Son is an AA select from Alabama! He just received the email with instructions.
Congratulations @Alamom
Make sure to check your spam folders. My Finalist notification e-mail was caught by Gmail as spam.
FINALIST! from California 
FINALIST! African-American from Georgia 
Congrats to all the finalists!!!
finalist hispanic from chicago!
Finalist from texas!!! I’m honestly shocked in a good way because I felt super under qualified. I was lacking so much so I didn’t even think about it.
how many are finalists? and they only pick 1000 of the finalists right? how competitive is it from here–do they just want to ensure eligibility before they give you the award?
There are approximately twice as many finalists in each group as there will be Scholars. There will be 1,000 Scholars selected by mid-April: 350 each from the Hispanic and African American groups and 150 each from the Native American and the Asian and Pacific Islander American groups. Some of the finalists will be disqualified because they do not meet the eligibility criteria, like Pell Grant and GPA. Of the remaining finalists in each group, only some will be selected as Scholars. The exact process for narrowing down the finalists to select the Scholars is confidential.
If I didn’t get my major at a certain college, would I still be elligible as undeclared major?
Non-select. ah well. congrats to everyone who got finalist!
Non-Select from New York. Congrats to Everyone who was selected
Finalist from California. Asian. How many finalist are there?
Finalist from Cali! Hispanic. Congrats to everyone. one step closer!
Do they only select people with 0 EFC?
@Archlion No, they do not select only finalists with zero EFC as Scholars. There is no particular dollar level of Pell Grant required to be chosen as a Gates Scholar, as long as you are Pell eligible. Like competitive admission at a top-tier college, there is a holistic assessment, which also means that there is a subjective element involved.
Finalist! From Southern California! Chicana! I’m just so honored and happy!! Good luck to everyone else for the second round!
When do finalists find out if theyre awarded the scholarship?
@giraffeinatree The email said late April, but it was around the 17th last year (according to the thread).
Looking back at my essays a couple of them are not the way I typed them? Repeating sentences were put into a new paragraph and multiple paragraphs were switched around? Does anyone else have this situation happen to them?