Has any noticed less than stellar performance by National Merit Scholars?

taxguy · 05-12-2008, 12:58 PM

I have met a number of National Merit Scholars and semifinalists. The vast number of kids that I have met have NOT performed to the expectations of a NMS. Some actually almost flunked out, some achieved GPAs of less than 3.2,which was deemed mediocre for a NMS. In fact, the vast majority that I have met didn't even graduate with over a 3.5/4.0.

I am just wondering how common this is with NMF and National Merit semi -finalists? Please do not respond that your NMF child scored a 4.0. I do know that some of these kids do well. I am wondering how common it is for National Merit kids to NOT live up to the expectations of them.

By the way, living up to expectations would be to achieve at least an overall GPA of 3.6+ and probably a lot better.

Northstarmom · 05-12-2008, 01:09 PM

Most of the NMS scholars and finalists I know did extremely well. However,they were at top universities, which also have extremely high graduation rates.

I know NMS scholars and finalists who got things like Rhodes Scholarships.
I don't know anyone who didn't live up to their expectations. The high scoring students who didn't live up to their expectations didn't make finalist because of low grades.

midmo · 05-12-2008, 01:11 PM

taxguy, gpa varies a lot depending on major. Many of the NMF and NMS I know are majoring in things like engineering, computer science, fields in which gpa tends to be relatively low. Also, many of them are double, even triple, majoring, and taking heavier than average course loads. You will have to come up with something better than gpa comparisons.

mathmom · 05-12-2008, 01:45 PM

I have a friend whose son scored a 1600 on a single take of the old style SATs, Not sure if he was NMS as well. He was a bit of an underachiever in high school, but had always been very good at math and assumed he would be a mathematician. He quickly hit the wall in college when he discovered that he was in fact not that good in math after all, not like real mathematicians are. He flunked a course, freaked out about a couple of others and took some time off. He's back in college now as a political science major.

toneranger · 05-12-2008, 03:13 PM

We had quite a few NMS students in my son's class and the ones I know went to top schools and are doing well. But I think some students who do well if high school, regardless of NMS status, bomb out in college due to poor study habits (so smart in HS I didn't really need to study), excessive partying and/or poor time management (especially since the college routine is so much more loose). Certainly we all know smart kids who just couldn't handle the workload or the demands and dropped out or transferred. Not REAL common around here but it does happen.
With NMS, I think you have a pretty solid students since you can't reach finalist status w/o having good grades. Good grades are a better predictor of college success than SAT scores from what I understand. We had a kid with over 1500 on his SAT (old) and he did NOT progress to NMS status because he had a GPA in the low 3s. Now that's red flag for an underachiever, and that kid certainly might end up having in trouble in college.

JHS · 05-12-2008, 03:31 PM

Well, my daughter was a National Merit Scholar, and probably fits your criterion of less than stellar performance, although I take issue with it. Her first year GPA was somewhere around 3.0. It has increased significantly each of the past two years, but cumulatively she's nowhere near 3.5. She goes to a college known for relatively hard grading, where a 3.25 makes Dean's List, and unadorned As are pretty rare. Her first year average was dragged down significantly by the fact that she was taking a bunch of required courses that she hated. In high school, she got B+s in that sort of course; in college, the same effort and attention did not get her within shouting distance of a B+. She didn't care much, and neither do I (although I wish her advisor had helped her find some courses she would care about rather than slotting her into things she was guaranteed to hate).

As you can tell, her performance was perfectly consistent with her high school performance. She wasn't ever a super-stellar student across the board. She was great and deep on some stuff, and bored and adequate on other stuff. All her NMF status meant was that she did a good job on her PSAT and didn't screw up in high school. The NMF level on the PSATs did not even require than high a math score (I don't think she had a 70 in math). So I don't know why anyone would have expected her to ace math in college. Her sib, by the way, fell considerably short of the NMF level in his PSATs, but had better SATs in fewer sittings, better grades throughout high school, and better performance in college. All his lack of NMF status meant is that it took him a bit longer to figure out standardized tests. Big deal.

ellemenope · 05-12-2008, 05:16 PM

>>In fact, the vast majority that I have met didn't even graduate with over a 3.5/4.0.<<

Utilizing this definition, I guess my D is a slacker NMS finalist. But she had a great time at college, met lots of nice people, and participated in and added to campus life with her participation in many events, especially in the music scene at her college. I think NMS got their money's worth, even if the GPA doesn't cut your mustard.

