I have to say, I was expecting some bombshell. This is a tempest in a teacup, IMO.
A commended student for National Merit is jut not a big deal, sorry. A commended student doesn’t get anything other than a letter, and bragging rights to say they were commended. There are 34,000 students who get these letters. My kid got one and so did a couple of others in her year. The Ivy League school that rejected her obviously didn’t care😆
Of course, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll wager that no student would have been denied because they didn’t put their commended status on their application. Maybe the other 16,000 NM semi finalists would be in a worse off position for not being able to put that on their application, but I’m betting that most kids at that high school go to very good colleges for the most part, regardless of national merit status.
And this line is ridiculous… “The war on merit is a war on our kids.”