<p>So as I understand it, only the tippy top kids (8000) who have made it to finalist will actually garner “one” of the monetary awards whether from a sponsoring school, the NMSC $2500.00 one time award or a corporate award from a parents’s employer. Just because the student may have made it to finalist AND has a parent who is employed by one of the sponsoring corporations does not guarantee an award.</p>
<p>Corporate employer NMC awards are sometimes for more than one student - some are multiples and more than one year (STEM, pharma, financial companies for example). Criteria, numbers of awards, etc. need to be answered by a winner or perhaps a corporation. See the brochures on the National Merit page: ww.nationalmerit.org, they talk about companies that give out awards and mention the possibility of industry scholarships for students entering certain fields of study or students from certain geographical areas…
Yes, only the tippy top kids (liked that wording) are award winners (1.5million PSAT takers, 50K top scorers, 16K NMSF, 15K NMF, 8K scholarship winners). The $2500 from NMC is quite modest and once only. I wonder when they last increased it. </p>
<p>I am a bit tickled because my son’s guidance counselor is telling him that there is no such letter that identifies commended students. That the first notification is in the fall. I think I will just let it go. Thoughts?</p>
<p>@deborahb don’t let it go. talk to somebody else to be sure your son is on the list.</p>
<p>@deborahb I agree because the school is asked to confirm that the student information on the letter listing commended students is correct. If your son isn’t on the letter then he will miss out, all because the school didn’t do what they should have. Tell the school all you want to confirm is that his name is on the letter they received.</p>
<p>@mtrosemom
Thanks for the explanation. I didn’t know that only some lucky parents got SF status information. My child’s GC replied to my email but noted that he would not release any information and he did not think any GCs were supposed to share the information with anyone, until the official announcement in Sep or late Aug. Well… it is ONLY 3 more months from now! B-) </p>
<p>@pom2015 The parents who got the letter are the home schooled parents who act as the Principal and GC for their kids. We didn’t get a letter, but our school is very proactive and lets the kids know that will have more work to do in Fall. They never gave us the cutoff number. I learned that here on CC. And the NMS webpage gives a pretty good synopsis of the process.</p>
<p>@deborahb I called NMC yesterday and spoke to a nice Rep. I was able to confirm cutoff of 201, my daughter’s qualifying status, and even their receipt of my daughter’s confirming SAT score. Call them, if you can not sort this out thru your GC. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Do you have to send confirming SAT scores for commended status? I thought the confirming SAT score were sent in later after the SF list was announced. </p>
<p>It’s only needed in going from SF to F, but if you have scores, and are on the bubble, you may as well send them now, especially if it’s part of one of your free four. If you aren’t even close to the SF cut, there is no need to send them.</p>
<p>Don’t you wish we could anonymously send this CC thread to all the seemingly clueless GCs out there? Maybe they would actually learn how the NMSQT process worked.</p>
<p>OK I am going to call!!! The guidance counselor is SUPER NICE and an extremely hard worker, so I don’t want to make her feel bad. </p>
<p>I spoke with Alison who confirmed a letter was sent to the high school and my son will be recognized as a high scorer. She would not say that he will be a SF, but said that he will learn “at what level he is to be recognized” in September.</p>
<p>She verified that all of his information was correct. OK, well I guess we wait until September!!!</p>
<p>snowberry42, do you know what number you called and who you spoke with? You got a lot more information than I did!</p>
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<p>No, that is not really correct. Any Finalist can get a scholarship, simply by applying to schools that offer them. The only “tippy top” among Finalists is the $2500 NMSC scholarship, which selected by a committee based on a variety of inputs (essay, grades, ECs, SAT, etc.). The corporate scholarships are often the least selective, in fact sometimes they are awarded to commended or even lower scoring students if there are more awards than Finalists.</p>
<p>About 8000 of the 15000 Finalists get scholarships, but it’s not exactly the top 8000.</p>
<p>Yes, @BobWallace, but awards from colleges are NOT the same as the $2500 award from NMC.
This is probably the best explanation page: <a href=“http://nationalmerit.org/sponsorship.php#corporate”>http://nationalmerit.org/sponsorship.php#corporate</a>
And, yes, some corporate scholarships go to commended students.</p>
<p>@deborahb 847-866-5162 is the number I called to contact NMC. </p>
<p>@3scoutsmom My daughter just wanted to use one of the free reports from her subject test to get the SAT score reporting to NMC completed. You do not have to do that until December (SF only). But if one has a high PSAT score, it won’t hurt to do that now.</p>
<p>O.K. this makes a bit more sense. Hubby’s employer indicates all qualified scholars will get an award. It is $1000.00 per year renewable so a bit better than the one time $2500.00.</p>
<p>@snowberry42 ~ Or anyone else for that matter. Is it okay to send scores from multiple test sessions at once, via the free report option? What happens if there are older scores that don’t qualify? Do they only consider the ones that do? We saved a perfect math score from before 13, but combined with the other scores, it does not meet the 1960. There is a 1960+ score that is more recent.</p>
<p>October 2012 is the earliest SAT date that can be used for juniors who took the PSAT in 2013. I have never seen any mention of NMSC superscoring the SAT. I don’t have confirmation of this, but I would think that any test in the window of October 2012 to December 2014 would serve to confirm scores without regard to any other test dates that they would see. I guess I would call to make sure.</p>
<p>Oh, I didn’t mean super scoring! I meant that the saved scores from years ago didn’t total to 1960. We have more recent ones that do, but we wanted to send all scores for the free send (so subject tests would go elsewhere, etc), so those lower scores would go as well. Good to know they are out of the date range, so they shouldn’t be a problem.</p>