DonnaL · 05-12-2008, 05:22 PM

I know I'm going back more years than I care to remember, but I was a National Merit Finalist, and did just fine in college, even by your standards. (I don't recall my exact GPA, but it sticks in my mind that I got a total of 3 B's in college.) As did just about all the other NMF's I remember knowing. Have things changed in the last 30 years in that regard? I have no idea. And it's all pretty meaningless anyway, I think, given that it's all based on a test taken in the fall of junior year. And that the cutoff point is very different depending on what state you live in. (My S was "commended," but would have been a semi-finalist in quite a few states. And his scores on the SAT's were much higher anyway, as was true for a lot of people.)

momofthree · 05-12-2008, 05:27 PM

Very hard to generalize about NMS as about any group, I suspect! My personal experience of a kid who was a National Merit Scholar is that she did great, but so has her brother, who was commended only. Her stepbrother was commended, and has done less well in terms of GPA, but surely well enough when everything is taken into consideration.

taxguy · 05-12-2008, 06:03 PM

My reason for posting this is that I believe that attitude and time management make up 60%+ of the grades. It is almost impossible to do well if kids don't have these two "skills."

I will admit, the NMF that I met did poorly because of bad time management , or distractions due to girl/boy friends, hanging out with the wrong crowd etc.

nngmm · 05-12-2008, 06:30 PM

NMS (and even NMF) is not some life-long achievement that requires determination, drive or intellectual curiosity. It is something that can be earned in 2 hours on a relatively easy standardized test. I would expect those kids to be pretty scattered with regards to their success in college.

bethievt · 05-12-2008, 06:35 PM

All the NMF I know have done well, but most of the people I know have done well.

bluebayou · 05-12-2008, 06:39 PM

taxguy:

remember, National Merit is primarily about one 2+ hour test on a Saturday morning. While the vast majority of these kids also have extremely strong transcripts, many do not. I personally know of two students struggling at USC right now bcos they took a light HS curriculum (3.8 but nearly zero honors/AP), but scored high on the psat. They took the NMSF money from 'SC, but one just lost her scholarship due to grades.

toneranger · 05-12-2008, 06:45 PM

"NMS (and even NMF) is not some life-long achievement that requires determination, drive or intellectual curiosity. It is something that can be earned in 2 hours on a relatively easy standardized test".
This may be true but the NMF kids at our hs were largely top students and high acheivers in other areas (sports, science). So at least in this case, there was some sort of correlation. No slackers in the bunch. But there were also quite a few impressive kids who were NOT NMFs.
So, yeah, bottom line is that the NMF designation by itself is not a predictor of success.
But hey, it does lead to some nice full ride offers - although most of these kids turn their noses up at these invitations. My son got an invitation for a full ride PLUS $2000 extra per year at a state u out West. Looked good to me but my s displayed ZERO interest. Oh well...

calmom · 05-12-2008, 06:55 PM

My son is an NMF who did not do particularly well -- at least not during his first 2 years of college. We were glad for the extra $2K annually from the college-sponsored scholarship, but I never had a lot of regard for the honor itself, since it reflected nothing more than the fact that my son is very good at taking tests. I've always known that whereas my son is very, very smart, my daughter is the better student (more diligent, more disciplined, more willing to work up to a teacher's expectations whether or not she enjoys the class or like the teacher). -- but of course my daughter never stood a chance with NM because her test scores just aren't as stellar.

I'd say that to the extent that you may have observed anecdotally that the NM status isn't much of a predictor, the same observation would apply to the SAT: by itself, it really doesn't tell you anything more than the kid is pretty smart and an excellent test taker.

I see nothing wrong with some scholarships being awarded on the basis of test scores alone -- after all, at least that's an objective measure -- but I do think that the prestige accorded to National Merit is out of proportion to what it actually is. My son also received scholarship money from our state under a now-discontinued program that directly rewarded students for their test scores -- at least there was no pretense that anything more went into the equation.