Lol I live in Florida, don’t be too reliant on the Florida lawmaker’s decisions. They yo-yo like crazy on everything, especially education. I swear it’s like they come up with something new then get rid of it every 3 months.
FWIW, I reached out to UMD the day after my D submitted her priority application to ask them about the NMSF application fee waiver. They basically said “Too bad for you”. Said the info is in their application and should have been requested in advance. My D would highly unlikely have missed it if it was there. I scoured their site after the fact. The only place I found a reference was if I googled it and then was brought to a page for college advisors. So, contrary to the response I received, if it exists, it is not easy to find. Seems like a disingenuous perk if you have to know to dig for it and still may not find it. If it wasn’t for CC, would have had no idea it existed. #Maryland #Terps #UMD #FeeWaiver
@dowzer for what it’s worth, UT Dallas doesn’t have any info on fee waivers for National Merit on their web page or applicatiion either. But since I knew that they did give fee waivers for attending certain events I figured it was something to tell ds to ask his college rep about and was pleasently surprised when she told him they do give fee waivers for National Merit. But like UMD I doubt they’d have any way to refund it after the it’s been paid.
@dowzerw , there was a brief reference on the Coalition App when it was time to pay the waiver for UMD saying something like if you think you are eligible for a waiver (and it gave some examples including NMSF) to contact their office. Something like that. We followed those directions and after some follow up they did send us a waiver.
Is anyone else getting inundated with mail / email from the Univ of Arizona? It sounds nice, but my D already has a school on her list that she considers pretty much perfect except that its in Arizona, so I don’t see any need to add another AZ school to the list.
And I have to add - “Bear Down” is a strange school slogan. That’s what they say to you when you’re in labor - I’m not sure how it applies to school spirit.
Careful @GertrudeMcFuzz !
Bear Down has a long and touching history for the University. Google “Button Salmon” and “Bear Down”.
OK, that’s a good story & it makes some sense now, but I don’t know if I’d ever be able to get away from the childbirth association. I can tell you it’s an odd phrase for the uninitiated.
Never mess with a school’s fight song.
I always liked Roll Tide, especially after this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlHrbixS7Ws
@3scoutsmom; I read about the UT Dallas NM fee waiver on CC - I can’t remember if it was you or someone else that mentioned it, but I had D email the UTD NM office and ask the question. They said no problem.
One other tidbit though is that if the student has already paid the fee, they can’t undo that so (if anyone considers applying) you have to get the fee waiver first.
On NMSF Fee waiver… UCF was already a yes, UTD said yes, TTU said the usual school lunch thing (NO) and no answer yet from Oklahoma.
If by Oklahoma you mean OU the answer is no unless there has been big change in the recent years.
To whom it may concern, here is my trip report for UCF. We stayed for 2 full days, including attending the NMSF event and also 2 half days. This’ll be pretty long so beware!! (This is all from a student’s perspective) I apologize in advance for any spelling/grammar errors
We flew in on Wednesday evening from CA and went to Steak n Shake off of University Blvd. for dinner, one of my favorite east coast eateries! We walked there from our hotel and it was surprisingly cold! I guess we missed the hot humidity that I was hoping to experience but instead got REALLY nice weather. One thing to note is that the intersections on Univ. Blvd are horribly timed so you have to be really careful as a pedestrian when crossing the street.
On Thurs, we went to the UCF campus for their 10am tour. I’d also like to note that if you were unable to schedule a tour well in advance, check the day before or the day of for openings! That’s how we got our tour and I noticed the same thing happened for Wed tours. Anyways, we went to the Duke Energy Center for the tour which started out with a basic presentation about admissions, stats, etc. Then they split us off into 4 groups and away we went.
I can’t remember the specifics but here are a few points that I found interesting. The Reflecting Pond(the centerpiece of the campus) was broken during Hurricane Irma
Continued…
so they are in the process of fixing it. The school has a salon/haircut place run by PROFESSIONALS, not students, and they offer haircuts starting at $8 along with addons like color, perm, styling etc. Their bookstore has a partnership with Amazon, so they can price match textbooks($200 vs $50)! The engineering building has a study area with tables covered in whiteboard material that you can write on. The health center offers free check ups AND a free massage (1 per semester for massages I think)! Domino’s Pizza delivers to the dorms, although I not sure if that’s a good or bad thing…. The school gov has upwards of an $18 million budget which allows for a variety of things for the students: concerts by big names(Taylor Swift) most of which are free for students or upto $5 and discounted for guests; also, once a year, UCF reserves Universal for only UCF students for a night and admission is FREE!!
After our campus tour, we used the lovely campus shuttle system (comes in handy for those Floridian summers) to go to the Towers housing area. We ate at Knightro’s, the eatery right next to Towers III. They served all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving style meals for around $9, including cranberries, green bean casserole, turkey, ham, pumpkin cheesecake brownies, and more. The food was surprisingly good! Then we toured Tower III (honors housing). It was absolutely amazing! The hallways were wide and well lit. The bedrooms featured a full bed, not a twin, and seemed to be bigger than my room back home! There’s a full kitchen with a full sized fridge, dishwasher, stove/oven, pantry, and cabinet space. (I have the dimensions of closet/desk/etc if you are interested) There is a large washer/dryer room on each floor too! The Knight’s Plaza (Towers area) was also decorated for the holidays with trees, Santa pics area, and an ice rink! This openes next week though.
Then we stopped by the Student Union which was hosting an international fair in the Pegasus Ballroom. The SU’s food court was under renovation to add more food options. We also saw a sushi place, Mrs. Fields, an optometrist with reasonably priced glasses/contacts/exams, and a foosball/pool room!
