<p>thanks everyone for the reply and advice. Yes, mazewanderer, you summarized the question very accurately. </p>
<p>This student is high school senior and is NMF and was notified in February being the finalist. His SAT score is comparable with 236, 2330. The state cutoff score is 219. So 236 isn’t the most impressive score. However, this student has been accepted by most of the top schools, such as MIT, Stanford, CalTech, etc… So, school recommendation and extra activities/curriculum should not go wrong. The student did not apply to the #1 choice school indicated on NMS application form at all. And he has changed to undecided around 4/23/2011, right before 4/27/2011. The reason he changed to undecided is that none of admitted schools supports college-sponsored Merit Scholarship.</p>
<p>236 may not be a compelling score in this state, CA, however, this NMF was confident originally to get NMS because of the high achieving in national and international competitions. A NMS receiver last year in the same state was surprised that this NMF has not received NMS yet because this last year’s receiver’s PSAT score may be much lower than 236.</p>
<p>NMSC has been contacted and explained the remaining process: most of NMS awards were mailed in March. There is a little chance that these NMS can’t be awarded therefore a few additional can be considered. However, this chance is very little. all the NMS will be announced on 5/4. </p>
<p>So, is asking NMSC double the selection of this student and get a little bit explanation a reasonable thing to do? We can learn from this case at least by asking more detailed information.</p>
<p>As of now, the only suspect point is the essay as why the student did not get NMS since the student has improved the essay from applying NMS to applying colleges.</p>
<p>Any suggestions for step for last try?</p>
<p>thanks</p>