<p>Hi, I am from New Orleans. I believe I should be a semifinalist but I cannot get in touch with my school. Also, what is National Merit’s policy on people who have to transfer high schools their senior year? Did anyone have this problem in Florida last year when the hurricanes went through? Any info. on this would help. Thanks.</p>
<p>Nationalmerit.org has contact info for National Merit, I would call them ASAP and ask them this.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Holy Crap how do you have access to internet after KATRINA?</p>
<p>He’s the lucky 20% not drowned in water with 50mile Wifi Access.</p>
<p>My family evacuated so I have Internet at the hotel; I called the Nat. merit number. They kept telling me I needed to contact my school and have them call Nat. merit. I am not sure if they really understood the situation, but they finally decided just to e-mail me when they knew what I should do. I would recomend that anyone else in this situation also should call them, though I am not sure how much it will actually help. Their number is on the website.</p>
<p>Jenco - are you scores 211 or higher? If so, then yes, you are a semi-finalist. While you wait to hear from NM or your school, maybe you can get started on the packet. </p>
<p>Can others who have received their semi-finalist packets please post what the essay topic is this year? There’s a prompt for your extracurriculars too - if someone can give you that prompt, you can get that set up too. </p>
<p>You’ll need to send your SAT scores to National Merit too.</p>
<p>First, my sympathies to you and your family. I know that this is a difficult time.</p>
<p>You should not panic about NM. Clearly, National Merit will know that students in hurricane-hit areas aren’t going to be able to get the NM info or get their paperwork in on time. Thus, accommodations will be made.</p>
<p>The same thing is going to happen when it comes to college applications. Colleges will accommodate students who are in hurricane-hit areas and won’t be back in school for a while. This also is what happened last year when Fla. was hit hard by hurricanes.</p>
<p>Jenco10,</p>
<p>Where are you staying? Are you still in Louisiana? Have you checked into the school situation where you are? My son told me Wednesday that his high school is picking up 15 Ben Franklin students. If you’ll be in Shreveport, there are a couple of schools almost as good as BF. There’s also the Louisiana School for Math, Science, & the Arts in Natchitoches. Baton Rouge has a very good high school or two (names escape me but I could find out if you want to know) but the sheer number of evacuees down there could make it hard to get in school (plus all of the apartments have been rented, houses for sale are going fast, and traffic is now a lot worse).</p>
<p>Hang in there. The times are way too interesting suddenly.</p>