Then we went to the Burnett Honors College for a personal tour. For honors you just take the amazing freshman honors symposium/seminar classes which focus on community and at least 6 other honors classes (3 lower and 3 upper div classes), one of which must be an interdisciplinary class(taught by two teachers for a subject like music in the brain- neuroscience+music professor). Each student gets paired with a faculty mentor and peer/upperclassmen mentor. They get access to an honors computer lab with free unlimited b/w printing and 10 free pgs of color printing. We also learned about the honors study abroad programs which include a semester long class to learn about the area of interest, the students choose what service project they want to implement, then they go for 1-6wks over the summer. We talked about the Burnett Medical Scholars program (4+4 BS/MD) which provides guaranteed entry to UCF’s med school if benchmarks are met. The scholars participate in yearly activities at the medical school such as sitting in on classes, tours, etc. There is also a March open house/meet up for admitted freshman Scholars. This is a non binding program! That basically wraps up our Thursday.
On Friday, we went over to campus for a short while. We looked around the Health Center/pharmacy which includes a dental, radiological, gyn, and primary care dept. We also went to the library which has rolling white boards for the students and desktop computers. They have cassette tapes, microfilms of newspapers, and graduate/honors theses/dissertations. Then we stopped by Huey Magoos for chicken fingers and fries which were like a better version of Chick-fil-a!
The NMSF event started at 3 in the Duke Energy Center and was put together very well. They handed us a nice folder with various brochures about UCF and a label with our tour and dinner table group. There was a slightly painful mingling period (but this is coming from a shy introverted student) but a current NMS can over to us and talked about biomedical sciences and UCF in general so that was fun. We went on a mini campus tour and tour of the Towers. (** I would definitely recommend taking the general tour beforehand because you don’t get to see nearly as much in the program tour). I’m glad we got to go the second Towers tour though because we got to see the laundry room and how it felt to have more people in the apartment/dorm.
Then we went to a lecture room where we had different speakers present. The first was Luke vanBlarcom and he talked about the NMS program in general. The scholarship covers full estimated cost of attendance. Most students reside in the Towers but the other popular housing options for NM are Neptune and Lake Claire. To assign roommates, a list of NMS is sent to the Housing dept. NM are assigned their first choice before all other students. Then they try to pair NMS together in terms of residency (OOS with OOS- that way on the weekends OOS aren’t left alone as in-states go home). I can outline the scholarship in a different post if people want it. NMS also are guaranteed admission to the BHC and LEAD scholars program if you submit those separate applications, get a NMS peer mentor, are guaranteed on campus housing if wanted, and will receive a laptop (last year was a high end dell, macbook pro, ipad, or surface pro).
Then the BHC presented. The presentation was fairly brief/repetitive but here’s a few points: the honors classes has a 20 student limit and are NOT graded on a curve; every semester students have a choice of 80+ lower div courses and 60+ upper div courses. Then they had a prof of engineering/CS present on virtual/augmented/mixed reality. It was a bit over my head but very interesting. They are using mix reality programs to simulate a classroom and help new teachers develop necessary skills before interacting with real students.
Then there was a 30min reception for the MMSF families, currents students, and faculty to mingle. Boy, that was TOUGH! Then we headed into the Pegasus Ballroom for dinner. We sat with other prospective students with the same major to get to know each other. After dinner, parents went to a q&a with current students and we(the students) broke out into different groups by major with the faculty. I was with a prof in Biomedical sciences and she’s performing research on spinal cord injuries! Her biggest piece of advice for incoming pre-meds is to not try to do everything at once but to learn how to be a college student first. At the end of the event (9pm) we gathered around and all the students were given a free t-shirt and UCF cup.
I had a fantastic trip and would highly suggest UCF to any NMF or really anyone! The support and sense of collaboration/family is so strong and welcoming! If you have any questions ask away and I’ll do my best to answer.
@sewin2music , thank you so much for that thorough report! We could not make it to the event and I’m so happy to hear all about it. I knew you would love the Towers! Insane feature of this NMF Scholarship! Good luck with your decision. 
Do you have a top choice school yet?
@Kayak24 UCF is currently, but not officially my first choice. I still have to visit UTD and I’m trying to keep an open mind but UCF so amazing!! So I guess we’ll see
For those of you who have gone through the NMF tour with UTD(such as @traveler98 @3scoutsmom or anyone else), could you please elaborate on what is included? (Ie. Dorm tour, campus tour, honors meeting, etc) I am trying to determine whether going to the NM Scholars Preview in February would be worth it in comparison to doing a separate individualized tour perhaps in January. I have a horrible memory so it’d be best to have my UTD visit as close as possible to my UCF visit, but I also don’t want to miss anything. Thanks in advance!!
@sewin2music we did the personal tour arranged through the NM program two years ago and will be going to the NM preview day in Feb. We had a few different NM kids lead different parts of the tour. One gave us a campus tour and drop us off at the dorms, someone that worked in the dorms gave a dorm tour. Another NM kid meet us an led us to a meeting with a proff. After that meeting another meet us and gave us a tour of the CV and then we meet with people in the honors program that went over the details of the scholarship and answered any remaining questions. I’m guessing the Preview day will be similar and but will be done in groups and include lunch. (That’s how they did it at OU)
@sewin2music; Great write-up on your UCF tour - thanks for sharing & it wasn’t too long at all; in-fact, I enjoyed every detail you shared. I hope to read a post about your UTD visit to see which of the two options (UCF/UTD) you think is a better fit for you.
You’re way ahead of us!!! My D applied & has been accepted to UTD, but we haven’t visited yet.