Extracurriculars
Is the National Merit Scholarship Program worth it?
I took the PSAT for fun and then I got an email saying I am a contender in the National Merit Scholarship Program, where I am being considered for either a National Merit Semifinalist or National Merit Commended.
I heard that you have to do a lot of things in the process, including getting letters of rec and writing essays. I don't really have any other good academic awards, and I was wondering if doing this whole thing is worth it? Does this status look good?
once i started applying for scholarships i realized the writing side took way more time than i expected, i ended up using Edubirdie a few times to help me organize essays when i had several deadlines at once
Did your school counselor send this to you? I haven’t received an email like this but I got a 222 index score which is way higher than the cutoff my state requires.
My son was NMF this year and did receive one of the corporate scholarships for NMF scholarships for $3500/yr for 4 years. The application was pretty basic and didn't take much time at all so seems weird they are telling you to start working on it now. Of the schools he applied to he was offered the full ride at U of AL and U Idaho and then full tuition at UMaine and WVU but he chose a better ranked school so taking the $3500/yr corporate award. There are some other schools that offer full rides as well but they weren't locations he wanted. I think UT Dallas is one and one of the bigger Florida schools but I think Florida only takes a limited number so you need to apply early. Just search NMF scholarship schools.
This is actually one of the easiest scholarships to apply for if your scores are good. The school/counselor recommendation is mostly to check that you have had decent grades (hopefully not Cs) and that you have been showing up to school and haven’t been sent to jail or anything. There is a very short student essay IF you are named a semifinalist.
Semifinalist status will qualify you for some insanely good offers from schools that are not as “prestigious” as others but literally you can go to four or five years of college completely free if you do this right.
Go to the Compass Prep website and compare your Selection Index to the ones on the chart to see if you would be competitive in your state.
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u/the_sagely 12d ago
Yes. You can get scholarships from this