@sewin2music , Luke was so helpful during our visit. My daughter has UCF as #1 on her list. I liked that UCF gives their own National Merit to finalists that don’t qualify for one of the NMC selections so that she can put National Merit Scholar on her resume.
Is anyone else going crazy waiting for Finalist notification to be sent? This wait till February is killing me !
@Phlipper, all NM sponsor schools listed as partners on the NMSC website do the same as UCF. All students who accept an NM offer from NMSC, a partner company, or partner college are considered NM Scholars.
I will be relieved in mid-February as well. Even though I know for sure that all the pieces of the application were in order (even called NMSC to confirm that they had everything), and I know that something really strange would have to happen for S not to become NMF, I will still feel so much better when he has that letter in hand.
Much easier to progress from SF to NMF. Those who don’t advance usually know or at least suspect well before the ding letter arrives - also, the bad news precedes the finalist notifications so if you don’t receive a ding letter prior to early Feb. you are most likely a finalist. Last year there were a couple of kids sweating it out till mid-month because they had a C or two and mail delivery was kinda weird in their area. But the vast majority won’t have to worry about any of that and will either receive bad news sometime in late Jan. or, for the overwhelming majority, good news in Feb. Schools are notified early in the month, and the congrats letter usually arrives in the finalist’s mailbox around mid-month or so. Hopefully everyone has a cool principal or GC who will share the good news at once.
Happy New Year everyone!
While we wait on this February letter I am working on a second NMF. My 12 year old D received an ACT score of 29 in the mail Saturday. : ) 
I was looking at State Bill 4 again, the Florida Benaquisto for out of state students which should be coming up soon:
For NMF who want to attend a State flagship:
799 2. An eligible student who meets the requirements under
800 paragraph (4)(b), who is a National Merit Scholar, and who
801 attends a Florida public postsecondary educational institution
802 shall receive a scholarship award equal to the institutional
803 cost of attendance for a resident of this state minus the
804 student’s National Merit Scholarship. Such student is exempt
805 from the payment of out-of-state fees.
For NMF who may be attending U of Miami:
806 (b) An eligible student who is a National Merit Scholar or
807 National Achievement Scholar and who attends a Florida
808 independent postsecondary educational institution shall receive
809 a scholarship award equal to the highest cost of attendance for
810 a resident of this state enrolled at a Florida public
811 university, as reported by the Board of Governors of the State
812 University System, minus the sum of the student’s Florida Bright
813 Futures Scholarship and National Merit Scholarship or National
814 Achievement Scholarship.
@FSUdad93 , I saw somewhere on here that it should work out to about $33,000 per year at U of Miami, though I have not seen anything confirming that. Have you any info?
Basically, what the State determines the rate is for the highest Cost of Attendance for the six State schools or about $33,000.
I can’t believe we’re just over a month away from people starting to get notified of their progression to NMF standing! I was looking back at 2017 and most of the rejection letters were mailed out on January 17, which seemed late compared to previous years. I wonder if that was due to all the changes to the PSAT and SAT or if we should expect something similar. The only thing on the Schedule and Deadlines page is that January 21 is the date the selection committees begin choosing Merit Scholarship award winners and January 31 is the date semifinalists will be withdrawn if they haven’t submitted SAT scores. It doesn’t say when rejection letters will go out. Feb 5 is the day they mail letters to high school principals regarding finalists.
Nervous here!
For those who receive one of those rare $2500 awards, when/how are they notified?
@Kayak24 My sheet says NMSC mails offers of $2500 scholarships on March 22.
Does anyone know anyone who earned an NM scholarship who attended an out of state boarding school? Our D goes to school out of state and we keep bumping up against programs or awards which only pick kids who live in the same state that they attend school. It is kind of ironic, particularly in cases such as NM which sets a different, higher standard for boarding school students to reach to qualify as NMSF. I’m just wondering if we are wasting our time holding our breath waiting to learn if she is awarded a National Merit scholarship. Anyone know anything?
@dowzerw Weird. Most of the NMF scholarships I’m familiar with don’t care where your student went to school (beyond potentially adjusting the award amount if the student is OOS). What types of programs are you looking at and finding this problem?
I know some universities only give NM awards to in-state students, but that’s based on residency I thought, not necessarily where you went to high school. I might be speaking out of ignorance about how boarding schools work and all. Maybe students who attend boarding school are considered residents of the state where the boarding school is located?
@flatKansas I believe it begins with determining which state pool a candidate is in. D lives in state A, goes to school in state B. Technically, she will be considered among the state B NMSF pool to determine if she will be awarded any of the state’s available NM scholarships. State B has no loyalty to the student as the student does not attend school in state. State A has no loyalty because the student is not a resident of their state. I know how NMSC supposedly handles it; I am just trying to find out if they or the National Merit state organizations execute as they say they do.
The programs we have encountered which discriminate against kids who attend out of state boarding schools include the US Senate Youth Program, the US Senate Page program and the DAR Awards program. There are some others but I am blanking on them now.
I’m just curious to find out if anyone who attended an out of state boarding school has been awarded a National Merit state award or a National Merit school award or a National Merit corporate award.
@iahomeschoolmom They explain that boarding school students awards are handed out based on their home state. Interestingly, their qualification comes through neither their home state or the state their boarding school is located in. For example, New England boarding school kids have to score above the highest cut off level of all New England region state scores.
The $2500 NM scholarship is given out proportionally by state, similar to how SF is determined. Wondering how that works for the boarding school students.
@grandscheme Oh I get it now. I wonder if NMSC would even be able to answer that question if you tried.
I wasn’t even thinking about the NMSC scholarships, because they seem to be such a drop in the bucket compared to COAs. I usually think about the big ones that come from the colleges themselves (which are usually designed to address OOS tuition from the generous schools) so I was perplexed how IS/OOS would affect them!
Yeah, I guess I wasn’t thinking specifically of the $2500 scholarships. The scholarships that come from colleges for NMF’s are typically much higher and the eligibility for those is determined by the school, but often doesn’t discriminate between in state or out of state, though I know some do. You’d have to look at each school to see what their requirements are.