<p>Congratulations, erikamcvey! Hoping my son hears tomorrow.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how bad your grades have to be to disqualify you from being a finalist? I got a 224, which pretty much guarantees semi-finalist status in CT, and I already have the SAT scores to back it up, but I’m barely in the top half of my class. I ended up with C’s in a few courses freshman and sophomore year, though my overall GPA is probably an 89.
I’m confident in my ability to write the essays well, and I’ve never had disciplinary issues/my principal is going to write my a good letter etc, but are my grades to low to get me Finalist status? I know that like 90% of Semifinalists become Finalists, but I’m sure most semifinalists have had straight As since preschool.
I’m looking at ASU’s Barrett Honors College and I would get a full tuition scholarship for fall 2014 if I were to be NMF, so I’m really worried about missing out on these scholarships.
If anyone knows any former NMFs with B averages, please reassure me that I have a future even though I haven’t been perfect my whole life.</p>
<p>Westward, there is a whole thread on this question. It consists of posts written around 12/2012-2/2013, ie just a few months ago (just before the current seniors found out that they made finalist, which was in 2/2013). You should be able to find this thread without much trouble. This is the jist of what the thread said: in the past, some kids have made Finalist with 1 or 2 C’s (the rest presumably A’s or a few A minuses). However, this year it looked like NMF was being a little stricter. Several parents and students wrote posts saying that they had 2 C’s and did NOT make finalist (I think one person even lost finalist for 1 C, but I don’t remember every detail of the thread…). One parent said that they called NMF and asked why, and NMF told them it was because of the C. (Of course, this is frustrating if you are a kid with all A’s but 1 or 2 C’s—then you could theoretically have a higher GPA than a kid with no C’s , mostly A’s, but also a number of B’s… However, it is always worth a try! Good luck!</p>
<p>Westward, I’m pretty sure you receive ASU’s excellent scholarship regardless of Finalist status – it is provided to Semifinalists, National Hispanic and Achievement Scholars, too. You might want to check their website – it used to be made clear on their tuition calculator, as well as elsewhere on their website, but I haven’t checked it lately.</p>
<p>Hmmmm, I’m seeing that the new website refers to “Finalists.” Westward, I would contact ASU and ask them if that is truly the case.</p>
<p>The ASU scholarship of full tuition is only for NMF (and possibly National Achievement) but not NMSF. Until notification of Finalist status my D’s account showed only the Presidential scholarship based on things like ACT/SAT and GPA. ASU has a nice interactive scholarship estimator on their website that shows what you can expect given GPA and test scores and also whether you are NMF.</p>