Still crickets…
And we have liftoff! Not sure if the school caved to the many desperate calls from parents or puppy dog eyes from students or if they’d always planned to do it today, but S has his NMSF letter! We are going to sit together today to go through his NM application portal. =D>
I just saw a posting news announcement for the 2018 semi finalist.
GC went ahead and gave DS his letter yesterday. She had already congratulated him privately after she received it, but held onto the letter until yesterday. DS logged in last night and loaded in activities, awards, etc. He also generated an email to me where I had to login and give parental consent, which I did.
@bama2000 yes, after I saw your post I did a google search and it looks like there a handful of them out there already today.
@bama2000 can you please share the link to the news? Thanks
@twosmartboys Minnesota, Chicago area, and north Alabama/Tennessee if that is anyone on here
http://m.startribune.com/300-minn-seniors-named-national-merit-semifinalists/443995703/
@bama2000 Thank you… Will have to continue waiting :-S
Still nothing here either. Waiting/hoping to hear something tomorrow. So frustrating!
School notified NMSF today. With son’s score we had known from the start that he’d make the cutoff, so were just curious how long it would take for the news to travel… nay, crawl to the recipients.
Still nothing here
Sitting international, and still waiting here… school hasn’t received a thing. I’m concerned that it’s already 23 days down from when the post was supposed to have been sent out. Art’s blog says we’ll need the physical letter for DD to apply… and the NMSC will have to resend it! Aaaaaaargggggh!
@Punky99, has NMSC told your D’s school that they must resend a physical paper? I mean, the letter with the login information isn’t hand-written, surely in such an extraordinary circumstance NMSC can email the letter to the school official.
Waiting to hear from school, @traveler98 … they are supposed to have spoken to NMSC last night our time. I find it really funny, actually, that NMSC doesn’t have a contactable email id on their site - just a phone/ fax number (but then, I guess they’d get swamped at around this time, if they published one!).
At the moment, am relying on information from here and Art’s blog, purely because school isn’t very well versed with the whole NMSC thing (I don’t think they have had NMSFs yet - they’ve only recently started having the PSAT administered in school, too.)
I’m sure they’ll work with school to sort it out, given the time frame … if I don’t hear by tonight, though, I’m calling them myself 
… I’ll figure out what steps need to be taken, and go camp out in school till they’re done !!! DD has exams at the moment, so can’t work on all the offline data till next week, anyway … so in that sense, I have till the weekend to get the access data!
@Punky99, last year NMSC offered to fax the letter to the school if they hadn’t already received it (they had). The school’s letter has the school’s login code on it. NMSC said that as soon as someone from the school logs in, there are step-by-step instructions for printing the student letters. NMSC said if the school could not figure it out after logging in, they could call NMSC and someone could walk them through the process on the phone. Oh, the school will also have to do the school report and recommendation, but that can be done concurrently with the student application. Good luck!
Thank you for the info @StillLotsToLearn … I really appreciate everyone sharing information so generously here - it’s really helpful, given that we are flying blind, and school is as knowledgeable as we are 
If they spoke to NMSC last night, I’m sure they’d have figured out what to do. The time difference makes it tougher - when their offices open, school isn’t! Anyway, will get it figured out over the course of the next few days 
The school report and recommendation won’t be a problem - they’re almost done with prepping them anyway, and I’ve kept them up to date in terms of timelines, so that’s ok. DD will also work on her stuff, offline, so it’s all ready to upload as soon as we have the access codes!
@StillLotsToLearn and @traveler98 … thank you again, for the hand holding. Official confirmation just came in (it’s the afternoon here, and the post was just delivered). I just got the call from school… whew!
Does anyone know if the full list of all ~16000 semi finalist is posted anywhere online? It appears that some news outlets are selectively posting the full list of their states, but no consistency in how each outlet handles the news. Why wouldn’t NMSC post the full list on their website (or do they)?
Good question, @TexanIndian - I was wondering the same thing… I’m going to ask our GC if they will give us ‘the book’
So nothing yet, and the options are:
- Later today
- The letter never arrived
- The letter arrived and is buried in the Principal' mail and unopened
- The letter has arrived and has been opened but no one cares.
Going with option 4, based on experience a few years back when S1 was commended. He eventually had to ask the GC if he could locate the letter and give it to him.
@planner03 … I was in this situation till a few hours ago. You could call NMSC yourself, today - now that the list is released, they should be able to let you know. (I was planning to do this, when miracle of miracles, the post arrived!)