National Merit Semifinalist --> Should I put on common app?

CoolestAsian
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 05:42:26 +0000

Hello friends,

I am a national merit semifinalists this year. However, the common application only allows five spots for awards/honors. For me, all five of these spots are being taken up by things that are national/international level such as siemens semifinalists, DECA international top 20, etc.

Do you think I should remove one of these awards in exchange for the national merit semifinalist award? My SAT score is already fairly high (1580) but I am not sure if special emphasis is placed on students who won national merit. If i do switch one of these awards with national merit however, I will also be stating that I wont that award in my EC section (for example I will say that I was in the DECA team as an EC and I won top 20) but I feel that won’t give enough emphasis to the award itself and may be easily overlooked.

What do you guys think??