<p>I think UF will give you the award whether you list them as your first choice or not.</p>
<p>Zetesis, you raised the idea of thinking strategically about what school the Finalist names on the school choice card. At first, it seemed like, you know, what difference does it make? The Finalist can change his mind later.</p>
<p>But why not take an opportunity to show the love to a school still considering the student’s application? NMS notifies the schools on March 1st of the names of students who have named them top choice. If a student is border-line in the admit-deny pile, then showing a little demonstrated interest could help. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.</p>
<p>The NMS calendar shows that the colleges who receive the list of student names are the ones that sponsor NMS awards, so naming a non-sponsoring college would not gain any good will from the college, because they would not hear about it. But then the Finalist would have a school on record.</p>
<p>Our state U. hands out only a handful of college-sponsored NMS awards. If my son had applied there as his safety school, then we would definitely have wanted him to be at the top of their list in the first round of notifications to the schools.</p>
<p>Then, if he was chosen for a $2500 award, that would trump the college-sponsored award. Only one award will be offered, so if NMS offers a one-time $2500, they will tell the college that he has named this college as first-choice, but he’s already been offered an award. Therefore, the college does not offer him one of their college-sponsored awards. They will probably offer him admission and sometimes a rather large merit package on top of the $2500 award. I’m thinking University of Oklahoma and Arizona State.</p>
<p>The person I spoke to at NMSC confirmed that $2000 is the maximum amount of a college-sponsored NMS award. When we see these large “NMS” packages at some of the more generous schools, what we are seeing is a $2000 per year NMS scholarship, plus institutional merit aid stacked on top of that. I never really got this until I saw it in the NMSC Annual Report.</p>
<p>“College-sponsored scholarships are renewable annually and provide stipends ranging from $500 to $2,000 per year.”
<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yes, that’s about what we are thinking … thanks.</p>
<p>And I did read the website last night and realized, for the first time, the $2000 upper limit for college sponsored NMS awards. The “big” awards are given by the schools to attract NMF. Makes sense.</p>
<p>How about this: my son’s first choice on the form is a school from which he has withdrawn his application. His EA school has no college-based awards. So, should we bother changing his first choice now to the EA school?</p>
<p>So it says in the NM book regarding DH’s employer that “Every Finalist who is
the child of an employee of XXX. or a participating affiliate will be offered an award.”</p>
<p>To me, since you can only get one NM award that means that it is totally irrelevant to select a first choice college (unless they offer full tuition for NM’s which none of DD’s do). Is this accurate?</p>
<p>You should let all of the schools that you applied to know of this update. My D did this and they all sent her an email reply that they would be happy to update her file</p>
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<p>Hunt, that’s an interesting situation, because technically your child has named a school. If he were given a $2500 award–that he could take to the EA school–then the notification letter in March would say “You’ve been selected” instead of “You’re being considered.”</p>
<p>I haven’t seen anything that states the finalist needs to have applied to a first-choice school to be considered for one of the portable awards (national $2500 or corporate). On the back of the finalist notification letter, it says the student must have applied to a school to be considered for that school’s college-based award.</p>
<p>Doesn’t it seem unlikely that NMS would go to the trouble to confirm that a student has applied to a first-choice school before offering one of the awards not sponsored by the school? Since they allow the first-choice to be changed, it seems like that would be a big waste of their time and energy.</p>
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<p>sharonohio, your comments sound almost exactly like what I was saying a few days ago, except that you are talking about a corporate award, and I was talking about the one-time $2500 award. I was saying that the finalist’s remaining undecided would probably be OK, since he was not going to be applying to a “first-choice” school that offered its own NMS award.</p>
<p>Then another parent pointed out the language in the notification letter: A finalist cannot be offered an award until he or she has reported a school choice to NMSC. She said that it sounds like the finalist cannot be offered ANY award of any type, until the student has named a school, and that would include the corporate awards.</p>
<p>I called NMSC for clarification and was told, yes, the student must report a school to receive one of the portable awards, at the time when the mailings go out in March. (Corporate awards <em>start</em> going out in March “on a rolling basis,” I was told.) Without a school choice having been reported, the notification letter will say, “You are being considered” for a $2500 or corporate award, not “You are have been awarded…” The finalist will then be asked to name a school, and the award can be granted. So reporting a school now would save a step, not only for the student but for the NMSC, as well. The school choice can be changed later.</p>
