Please post here if you made finalist and what colleges you are looking at attending. Feel free to post any helpful information about the NMF process. Please no drama or negative comments. We are all in the same boat waiting and I truly hope that everyone that made NMSF gets to move on to NMF. Good Luck to everyone.
According to several people and sources… NMC will send out letters to the school about NMF on February 6th and then send out letters the students on February 13th. Last year on February 8th a home school student received the NMF letter about being finalist. I think February 11th is the next time I see schools getting letters concerning students making NMF. Just FYI…
Not gonna post anything of substance here. Don’t want to jinx it. See you all after 2/6/17 if S makes it. So far, no “dreaded” letter.
@Tex151 …I don’t blame you. I was hesitant to make this thread however I thought it might help others waiting. Again…GOOD LUCK to EVERYONE!!!
Thanks @Tgirlfriend… I’ve been wondering when they would release the finalist letters. Waiting is the worst part!!!
so you think, if we made it, we’ll hear ON Monday, or a few days AFTER Monday (as in - they mail the notices to schools)? fingers and toes crossed.
@Tex151 I hope will hear next week however I have a feeling it maybe the week of the 13th. I have asked our Principal to text me as soon as he saw something. I have no doubt the second he gets it I will head from him. While looking at last years posts it looks like it took about 1 week to get the letters to the Texas area. It’s getting close by the day!!!
@Tgirlfriend It’s been a tough few weeks. Hopefully we’ll be partying this time next week. Can’t wait to hear your results! Fingers and toes x’d.
@Tex151 agree 100%… Finger and toes crossed we all hear good news soon. 
posted this on the other thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20280104/#Comment_20280104
@JBStillFlying …thank you for the information.
I tried to direct everyone from the “No news is good news” thread over to here because, I hope, if you haven’t been rejected yet, that ship has sailed, and we’ll celebrate the good news over here in the next few days. I am most anxious to hear from midwesterners starting tomorrow.
Incidentally, which Big10 schools offer sizeable NMF scholarships? 1/2 tuition? Full rides?
Then we’ll need to sort out in more detail what we’re all doing next.
For us, the plan is (1) get accepted to a certain small private university in Houston named after a certain little grain that I like to eat with chicken & veggies (not Quinoa); (2) see if we get into USC for that sweet 1/2 tuition deal; (3) use NMF status (please, please, please) as a bargaining chip (not holding my breath on that one) for the Houston school and USC and vice versa; (4) wait to hear from 4 other schools we applied to as to admissions and any merit aid; (5) consider TAMU comp sci and their $10k per year NMF deal again carefully; (5) probably realize S still only wants to enroll at UT-Austin no matter what, unless the Houston school pours a bucket of merit aid on us.
Not to jinx anything, but anyone think that any SFs who haven’t received a rejection by now could possibly not be Finalists at this point?
Fingers & toes, people. Fingers & toes. :-w
Nice! Our post-acceptance plan is simple because S’s plans are pretty set in stone: PARTAY!!
@Tex151 We are pretty similar situation! Waiting for about 7 more weeks to find out about that school in Houston! Hoping to have that as an option and then have the challenging decision weighing the costs and value of the TX public schools with the private.
What major is yours going into? Mine is engineering and still waiting to hear from UT too but supposed to hear within couple of weeks. UT is her second choice too. I think us parents have a harder time with the wait than our kids since they are still so busy with all their activities and AP classes. I just remind her that her life will be fine no matter which of all these schools she attends since they are all good schools. It is what she does in college that will matter. It is a good situation to be in to have options. Just so tough with the private schools, if you don’t want to commit to Early Decision with the blind financial commitment, then you wait for months!
UMN is pretty nice - might be the best of the big 10 when it comes to NMF, although we haven’t checked all of them. D17 has been told she’s eligible for the Gold ($10,000 per year for 4 years). They also have the Cyrus Northrup ($5,000). You get one or the other but not both. Not sure what determines which one you get (is it timing? Is it grades? Not sure). In addition, she’s eligible for $1,000 - $2,000 of NMSC money, as long as she doesn’t receive a corporate scholarship or the one-time $2,500 scholarship. She hasn’t been informed of this yet obviously as it would be one of the scholarships that NMSC is determining right now. So not a done deal. Together the Gold and the NMS money would be practically full tuition for an in-stater, unless you are at Carlson Business which tacks on a couple thou. extra as a surcharge. So nearly-to-practically full tuition.
But it doesn’t stop there.
If your stats are strong, then in addition to NM money, UMN will probably grant you at least one of their other university-wide scholarships. For instance, D17 also received a $5,000 per year presidential scholarship and a $1,000 one-time stipend for study abroad (probably to help cover the study-abroad requirement at Carlson). On the UMN threads the NMSF’s who were OOS (and not reciprocity) seemed to have been given the National which is another $10,000 per year and I think most of them were given one-time stipends as well.
When you add all this up, the money really does cover the majority-to-practically all of tuition, whether in-state or OOS. The significant OOS tuition hikes complicate all of this, of course, and I’m not sure whether that National scholarship will cover 100% of the tuition difference anymore (I’ve heard both that it will, and that it won’t).
@Tex151 …Good luck with that Houston school. We are semi waiting also however pretty sure the money will not be anywhere near UA and OU. I think we will be either UA or OU bound soon. S will be majoring in Engineering and Math. I think there are several D1 schools that offer great scholarships for NMF. Do you all think we need to make a list? @Backbeatcat…love that response. lol @HoustonTXmom …Good Luck. We are engineering also. S would not even apply to UT Austin or TAMU. Applied to Texas Tech got accepted however not feeling the area out there.
Glad to have a compatriot. S is planning to study computer science. Is it really 7 more weeks for that Hous school? Urg. The timing with acceptance elsewhere is going to be tricky maybe. I think I’d better study how the notification dates at certain schools line up with deadlines to accept the various (hopefully) offers of admission/financial aid of other schools.
I agree we’re really blessed to have good options right here in Tx. My S is, as far as I can tell, calm about this and confident he’ll end up in a good situation at this point no matter what.
I agree it’s harder for us parents. That’s why I spend so much time here hoping to find some new tidbit of info.
I’ve gotten this far without any bad news and will definitely be checking with my guidance counselor to see if she heard anything, although it sounds like the certificates get mailed today and will arrive later. Hopefully it’s good news for all of us here!
FYI and FWIW
I had a long chat with a guy in admissions at Rice August last year, 16 years there. He was really up front about everything. Just to keep it short: not exactly his words, so your child is a NMF, we have a few hundred walking around campus, so your child is a 4.0 GPA and top 10% or better, we have a few hundred of those walking around campus, so your child was summa cum laude or spoke at graduation as Valde or Saluta, we have a few hundred of those too walking around campus.
In a nutshell, merit money will be RARE. Need money, maybe. If your child wants to major in the liberal arts because they just love it and it is their comfort zone and all that… fine… but don’t expect them to earn the tuition back anytime soon. If your child is in the sciences/maths/engineering… you might be able to justify the 60k per year.
His kids get a discount since he is an employee.
So I said: Since you are being so up front and frank. Tell me Rice’s engineering is better than say engineering at UT Dallas, Texas A and M, UT Austin or O.U… so much better than going to those schools for a third of the cost, or even free as NMF or other scholarships.
He said: no, I could not say that. yes, those schools compete well in the classroom
We changed everything after that. and no application to Rice, even after attending the engineering presentation and having a cousin Alum who gave a tour and all the other stuff.
Once upon a time by the way, Rice was in fact a tuition free school. if you got in, you paid nothing.
Just 2 cents.
Does Rice give anything for NM?