How does your HS honor NMSFs? - Page 3

atomom · 09-20-2011, 12:06 AM

I agree, mom2-- it seems that most of the principals are old jocks and coaches who weren't tuned into the academic life in high school--maybe that's why they emphasize sports so much. I wonder how many NMF's go into teaching? Probably not many. (My older S was a NMF and is in his 2nd year of teaching--not sure if he'll stay in that profession.)

Clepsydra · 09-20-2011, 12:17 AM

I got my name on the morning announcements and that was plenty special. Apparently, I'm also "honored" with priority schedule change consideration. Today my counselor called me up and forced me into freshman classes so I can replace the B's I got with A's, thus putting me back in the running for valedictorian. It's "embarrassing," according to her, that a NMSF isn't a val. candidate.

loldanielol · 09-20-2011, 02:29 AM

^Wow, I wish I could retake my freshmen classes.

Barfly · 09-20-2011, 11:34 PM

Our HS left the names of the 2009 NMSFs posted on the website for 2 years, so my S1, a 2010 NMSF, never had his name posted on the website at all. So far, same thing is happening to S2. Guess they post it in in odd years, so my even-year NMSF sons are out of luck. I just hope S3 makes it in 2015, an odd year!

energize · 09-21-2011, 04:47 AM

Update: I don't think my school is going to put us in the newsletter or anything like that. (There are 88 of us.) They just passed out slips of paper for each student to our teachers to inform us of an assembly so they could hand out the papers with login information for the NM website.

At my school, academic awards are pretty common, so they're not mentioned very much in official announcements unless they're rare or highly prestigious. (I don't even think they announced the USAMO qualifiers last year, though...)

nkayyy · 09-22-2011, 12:17 AM

They called us into the counselor's office and gave us doughnuts. That's all.

chrome16 · 09-22-2011, 12:21 AM

I don't think my school even mentioned us on the website... at least not yet. You'd think a top school would want to tout these NMSF students (there are probably 20-30 of us).

Julilo · 09-22-2011, 05:42 PM

I got my name on a whiteboard in the main hallway when they released the names a little while ago. Earlier than that, I'd been notified through my new school counselor in private.

Debbie7452 · 09-28-2011, 08:01 PM

Wow, our HS has gone all out on getting excited about the NMSF kids. The semi-finalists and commended students and their parents are being given a fancy breakfast next week at the school. The Principal told my D that they also want to honor the semi-finalists and their parents at a big football game and "patriotic show" that we have every year for the football game close to Veterans day. This is the most attended football game of the year and a HUGE crowd. I'm a little overwhelmed at this much attention, but also grateful and pleased for D.

ZombieDante · 09-28-2011, 09:58 PM

^LUCKY!!! lol

elizaruns · 09-28-2011, 11:47 PM

mine isn't too bad... as far as I know my school has never had a semi-finalist before me, so they're pretty excited. I got on the local news and stuff. haha no incentives though, and I'm already valedictorian and getting a lot of schedule preference for that, not much that could be changed there.
I hear a lot that NMSF isn't a big deal... well to me it is. I took a test and scored in the top 16,000 of 3,500,000. And I don't come from a prestigious private school that made a big deal of the test or prepared me for it. About 13 people in my school took the test; I had to sign myself up and study for it myself. So yeah, to me it is a big deal. It quantifies the work I've done in the past 4 years at this rural public school that no one's heard of, that does OK in sports and has an OK graduation rate and still uses chalkboards in most of the rooms. It validates my effort; I don't know if those people know how it feels to be a National Merit Semifinalist at a school where a good number of my (not below-average intelligence) classmates scored sub-15 on the ACT junior year. I got here myself, nobody gave this to me, and I'm proud of it, haha it's a big deal to me

tommykirkpatrick · 09-28-2011, 11:49 PM

At first, I thought they wouldn't do anything. But I got a bunch of balloons in class, and there is some sort of "National Merit Recognition" on Friday morning.

mommafrog · 09-29-2011, 08:33 AM

D was NMSF last year, along with one other student. They were paraded out on the football field one halftime. There were some other athletic recognitions. I saw a bunch of roses and thought "how cool"...but the flowers were given to the girls tennis team sharing the field. Okay...so I listened to my kid's name mispronounced from the sound system (yes, we have an unusual surname, but she was in this small 100 member class from first grade AND the announcer was her math teacher...).

Move forward to today. I picked up the h.s. yearbook (our school delivers the previous year's book the next fall...something I'm not thrilled with, but apparently that's the new way of doing things...but how I loved getting mine in the spring and having time to have friends sign it...) One of the reasons they move the yearbooks to the next year is to have end of year stuff, and it was sweet to see prom pics and some graduation shots. I saw a small notice (on the page with "congrats, [insert sports team here] on your season" mentioning our 3 commendees (as well they should be recognized). So I paged on, looking for notice, maybe a reprint of the photo and article that our local community paper did (that was nice) regarding the 2 NM Scholars. Nope. Nowhere in the yearbook, held until after last year's seniors are long gone, is there any mention that d and friend are indeed both NM Scholars. Oh, well...she is done with high school, happily ensconsed in college, enjoying her NMS award...

FlamingMango · 10-02-2011, 09:03 PM

There are 16 of us at my school and they do nothing to honor us.

Not even a mention in the newsletter or anything.

But, whatever.

Debbie7452 · 10-05-2011, 04:34 PM

Sorry to all who don't get the recognition I think they deserve! Our breakfast was this morning. Wow, it was catered and fancy. The District and School administration were all there. Our district is small, so they are really excited to have 3 Semi-finalists and 4 commended. It's the most we have had in a very long time, so I guess that's why they are going all out. I guess the schools who always have a crowd of NMSF's kind of take it for granted...