<p>It sounds like your situation is a little different, since the corporate award is guaranteed (what an excellent position to be in!!) rather than based on a competition for a limited number of awards, so delay would probably not interfere with the granting of the award in the end. The person at NMSC said that failure to report a school might mean that a $2500 award would “not be 100% guaranteed.” I did not ask what obstacle might prevent the award from coming through. By that point, I had just decided to ask my son to send in the school choice card.</p>
<p>If none of your potential schools offer NM awards, pick the one that is your current first choice. You can change it later if you decide to go to a different school, but you have to pick some school to be a candidate for NM $2,500.</p>
<p>Thanks to you all for your analyses of these issues. Below is my analysis of what my son should do. Perhaps it’ll crystallize some ideas for others. Or perhaps some of you will see flaws.</p>
<p>My son has applied to a number of schools. Let’s consider 3 of them, in order of his preference:</p>
<p>A - Applied early action and was accepted. Does not offer school-sponsored awards.</p>
<p>B - Applied regular decision. Does offer school-sponsored scholarships.</p>
<p>C - State University. Has been accepted. Offers close to a free ride to NMFs, if they designate. I understand that only part ($2000) of this is considered NM (thanks for that clarification).</p>
<p>Currently, school A is designated as first choice.</p>
<p>So, here’s what we are thinking:</p>
<p>Before March 1: Switch first choice to School B. This may indicate to them his strong interest as they consider his application.</p>
<p>March 11 - End of March. Hypothetically, he receives a corporate-sponsored or NMSC-sponsored scholarship</p>
<p>April 1 - Hypothetically, he is accepted to School B. Perhaps he will receive a School B merit scholarship, but won’t hear until after April 29.</p>
<p>April 5 - He decides that he is going to School A. He changes his first choice back to School A, so that an offer from School B (after April 29) doesn’t replace his NMSC offer.</p>
<p>I only recently understood that the school-sponsored offers come much later than the others. </p>
<p>Of course, there are lots of other possible outcomes (e.g., he chooses School B), but this scenario seems to be one that would be of interest to others. If any of you see flaws in this analysis, I’d love to hear about it.</p>
<p>thanks</p>
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<p>Candidate, yes. Finalist can be a candidate without reporting a school. Recipient, no. If you have not reported a school, you’ll be asked to do so before NMSC will grant the award. This is only a slight difference in language, but that’s the way it was explained by NMSC on phone.</p>
<p>Clarification?</p>
<p>Does the fact that the school-sponsored NM scholarships go out “after April 29” imply that they do not go out UNLESS a student has matriculated at that school (usually by May 1).</p>
<p>Those two dates are close enough to imply that, and maybe it’s obvious to others. (Perhaps it’s just not obvious to me because I haven’t yet had my full dose of caffeine… ;)</p>
<p>All the strategy and planning may not be worth it…there are 15,000 finalist, but the NMSC web-site says there are 8200 awards. So about 1/2 won’t get anything through NMSC. (You can add in the schools that offer nice scholarships to finalists, but you still don’t have every finalist covered.) You might want to get a first choice sent in and get in line. Waiting or switching late may leave you out of options. Schools are working on packages now.</p>
<p>woodhead01, I may not be following the scenario you sketched, but it seems that you are considering what might happen if Finalist was offered a one-time or corporate award and then was subsequently offered a college-sponsored NM Scholarship.</p>
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<p>If I have misunderstood your scenario, then never mind. But if you look at the back page of the Finalist notification letter, it says that if the student has been awarded “any other NMS (corporate-sponsored, National, or other college-sponsored award),” then the student will not be considered for a college-sponsored award. “No student will receive more than one scholarship offer from NMSC.”</p>
<p>The students who are offered corporate or National one-time awards will not be offered an NMS award by a college, because that student has already received an offer. The college may offer substantial additional merit aid to the NM Scholar to encourage the student to attend, but the student will be receiving a corporate NMS award or a National $2500 NMS award, not a college-sponsored award. NMSC would notify the school that the student had named them first-choice, but they would also tell the school that the student had already been offered an award (corporate or national).</p>
<p>I might not have followed the flow of the steps you were brainstorming, but it looks like the outline considers what might happen if the student is offered more than one award, and that does not happen. My apologies in advance, if I have misunderstood your post.</p>
