ivayhopeful

Soooo who got it???

blu_g8orade

how did you find out? by mail?

ivayhopeful

nope i called today and got it!!!

dukebound11

How does National Achievement exactly work? Is being a finalist the last step? Or are there actually winners? What's the cutoff for Nat'l Achievement?

Congrats btw.

Dbate

I called and found out I am a finalist today, THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!! I think UT gives about 25K for national achievement scholars, so I definitely am grateful that THE LORD blessed me to get it !

I looked on the website and there are about only 1,300 blacks in the entire country that become finalists, so hopefully it helps us all on our applications.

blu_g8orade

hmm.. when did you guys call? i called not too long ago, and i think their office might be closed now.

ivayhopeful

yea only 1300 blacks...so any ivy should be in our grasp
or at least i hope so lol congrats btw Dbate!

DreamingOutLoud

"How does National Achievement exactly work? Is being a finalist the last step? Or are there actually winners? What's the cutoff for Nat'l Achievement?"

Well as you know, you must be African American to become a National Achievement semi finalist and you must have darkened a bubble that referred to it on your PSAT. The cut off ranges by geographic area (not state) but 195+ should definitely be good enough to get you to a semi-finalist level at least. The cut offs are much lower than National Merit but probably not far from National Hispanic

DreamingOutLoud

I'm awfully impatient so I'm tempted to call. Did they seem annoyed when you did ivayhopeful? Oh and do we find out at the same time (late this week or early next week) if we're not a finalist?

ivayhopeful

yes you do dreaming and no they were not annoyed....and yes the highest you can be is a finalist...but about half the finalists get a 2.5k scholarship.

Dbate

Well when i called I said i was calling for my son, bc I had called a few days earlier and when i said I was a student they were like "your school will tell you".

They also said they sent the messsage to my school last friday so everyone should probably hear by the end of this week.

Silvermoonlock

Congratulations to you all!!! Not everyone you come across will understand the achievement, but the parents here, do. I am proud of all of you !!

If I recall correctly, my kid did get notified by mail, because I recall faxing the finalist information to Howard to up the scholarship (Mommy did the free-ride dance).

However, we had to wait for the end of school year Honor's Convocation to get the "official" certificate.

ivayhopeful

how big of a deal is it for high tier colleges?

eating food

ivayhopeful... know that becoming a "national achievement finalist" in and of itself will probably not impress adcoms that much. However, being an incredible applicant who happens to also have been named a national achievement finalist WILL impress adcoms.

I might be a bit biased, but I think that adcoms really only take note when black students get things are that not specifically designated for black people. That means national MERIT rather than ACHIEVEMENT and perhaps some of the upper level AP scholar awards.

P.S. the National Achievement people were really annoyed when I called them today and practically hung up on me after saying "letters will be mailed out on friday." But I think I got it so whatevz...

inconspicuous.s.n.

Yeah, they wouldn't tell me either, eating food, the lady was seriously irritated... I think she recognized my voice (maybe I called too much? ) but my principal called me into her office today for it anyway, so that's cool. Hopefully I'll get called in again next month for National Merit, too.
To ivayhopeful I'll say... I'd have to agree with the above post. I read somewhere that a large percentage (over 75%? not sure) of blacks with scores over 1500 on the old sat reported their scores to Harvard; we can safely assume these kids applied to other top schools, too. These would most likely be the blacks that also recieved recognition in the National Achievement Scholarship Program. So I'm sure it's fairly common. Even National Merit recognized blacks must be a substantial portion of all black applicants to the very top of the top schools... so in the end, it might just be another line on the transcript. But outside of the top 50, I've seen awesome scholarships for the NAF designation. Depends on where you're willing to go.