son, who had not the least idea about what to write for his essay and spent 2 hours on Sunday looking at a blank screen, has now the first version of his college essay.
And last night, after cross country training and homeworks, my son finished the counselor recommendation request form that asks for ECs, interests, personality traits etc. and my husband and I wrote a 2 1/2 pages brag sheet. So now, there's not much left to do for the college packet for the registrar since his college list is final. He just needs to print some forms and get some envelopes and stamps.
He met his counselor earlier this week to review his school transcript and his college list. Luckily, he has the same counselor as last year and I think she likes him. They looked at the high school admission data for a couple of his colleges. For Haverford, he is above the previously admitted students, which is really good news. For UCSD, he is among the top students (there's much more data on UCSD than on Haverford!).
There's still a lot to do in the coming 3 1/2 months: a UC application, a common app application and 7 supplements!
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bumpyroad
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 06:05 pm |
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My D got the stuff for the NMF last night in an e-mail from the school - we found out when she came looking for a credit card to pay for sending scores to National Merit. I can see that these little charges are going to accumulate in the next 6 months.
Carolyn, where do you get the list of schools with National Merit sponsorship?
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Wstrdg
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 06:33 pm |
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bumpyroad,
your son needs the *paper* NMF packet. the booklet has a list of schools that offer NM scholarships, as well as corporate sponsors. plus, he'll have to fill out an application, submit an essay, and a letter of rec.
if time is running short, do call the NM office and request an extension. my son had to do that last year, since his LOR was from out of state, and they NM office was extremely nice about extending his deadline.
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bumpyroad
Member
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 07:02 pm |
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I expect my D will get the packet today at school. She said that the application is due at the end of September from the school. She goes to a small school so she should be able to get the materials pretty quickly.
This is a good chance to get a first crack at writing an admissions essay. Last year her English teacher had everyone write a college essay for practice. What my D came up with was a lovely little vignette about being a camp counselor, which her teacher really liked because it was very different from the standard life-changing experience description, but it seemed pretty light-weight to me. I think she's got some work to do in expressing who she is forcefully.
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entomom
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| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Oregon USA |
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 09:24 pm |
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bumpyroad,
From my limited experience, I wouldn't worry too much about the forcefulness of the essay, but rather that it conveys your D's unique personality. Last year my D's main essay related two of her favorite pastimes, baking and mountaineering. It was rather light and philosophical, but succeeded in giving admissions folks an idea of how she thinks and how she looks at the world. I believe that they are really searching for essays that ring true, no matter what the form or content.
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hummingbird
Member
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Posted: Wed Sep 12th, 2007 11:01 pm |
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My son had an appointment today with his GC to go through everything his school needs to send to the 5 colleges he's applying to. The GC wrote her recommendation based upon a packet she gave to S: he had to fill out his ECs and interests, we filled out a brag sheet, and his sister filled out a form, too. Fortunately, since it's a small school, the GC knows my son pretty well and likes him very much, so I'm sure that writing a nice rec was not a problem. Son also got a letter of recommendation from his favorite teacher, who also thinks the world of him. The schools he is applying to only require one teacher rec.
So they went through everything today and assembled the envelopes for each college, enclosing his transcript, teacher rec, counselor rec, etc. He had already submitted the actual applications online. Everything should hopefully be in the mail now.
He's not a NMF so he doesn't have anything else to do, except a scholarship form for one school that isn't due until December. I saw it in his room the other day and it looked like he's already filled it out, and is working on the essay.
I feel very relieved, and will feel even better when some acceptances come rolling in.
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Thu Sep 13th, 2007 04:23 am |
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bumpyroad wrote: Carolyn, where do you get the list of schools with National Merit sponsorship?
Here's a link to full rides (verify them, of course)
http://homepage.mac.com/l_j/secondhome/National_Merit.html
And a to a general discussion of schools with NM scholarships on CC:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=136920
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bumpyroad
Member
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Posted: Thu Sep 13th, 2007 07:56 pm |
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Thanks, Descartes.
Unfortunately none of the NMF full-ride schools are on my daughter's college list. The only one I might get her to look at is USC, but she seems focussed on the LACs. Carleton gives a $1-2K scholarship, I believe, which is worth filling out the forms but hardly much of a dent in the cost of going to Carleton.
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Thu Sep 13th, 2007 08:20 pm |
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Just so you don't overlook other possibilities, I will point out that both Minnesota-Morris and New College of Florida are LAC's, albeit public. MN-Morris gives an automatic full tution scholarship to NMF applicants if its marked as their first choice, New College $17,500/year for same.
New College is fairly selective (not in the Carleton range, however) but MN-Morris would be a solid safety for just about any NMF applicant.
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outwest
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Posted: Fri Sep 14th, 2007 03:56 am |
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I noticed University of Maine on that list for Consolation 
If all else fails he can go there for two years for free and transfer.
Arizona State is supposed to be a good school. Many of our NMSF who don't have money go there. Lets face it, that NMSF designation doesn't mean a lot at the top schools. I think a few of them give you 2K the first year, but that's all. At the slightly lower tiered schools it can translate into a lot of money. Mainly, it is just a cool thing to get.
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Alumother
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Posted: Fri Sep 14th, 2007 04:59 am |
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Had meeting tonight with college counselors and parents and kids. This is why I pay money for private schools .
She will even help S meet his deadine for NMF. Phew. A good college counselor alleviates the need for much duct tape.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Fri Sep 14th, 2007 04:03 pm |
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outwest wrote: I noticed University of Maine on that list for Consolation
If all else fails he can go there for two years for free and transfer.
Arizona State is supposed to be a good school. Many of our NMSF who don't have money go there. Lets face it, that NMSF designation doesn't mean a lot at the top schools. I think a few of them give you 2K the first year, but that's all. At the slightly lower tiered schools it can translate into a lot of money. Mainly, it is just a cool thing to get.
The U of Arizona also gives a full ride to NMS finalists. Both ASU and UA have excellent honors colleges. Which brings up another point: when checking out the possibilities, look to see which schools have honors colleges and consider those for NMS scholarships. Some can make a very large school seem quite small and intimate, and also put you in classes with other very bright students.
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hummingbird
Member
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 01:50 am |
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NCEph wrote:
Regarding the class rank, I don't suppose you could get 6 more students to enroll in the senior class?
Found out yesterday that 4 seniors have left since school started!  That brings the class down to 60 students, and which unfortunately lowers my son's rank, since it wasn't any of the top students who left.
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Astrid (Moominmama)
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 03:02 pm |
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| Surely admissions officers take the size of a class into account? Having a ranking, say, of 10th highest of 60 kids is quite different from being 10th highest of 600 kids. The room for statistical anomalies, with a small sample size (60 kids), is extreme. My kids went to a small K-8 school, with a class size of roughly 60. Looking at scores for standardized tests given to 4th graders could show a lot of change from year to year because one or two high-performing or low-performing kids could pull it out of whack pretty easily.
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Consolation
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 03:14 pm |
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hummingbird wrote: NCEph wrote:
Regarding the class rank, I don't suppose you could get 6 more students to enroll in the senior class?
Found out yesterday that 4 seniors have left since school started! That brings the class down to 60 students, and which unfortunately lowers my son's rank, since it wasn't any of the top students who left.
This is why so many smaller schools refuse to rank.
Of course, colleges can roughly figure it out if the school publishes stats on # of students getting various GPAs, as our school does. Of course, as far as I can figure out, the published stats are always from LAST year's class, which can vary in size and GPA. My son's class, according to him, has shrunk to 180 from a grade school high of about 240. The class whose stats are published on the web site was about 150. That means that there are going to be a bunch of kids hovering right around the "top tenth" mark if colleges try to estimate from last year's figures, and it could make a big difference to them.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Fri Sep 21st, 2007 01:35 am |
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Astrid (Moominmama) wrote: Surely admissions officers take the size of a class into account? Having a ranking, say, of 10th highest of 60 kids is quite different from being 10th highest of 600 kids. The room for statistical anomalies, with a small sample size (60 kids), is extreme. My kids went to a small K-8 school, with a class size of roughly 60. Looking at scores for standardized tests given to 4th graders could show a lot of change from year to year because one or two high-performing or low-performing kids could pull it out of whack pretty easily.
Astrid, you are correct. Many colleges (but not all -- numbers-driven publics in particular)do indeed take the size of the class into account when looking at class ranks. Addtionally, many smaller high schools note in their school profile that the class rank should be viewed in light of the size of the class, although even if it is not mentioned, colleges DO notice and take it into account and will often give some leeway to kids who fall just out of the top ten percent at very small schools.
Additionally, the common application and many school specific college applications ask that the highest GPA for this year's class be reported on the school report - this gives them a strong clue as to how tightly grouped together the GPAs of students close to the top are, and that is also taken into consideration.
If the high school doesn't mention the small size issue in the profile, and a student/parent is particularly concerned, I would suggest asking the guidance counselor to briefly point this out in the letter of recommendation. That should suffice in most cases. However, this is just one of those things that you can't control, so you shouldn't stay up late at night worrying excessively about it.
Last edited on Fri Sep 21st, 2007 01:38 am by CarolynLawrence
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hummingbird
Member
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Posted: Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 12:47 am |
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| If my son isn't automatically admitted in honors at this one particular school (top 10% is a requirement), he can petition to apply. When he does, he will certainly mention the small size of his class and his rank of #7 . Really, the only reason he's not at the top of his class is that he got 3 Bs as a freshman, immediately after skipping 8th grade. Shouldn't be held against him, I don't think. We'll see what happens. I'm not worrying about it. Last edited on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 12:48 am by hummingbird
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sat Oct 13th, 2007 07:01 pm |
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How's everyone's kids doing with applications? My son is making good progress, but still has a bit to go until everything is tied up and out the door.
However, it has been nice to see him take charge of the process in recent weeks without much nagging from me. At this point when my daughter was applying, I was still dragging her along, kicking and screaming all the way. My daughter was kicking and screaming too. 
I don't know if my son learned from watching the stress between my daughter and I, or if he is just a naturally more gung ho, self-reliant kind of kid -- probably a little of both. It also helps that he really loves his top choice colleges - nothing motivates a kid more than that.
Of course, there have still been a few times when I've needed to slap some extra duct tape over my mouth -- for instance, when he proudly told me that his first draft of his main essay had come in "just under 2,000 words." (He's since edited it down to a more managable length -- and we didn't even argue about that!), or when he tells me that he is convinced he'll get into his top choices because, hey, who wouldn't want a guy like him? When I asked him what he will do if things don't plan out that way he said, "Well, I'm not going to cry if that's what you're worried about."
So, I'm counting down the days until his applications are out the door and then we can start the count down that counts -- waiting for the fat envelopes to sing.
Last edited on Sat Oct 13th, 2007 07:03 pm by CarolynLawrence
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