<p>trying to keep up with the scenarios put forth here.</p>
<p>However, I assumed that NM waited to see whether the student got offered a “NM” scholarship from another source (corporate or college) BEFORE they offered their own $2500 scholarship. Am I wrong? This bothered me because, if true, they by definition would not be awarding their own funds strictly on the basis of merit.</p>
<p>Does someone know whether NM offers their own scholarships regardless of whether college or corporation also offers, thus allowing the student to choose the “best deal” ?</p>
<p>I understand, from the NMSC web-site, that the corporate sponsored awards are given to students who meet specific criteria…like a parent who works for the company, or the company production plant or research facility is in your community. I don’t think every finalist is automatically considered for a corporate sponsored award. Didn’t the semi-finalist paperwork ask where parents worked for just that reason? Is that how other folks see it?</p>
<p>I still haven’t gotten a letter yet, but one of my friends got his a while ago. We called today and NMSC said that I’m a finalist, so I’m not sure what happened to the letter. They said that happens frequently though, so if you haven’t heard yet, try calling them.</p>
<p>Quill Pen,</p>
<p>You understood my scenario correctly. For some reason, I was under the impression that the college-sponsored NM awards might replace the (earlier awarded) “national” awards.</p>
<p>To summarize… National (corporate- or NMSC- sponsored) awards come out first. If you get one of those, you can’t get a college-sponosored NM award (thought colleges can and do give other “merit” scholarships). Correct?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
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</p>
<p>That is my understanding.</p>
<p>When I spoke to the NMSC office this week, the conversation did not linger very long on the Corporate NM Scholarships. The main thing I know about those awards is that my son is not eligible for one. Neither of his parents works for a sponsoring company or other sponsoring organization. We do not know of any corporate scholarships offered only to Finalists in our community. If there are any little twists and turns involving Corporate awards, those questions should be answered by a parent whose child has received one in the past or by someone at the NMSC office.</p>
<p>What I know about the Corporate awards is either posted on the NMSC web site or printed on the back of the notification letter. The only thing I learned about the Corporate awards during the phone call is that the posted date of notification is a start date. The notices of Corporate awards will be “rolling.” If I were expecting one of these, I would not be too anxious if the letter from NMSC did not come right away that first week.</p>
<p>The awards we have been talking about (corporate and one-time) are referred to as “portable.” They follow the student. Just to keep our terminology in line with the NMSC lingo, they call the one-time $2500 award the “National” award," (maybe because it is granted by the National NMSC headquarters??) Then there is a “Corporate-Sponsored” NMS award and a “College-Sponsored” NMS award.</p>
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<p>Skyhook, what I take away from the calendar of NMS announcements and the printed material is Corporate first, then National, then College-sponsored. Here’s what the NMSC Annual Report says about Corporate awards:</p>
<p>“These scholarships are either four-year renewable awards that provide stipends ranging from $500 to $10,000 per year or single-payment awards of $2,500 to $5,000.”</p>
<p>That $10,000 per year is not chump change, so it makes sense that NMS would give a Finalist, first off, a chance to receive one of the corporate awards, although some of the corporate awards are $500 per year.</p>
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<p>No shopping. The time to search for the best deal is prior to mailing in the college applications. If there is a chance that the student might become an NMS Finalist, the place to start looking is at the different colleges that offer incentives to NM Scholars. Do they have the academic programs you want? Do they offer a good campus environment for your needs? All the basic questions. Then look at their merit scholarship programs. At some of the schools that court NMS Finalists, most of the Finalists who matriculate are going to see very similar financial benefits, whether the award comes from Corporate, National, or College-Sponsored funds.</p>
<p>The University of Oklahoma is a good example.
[FAQ:</a> National Merit: OU Prospective Students](<a href=“http://www.ou.edu/go2/home/nationalmerit/faq.html]FAQ:”>http://www.ou.edu/go2/home/nationalmerit/faq.html)</p>
<p>No matter which of the 3 types of NMS award the student receives, the out-of-pocket expenses at OU for a Scholar will be more or less the same. Costs may vary a little depending on how many hours a students registers for, which would affect tuition.</p>
<p>Colleges could very well seek students who bring with them corporate or national awards, because then the base amount is covered by someone else, not the college. Let me see, which kid do we choose first, the one who gets $2000 per year out of our coffers or the one who brings us $10,000 per year from a corporation? Let us place ourselves in their shoes and ponder.</p>