<p>@Joe2015 - NMSC doesn’t accept ACT score only SAT. </p>
<p>@joe - if you are talking about sending to colleges - if they are comparable, I would go ahead and send both. In our case, I think the SAT is lower enough that it might drag the overall app down (even though they say they only consider the highest, they would still see it). FYI - 34 ACT and 2160 SAT. Also, in our case, the highest ‘reach’ she will probably apply is UCLA, so we don’t see any need to keep trying for higher scores. She might add USC and Arizona to her list if she makes NMSF since they offer a good automatic scholarship.</p>
<p>Thanks @jbourne yes, that is what I meant. Thanks.</p>
<p>My opinion, fwiw, is that NMC continues to contact the school, instead of the school and the student, or the school, student and parent, or the student and parent, in an attempt to enhance the value of the high school environment. Schools, principals, guidance counselors used to be the gate keepers and public high schools used to be the 99% choice for students and parents. Let’s assume every principal, every guidance counselor is equally interested and invested in every student in their school. That’s a lot of students. Let’s assume that some home environments are not the equal of every other home environment. The school administration was/is supposed to be the equalizer. The unfortunate part is that every school administration is not equally invested in every student, and many schools have really poor communication, or poorly trained administrators/GCs, so things don’t happen the way they should. This community on CC is a community of motivated, invested, interested, caring parents. I personally don’t want a gatekeeper. I want NMC to contact my student, us (parents) and the school. I want every kid to have every opportunity to move forward in this competition if they have the scores, with no one knowing something one day, and others knowing it 3 months from now. NMC continues to act as if this is the 1960s, not 50+ years later and that is the part I can’t understand. The high school environment is now a mixture of regular public high schools, charter schools, private schools, religious based schools, home schools - it is not the old, mostly homogenous environment.</p>
<p>All of the above is really an aside to the question - @barfly, did the principal/GC ever get back to you?</p>
<p>
NM is a private corporation.<br>
<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/about.php”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/about.php</a></p>
<p>It costs money to print hardcopy letters, stuff envelopes, and snail-mail notifications to 50,000 commended students. It’s a lot lot easier to contact a few thousand school principals and rely on the schools to cascade the notifications.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t cost much to put the list up on a web site. </p>
<p>email the letter - not hard copy… Or have a website, a la college board with a sign in, more difficult/expensive, or piggy back onto college board’s website for PSAT results (they already have a relationship based on the PSAT/NMSQT). I disagree that it is a $$ thing.</p>
<p>But @numbersfun, what would NMC “gain” by doing that? I think they strategically set these release dates and how they release the info to NMC can stay on the front page all year long. Our (parents and students) frustration is not their problem and they, frankly, probably don’t care. My two cents.</p>
<p>I like the list on the website idea. I’m nosy like that, 
.</p>
<p>@fromMD, I guess you could be right. The problem I have with that analysis is that out here in flyover land - we never hear anything from NMC. Never. Anything. My opinion is that they are turning themselves into a nobody cares kind of test. More kids are taking the ACT so the PSAT as practice for the SAT is even less relevant. And as a scholarship, unless you go to a full ride school, it is a one time small change item when the average private college is $50k+, and the average 4 year public college is pushing $30K.
I would tell them to communicate loudly and often and extra loudly and extra often out here away from the coasts. </p>
<p>P.S. I know there are corporate scholarships that are worth a lot more. And parents that are lucky enough to work for those companies are probably very motivated to have their kids do well. So - I guess a bit more relevancy than I was willing to give NMC in my last post. </p>
<p>Yes, some corporates such as Lockheed Martin are $3000.00 per year and they even award $$ to commended. It is tricky, though. The employee must register the students they “think” might be commended or higher by February the year before! If an employee misses the boat and the kid scores well but they don’t realize it is NMF , they lose out on corporate. All the more reason for NMC to get the word out in a more open manner.</p>
<p>Hi everyone, I’m guessing you might also be interested in AP scores. This site is fun for its early comments on results: <a href=“2014 AP Exam Score Distributions”>2014 AP Exam Score Distributions;
We were lucky last year because we were in the NYC area on the first day of online results and this year we are in CA for the first day of online results! The reason for the roll out of the results is supposedly that all the kids trying to get their results on one day would crash their servers. Tell me, all you techies out there - is it possible? or do they just have really outdated servers?</p>
<p>That’s a really small number for biology. Maybe my son has one of the 3 perfect scores. (hahahahahahaha!)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.flvs.net/myFLVS/counselor-office/Documents/Florida%20Incentive%20Scholarship.pdf”>http://www.flvs.net/myFLVS/counselor-office/Documents/Florida%20Incentive%20Scholarship.pdf</a></p>
<p>Newest program in Florida but only opened to state residents.</p>
<p>@numbersfun, you do not have to be physically present in CA to access the AP score on day 1. Anyone using a proxy server can get the score on D1. I do not understand College Board’s rationale for giving access to AP score based on location. Those anxious to get the score (including my daughter) can use a variety of mechanisms to bypass, the simplest is to ask a friend at a different location to check the score. Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>@saismom, that is pretty awesome for Florida kids. The award specifies ‘Scholars.’ I went back and read the original Florida legislation establishing the scholarship and it doesn’t elaborate any more about that wording. Scholar is not the same as NMF. It means the student has received an official award from NMSC, corporate, or a college that sponsors NMF. If that is what they mean, then it implies a student who didn’t get NMSC or corporate would need to attend a NMF sponsoring college to benefit from this. Which would likely put a lot of pressure on Florida colleges to sponsor NMFs, if they don’t already. Do you know anything more about it? Are they saying these awards can be taken out of state? I am having a difficult time understanding that part. They talk about enrolling in a regionally accredited institution and then list accrediting bodies around the country. </p>
<p>Oh, BTW, the legislation says if the legislature doesn’t allocate sufficient funds, then the awards will be prorated. Ha, ha.</p>
<p>Actually, I see now that the legislation specifies it must be a Florida university for student to receive the award.</p>
<p>Now looking at Florida Senate website and others that track the bill (SB1710), they all say it died in appropriations on 5/2. But you have that pdf link. So is the program going ahead? Seems like it could cost huge amount of money if enough NMFs stay in-state to get the money.</p>
<p>Now I see that the governor signed another related bill, SB5101, into law on 6/2 which establishes the scholarship. This seems to be available now to 2014 grads, if I read it right. But it’s rather late in the game for them. Is this being advertised in Florida? It could save some fmilies huge sums of money. I wonder what schools like UCF will do. If the state will bee funding the NMF’s full COA, they could discontinue their program of giving free rides, at least to in-state students.</p>