National Memory Master Competition Part 2: Becoming a Finalist

Last time I wrote about the first semester of my sixth-grade year and how I began to prepare for the National Memory Master Competition (see the first post here). In this post, I want to write about the time following the submission of my entry video.  

When my video was polished and ready to be sent in, I sat down with my parents and uploaded it to the National Memory Master site. By the time I uploaded my video, there were only one or two days until voting started. NMM voting happened when the videos become available to the public. Anyone who had the link could watch and vote for any video submissions. I waited in suspense for those couple days and then voting opened. When I competed, everyone was able to see how many votes each video had. I don’t think they do that any longer, but at that point I was still allowed to know how many votes I had. We had been told that votes were very important in the competition, and contestants should attempt to get as many votes as possible. If you are reading this and considering participating in a future NMM competition, don’t let this worry you. Having competed, I am convinced that votes are not as important as I was led to believe. The judges do use votes in case of a tie, but it is much more important to focus on having a strong video submission than to try to get the most votes. Unfortunately, I spent the couple weeks of voting very stressed; I didn’t have many connections, so I had fewer votes than some people, which led me to be worried that I was “losing”.  

However, I soon realized it truly wasn’t that big of a deal. Voting closed, and I nervously waited for quite a few days. It was very challenging to wait that long, and the days seemed never-ending. Then, one day when my family was getting ready in the morning, I heard my mom calling us all together. I could sense an excitement in her voice, but I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. When our family had gathered, she gave the news: the NMM judges had just called her- I was a finalist! I was so excited and relieved. I couldn’t believe that out of all the videos that had been submitted (about 90), I was one of the sixteen moving on. I wasn’t able to tell anyone, friends or family, for a couple days until the finalists were announced to the public. However, my CC director already knew because the judges had called her first to ensure I had completed the memory master process. I was able to talk to her and her family about it, but no one else. During this time, I also answered some questions for a short biography of myself to go along with my video on the Classical Conversations National Memory Master website.  

Me and the celebration cookie cakes at CC

Finally, a few days later, the results were announced to the public. I was able to tell all my friends and family, as well as find out who all the other finalists were. It was exciting to see who I would be meeting and studying with in the months to come. At our next CC community group, my director announced my name during morning announcements so that we could celebrate with the whole group. She even brought two cookie cakes for lunchtime in honor of me becoming a finalist. I was so thankful and excited for the opportunity to compete in NMM. 

Next time, I’ll write about how and what I studied to prepare myself for the competition!