@northernAZ I hope I get good news
Has anyone in this thread not gotten the letter in the mail, but got the email instructing what to do in the finalist process? Just wondering if anyone may not have gotten their letter in the mail either.
does applying for scholarships through the Hispanic Scholarship Fund or UNCF or any organization affiliated with gates have any bearing on whether or not we get the gates scholarship?
@giraffeinatree The scholarships offered by the four GMS partner organizations are separate from the Gates Millennium Scholarship. Applications for those scholarships have no impact on the GMS selection process.
Everything has been received and verified now for me, yes! Been praying every single night. Sadly, my essays are so cringeworthy to me now lol. I wonder if they re-read them.
@brendalil Same! I re-read my essays and I cringe everytime i look at them. I honestly hope they aren’t re-read because I see so many mistakes in my essay!
LOL! I agree with @brendalil and @2ne1islife . My essays were so bad, and I had so my grammatical errors. Wow. I remember how I re-read it so many times before I submit it. Now, I am finding so many errors. I can’t wait until they announce the winners.
@Iamsobusynow But at least we are finalist so our grammatical errors were looked over by what we wrote. Hopefully we can all have fortunate news when the time comes!!!
Although it took 21 days my documents have finally been verified!!
@2ne1islife Congratulations! 
@2ne1islife The delay is because your organisation is running other programs and scholarships as well, and also handling the renewals for existing GMS scholars. Relax. Last year my award letter arrived around April 15. If you win, you’ll get an email followed by a packet.
@klingon97 How long did it take after you got the mailed letter that you got the email?
Let’s all talk about our possible future colleges. Which schools are you all considering?
That’s a complicated question around my house @Ifeanyi1. Son is now torn between Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Brown. Visiting all 3 this month might be a little tricky! You?
Does anyone know how much time it takes, on average, for the counselor’s documents to be verified? I gave my counselor the documents/instructions she needed to email them in many weeks back when I received the documents in the mail and she hasn’t done so. We’ve been on break since the 23rd so she stopped replying to emails since then & we get back until this monday (the 4th of April). :-<
@Alamom Oh wow! Nice! Congratulations to your son! I am either going to University of Maryland, College Park or George Washington University, but I can’t seem to decide.
@Alamom What does your son intend to major in?
@jjuar16 Wow! 
Are you saying that she has not yet sent any of the documents? It varies on the length of time it takes to verify the documents, but it took about 1 week for GMS to verify my documents after they received all my documents.
@Ifeanyi1 not that I know of nope! I checked the portal and it’s still missing. She’s usually really helpful when it came to submitting things for my scholarships/colleges so I’m really worried now
@jjuar16 I hope she sends the documents soon. I think you should be fine as long as GMS receives the documents by April 8th. The documents don’t have to be verified by April 8th. The finalist letter states: “To verify your eligibility for further consideration, we must RECEIVE the following documents no later than 11:59 PM of Friday, April 8, 2016 (documents received after April 8th will not be considered).”