<p>I finally got to see the “rejection of appeal” letter and am even more disgusted with National Merit. They commented that while my child’s 7th semester grades were wonderful, this did not make up for the previous grades (remember- one C and one C+ while dealing with a death in the family, medically diagnosed and treated depression and changing schools). Now why am I disgusted? The letter was written before they received the 7th semester grades. Our semester did not end until January 30, transcripts were not sent until Feb 14 and the letter was written on Feb 7. I have confirmed with the school that they never sent Nat Merit the grades, instead told them that they would send them as soon as available and that when they got the rejection letter before they were available, they didn’t send them as it was too late.</p>
<p>I know some of you think that NM scholarships don’t matter. For our family they do. I work for a company that gives NM scholarships to all children of employees who are finalist. My child was wanting to go to a school that is only affordable with this scholarship plus the one that was offered by the school to finalist. Now he has neither and if the government budget shut down occurs, my husband will be furloughed. We are now scrambling to get an application in to the Community College. Not where we thought we would be at this point in our lives.</p>