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question on national merit scholarships- how are the semi-finalists and then finalists decided? Is it purely by score or do they take into consideration your grades and activites? i made it to the "commended student" status but I'm unsure if I have to do anything to keep myself in the running

By Shennie (Shennie) on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Pretty much every student who has a score of 200 or above on the PSAT will be commended. Semi-finalists are strictly score based. Each state has a different cutoff. I think the highest cutoff any state had last year was around 222 and the low was around 210 or there abouts. If your score is in that neighborhood you will have to see what the cutoff is for your state.

If you make the cutoff, you will be notified in September by your school district. After that, there is a form you have to fill out to become a finalist. At this point, you have to submit grades and your SAT scores among other things. However, about 90% of semi-finalists also become finalists, so as long as you have a halfway decent SAT score and you do the paper work, you will most likely become a finalist. You should know that only about half of the finalists end up with any money however.

By Dolce (Dolce) on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Shennie said, "You should know that only about half of the finalists end up with any money however."

But also be aware that there are some schools that will automatically give you full scholarship (or excellent schol) if you are a finalist. So unless you have very definite and narrow preferences for where you hope to attend, there will be schol's for you if you are a finalist. There's another thread here somewhere about which schools give good NMF schol's.

By Medusa2003 (Medusa2003) on Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 07:50 pm: Edit

Respectable grades and a decent recommendation from your principal are also factors in determining if you will be in the 90%+ of semifinalists who move to finalist status.

By Adamg (Adamg) on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Alabama 210 whoo whooo!

By Thenarrator (Thenarrator) on Monday, July 07, 2003 - 01:36 pm: Edit

how much money do u get if u become a finalist?

By Medusa2003 (Medusa2003) on Monday, July 07, 2003 - 08:37 pm: Edit

Anywhere between zero and a full-ride depending on which college you choose to attend and a variety of other factors. Roughly 8,000 of the 15,000 National Merit Finalists receive one of three types of National Merit Scholarships. 1) National Merit Scholarship Corporation Sponsored Scholarship - a one time award of $2,500 which can be used at any college or university given to roughly the top 2,000 National Merit Finalists (based on overall excellence both inside and outside the classroom), 2) Company sponsored scholarships which are usually but not always given to children of employees of sponsoring companies and usually pay up to $2,000 per year for four years at any college. 3) College sponsored scholarships which usually pay up between $750 and $2,000 per year if the school you are attending sponsors national merit scholarships and you designate that school as your first choice with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. NOTE: Some colleges including the University of Oklahoma, the University of Nebraska, the New College of Florida, the University of Arizona, Arizona State, the University of Tulsa, Bradley University, Ball State, and Alfred University give all National Merit Finalists something close to a full ride scholarship which could be worth close to %75,000.

Ivy League schools and schools like MIT and Caltech do not sponsor National Merit Scholarships.

There is a lot of good information on National Merit on the Carleton College website. www.carleton.edu

By Dolce (Dolce) on Monday, July 07, 2003 - 09:38 pm: Edit

There's a small school in southern Indiana (Univ of Evansville) that gives full tuition to all NMFinalists. It's got a pretty good ranking in the US News book. The tuition is over 18K per year, so that's a pretty great automatic scholarship. We are visiting friends in Evansville next weekend and we'll be looking at the school while we're there. I'll try to remember to post my thoughts next week.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 03:28 am: Edit

School like U of Oklahoma and either U of Arizona or Arizona State do the same or similar things. There's actually quite a few schools that do it...pity that my D isn't interested in any of them.

By Rosiebabe5 (Rosiebabe5) on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 01:52 am: Edit

When do we find out the semifinalist number for our state? And also- my counselor said you need about 1350 SAT in combination with the other factors- is that true?
Please email--- rosiebabe5@aol.com

By Medusa2003 (Medusa2003) on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 10:54 pm: Edit

The semi-finalist PSAT cut-off for your state for the 2004 program won't be available until after September 2003 when the semi-finalists are announced. You might consider contacting the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to find out what the cut-off has been in previous years to get a vague idea whether your PSAT will put you in the ballpark for National Merit Semifinalist status for your state. The numbers do vary from year to year. There is no official SAT score required for semifinalists to become finalists. The 1350 SAT mentioned by your counselor is probably based on his or her experience with previous students. I do know of a semifinalist with a 1310 SAT who became a finalist and won a corporate-sponsored national merit scholarship. Good grades, a decent recommendation from your principal, and a reasonably high SAT ( 1350 ish sounds right ) should qualify you for being a NM finalist if your PSAT score qualifies you to be a semifinalist.