School Starting with a Bang...

[lydamorehouse]

 Mason has just started his PSEO* classes at the University of Minnesota. As predicted, he's loving them. He's taking American Foreign Policy, Modern Literature, Chinese I, and Pre-Calc all through the U, and then he sneaked in an art class at St. Paul College (one of the few benefits of distance learning: no distances to travel between classes!)

It's been so fun to hear him after he emerges from his room to tell us all about what he's excited about with classes... and then today?

We got the call from one of his teachers... Mason is a semi-finalist for the National Merit Scholarship!  https://www.startribune.com/more-than-275-minnesota-seniors-named-national-merit-semifinalists-nmsf-2021/572361201/  In fact, if you go to the document at the bottom of the article, you'll see he's the only student from Washington Technology Magnet to qualify this year. (This news made my paladin very sad. He can think of a lot of his colleagues who deserve it as much as he does. And, of course, it doesn't feel great to be the one white kid to make it in a school that only has 6% white kids .)

I mean, I'm still awfully proud. Now we just have to figure out the application to be in the running as a finalist. Fingers crossed, but even if he doesn't make it, being a semi-finalist is pretty dang cool.


My dude: Mason on the first day of school 2020 (a high school senior.)



---
PSEO is something I've talked about before, but if you are just tuning in, it stands for post-secondary education opportunity. It's a way for high school students (at least in our state) to take classes at their local universities or colleges while still part of the public school system.  So, basically, Mason gets to finish up his high school credits at the University of Minnesota. He has full U of MN privileges--he has a student U ID card, a U e-mail address, he can join any university club or organization (provided that he would be otherwise eligible) and basically gets to function as a U students, even though he's still in high school. Of course, this year he's doing distance learning like everyone else, but he gets to do university level distance learning, so that's a bit of a bonus.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Ooog, congrats to him! That's awesome!

[lydamorehouse]

I'll pass it on. Thanks. (Am proud parent.)

[pameladean]

Oh, the hit of nostalgia that produced! I haven't thought of the National Merit Scholarships in years, but I too was once a semi-finalist. Congratulations to Mason! At the time being a semi-finalist was taken quite seriously by both my high school and the colleges I was applying to. I trust it still is.

Mason's concerns do him credit. I'd have to check the yearbook photo, but I have a bad feeling that our little group of semi-finalists was all white, even though there were a lot of black kids at my school.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought, which... shame on me (good on him.)

It does seem to still mean something. As a parent, of course, I am hoping he advances to the scholarship part (aka a finalist). These days they have several award options for finalists: a cash award, a corporate sponsored award, or a college sponsored award. But, as I said (and I mean it) even if nothing else comes from it, I do think it's a major feather in the cap.

Congrats to you, much belatedly.

Several of my friends in high schools were National Merit semi-and finalist, but I, alas, never was.

[pameladean]

Oh yes, the awards are great, and I hope he gets one of them.

Aw, you are kind to congratulate me on this age-old achievement. I was not at all a distinguished student in high school, so I was perhaps inordinately pleased. My lockermate was also a semi-finalist and I believe became a finalist. I wonder what became of her.

P.

[j00j]

Congratulations to Mason!
Also glad his learning experience is still exciting. It's so hard out there for teachers and students right now.

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, same. I was pleasantly surprised when he peeked out to hop around "complaining" about having his first Marxist prof. (We are all socialists here, so you know, he wasn't complaining so much as I think feeling the need to teenage eye roll.)

[dreamshark]

Congratulations to Mason!!!

I was a Merit Scholar Semi-Finalist many years ago, a Finalist, and possibly a Merit Scholar (can't quite remember. We're talking about 50 years ago here). As I recall, there was not a lot of difference between being a Semi-Finalist and a Finalist. And unless you qualified for fairly high levels of financial aid, there was very little practical difference between being a Finalist and a Merit Scholar, because you only get actual scholarship money based on what's in your FAFSA no matter what the award certificate says.

But the cool thing about getting to this point is that colleges will court you (or anyway, they did back then). If he is still college shopping when Pandemica comes to an end he may get opportunities to fly all over the country on the colleges' tab looking at schools, which is lots of fun. Prepare for your mailbox to fill up with solicitations from colleges.

[lydamorehouse]

Oh my god. You mean MORE than he already gets??

Well. It will keep the USPS in business at least.

Again, very belated congrats to you on your scholarship. We will be taking any help we can get to afford college, so even a DOLLAR towards one of these schools would be lovely.

[dreamshark]

Oh, I didn't get a scholarship, if by that you mean actual money. I don't think I got a scholarship award at all, just the Finalist designation, but since it didn't really matter I don't recall too clearly. There wasn't enough in my college fund to pay for everything, but there was enough that I didn't qualify for scholarship money (just loans).

The way it worked when my kids went to college (which hadn't changed noticeably since my college days) the total amount of financial aid you qualified for was determined by the FAFSA, regardless of source. Any amount that you got from a scholarship was money that you didn't get from whatever other sources were available. The amount of actual aid provided was determined by the school. Very few schools provided full ride scholarships - it was usually a combination of grants, loans, and work-study opportunities. Having a Merit Scholarship may tip the balance in terms of grants over loans. It's definitely a good thing to have, but it's not a gold mine.

[offcntr]

[Holds up hand] Another National Merit Semi-Finalist here. (Maybe even Finalist? Hey, it was 1977.) I remember getting a nice scholarship offer from Northwestern, but was intimidated by the size of the place, wound up going to Viterbo instead.

[lydamorehouse]

Well, I mean... that's how I met you, so yay!

[offcntr]

True that. Though how did we actually meet? I knew your dad through Viterbo, and I worked with your mom for four or five years at the Times-Review, but did we actually meet through them? I sort of remember it was actually from the SF Reading Group?

The one really clear memory I have is of going to a show at the Pumphouse together, and all my friends assuming I had a new girlfriend. (snerk!)

[melita66]

I also was a semifinalist! I think the only one at my high school. I didn't consider myself the smartest person there. There are at least 2 others that should have made semifinalist, and another 2 or 3 that probably could have. I assume that I just tested really, really well that day. Anyhow, I ended up going to a private university in Texas that was giving almost full tuition scholarships to semifinalists. I think it was for $5k when tuition was $5.4k.

[lydamorehouse]

NICE.

One of Mason's classmates a couple of years ago (or maybe last year?) got a full-ride to Stanford. Although she may have had other factors that contributed to that.

[oracne]

Go Mason!!!

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks!