I'm editing my essay for the National Merit Scholarship right now. Do you know if I would be made ineligible or if my essay would be scratched if I was to post portions of it online for review and critique?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Just my gut feeling is that it would NOT be a good idea. Remember there are lots of other people out there right now working on THEIR National Merit Scholarship essay (including my daughter's best friend).
I don't know the rules, it just seems to me like you may regret doing so. I would hate for the judging board to decide to do random internet searches to check for plagarized stuff, and see any of your words pop up. (edit: not that it would be plagarized, it would be your own words -- but they don't know you from your screen name, etc.)
FG
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Agreed. If you have specific critiquing needs, you might want to ask a few people to let you e-mail it to them and have them give their opinions. I think that's allowed (although I'm not sure.)
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
<-- Concurs. Asked the same question once.
--j_k
Posted by Ela (Member # 1365) on :
My son's English teacher and my husband worked with my son on his National Merit essay.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"...but they don't know you from your screen name..."
And if they think it's plagerized, they won't ask "Are you HRE?" before they toss your essay out.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
When did they start having an essay requirement? When I was in high school, you got semi-finalist based on your PSAT scores, and... honestly I don't remember what their basis was for finalist. We had 7 semi-finalists in our class (of 60 students), and six of us made it to finalist. The one who didn't... well, he had tried to test the system. They weren't amused.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I think we had a very short essay for our National Merit applications...because I seem to remember that unlike every other application I was filling out at the time, everything had to fit solely on the page they gave you.
-pH
Posted by HRE (Member # 6263) on :
The semifinalists are selected by PSAT scores, and then there is a very short essay (~500 words) about what distinguishes you, what your goals are and so forth.
I wrote my essay about my goal and what I have done to reach it, as opposed to making what is basically a list in paragraph form of my accomplishments, activities, and so forth.
Because of the way I wrote it, though, there are many noteworthy things I've done that I didn't get to include. I'm starting to have second thoughts about what to do with it.
What do you think?
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
The advice I got? Show, don't tell. Write about yourself, not necessarily about what you've done. And more importantly, sound like "you".
--j_k
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
As far as I could tell from my experience and from just looking at the numbers the essays aren't really that important. My essay was pretty awful compared to the ones I wrote later on in the college application process and I did fine. Also, there are I believe 16000 semifinalists and 15000 finalists, so as far as I could tell the only people who didn't make it to finalist were the ones that didn't turn in the application.