NEW JERSEY GANG!!!
Still nothing in Chicago.
@Phlipper congrats!!! We’re in Tx too. Did you receive letter in mail or heard from school?
Still NOTHING in MD.
All those with no confirmation yet. Hang in there, good news is coming!
Still no words from our school in Texas. Hopefully we will hear next week.
@Maof2tx She was called in by her principal !
@Phlipper so excited for her! Our principal waits for student to receive the news from the letter at home. We still have a couple days.
For the record, its quite annoying knowing the principal has the information but does not convey it.
When are NM schoalrship awards announced?
From NM website - March 7 NM mails notification of corporate sponsored scholarships, March 22 $2500 scholarships, and May 1 college sponsored scholarships. Mailed to home address this time. We don’t have to bug school administrators anymore!
What is “informed delivery”?
Kathy V, informed delivery is a service offered by USPS. You sign up for it at their website (search informed delivery if you don’t see it right away). Each day I get an email that has a scan of every regular piece of mail I’ll receive that day. Some bulk mailings aren’t scanned, but I do usually get scans of the mailers from stores (like my Kohls coupons, for example) and all 1st class mail, except larger envelopes. It’s also supposed to tell me if I will have any packages delivered, but that never works for me. I do usually see them if I log in on the website.
@Kathy V
I signed up for informed delivery online but was still told I had to verify my identity at the local post office. I don’t recall exactly what the screen said, but I had to print the page and take it to the post office and show an ID. After that, it started working within 48 hours.
https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
I agree. Our school is the same.
NMSC finalist timeline listed here at end of this document. https://nationalmerit.imodules.com/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/merit_r_i_leaflet.pdf?sessionid=449624cf-d86b-44a8-b502-fbe1c7717432&cc=1
Ridiculous that school won’t share. DS brought home the letter received, and there is nothing remotely suggestive the school should wait to share the information. It even said something to the affect that NM doesn’t notify the media of the names of finalists but the school is welcome to do so if the school feels it is in their interest to do so. It mentions letter going to the home being mailed on Monday 2/12 but doesn’t say anything about the need for the school to wait until then.
Last year, 2/17 was when the school announced the NMF list. But we “should” get the snail mail next week as well. So a few more days to hold on to our seats…
Hello,
Like many of you, as a likely NMF, I applied a few universities with big NMF merit scholarships. So far, I am accepted to UCF Burnett Honors College, U. of South Carolina Honors College, Texas A&M (Engineering Honors) , UMN - Twin Cities (not heard from the Honors Program yet), ASU Barrett, and UF Honors Program. For now, I plan to go to med school, but this may change in the future. I did not apply UTD since it has less emphasis on pre-med. U of Alabama somehow did not appeal to me, but I might apply if I see a good fit.
Many of you must have the same problem: which one of these universities should I choose?
UCF
+: Full-ride; Traditional college experience; Burnett Honors College seems great; Towers housing; Orlando location; Weather
-: Average intellectual rigor of the students seems to be lower; Rankings/prestige is somewhat lacking. This is important to me. You can’t be proud of having graduated from UCF. This wouldn’t matter much if you continue to grad school/med school. But if you change your major, this could be an issue. Unfortunately I am not 100% sure if I will stick with pre-med.
UMN:
+: World-class university. I believe it is better than what usnews ranking suggests.
-: Cold weather; I am not in honors program (yet); I don’t know how much I’ll get in scholarship. Even with the best case scenario, it will be full-tuition amount for this year, and the university is likely to hike its tuition considerably in the next few years (I am not sure this rumor is correct).
Texas A&M:
+: Good at engineering, but I am not interested in engineering at all. Its ranking is OK.
-: It may be too conservative for me. I haven’t visited yet, but I saw Texas A&M in a top conservative schools list.
ASU:
I don’t have much information on Barrett. Not visited yet.
UF:
I would probably choose UF if the Benacquisto become available to OOSs by May. Any info/update on that?
At this point, UCF is my #1 choice as a likely pre-med, but I am far from being decided.
Any comment or info that would help me choose among these universities would be appreciated.
Thanks…
My pre-med kid toured OU, Texas Tech, UTD and U of New Mexico. All of them would have been great for pre-med. OU seemed to have the best pre-med advising of the four, but all of them were quite good. S just didn’t click with UTD. OU would have been his third choice, but it’s a distant third because they reduced their NMF scholarship significantly.
That left him with Texas Tech and UNM, and both wowed him. Both have a hospital adjacent to campus, and both hospitals are Tier 1 trauma centers. Both have excellent honors colleges, and UNMs is one of the top 25 in the nation. Both offer true full rides to NMFs. Texas Tech’s is full COA, so tuition, room & board, books, fees, and stipends to cover travel and misc. expenses. UNMs is tuition, room & board, books and some left over, but it’s a little short of full COA. Ranking-wise, UNM and Tech are roughly similar to UCF.
The choice came down to subjective factors. S felt more at home on the UNM campus, and he liked Albuquerque better than he liked Lubbock. ABQ is a 10 hours drive for us; Lubbock is two full days of driving.
I think the standard suggestion for NMF pre-meds is to go someplace where you can graduate debt-free with a good GPA. Having a hospital nearby makes for good/easy shadowing opportunities. USNWR ranking isn’t entirely irrelevant, but it’s not as important as debt-free, good GPA, good pre-med advising and access to shadowing / clinical opportunities.
You may want to take a second look at UTD, where the NMF package is about $1000/year short of a full ride. They have a strong record of getting their graduates into med school, and they will go to great lengths to help prepare you. Look for posts by @bigreddawgie, who, if I remember correctly, did pre-med at UTD and is now in med school. He was a McDermott, not an NMF, but the programs are quite similar in terms of advising, helping you prepare for the MCAT, helping you find shadowing opportunities / internships, etc. The students we encountered seemed active and engaged. Dorms are great, and so is the food. It’s not a traditional college experience, though. No football team, for instance.
My suggestion is to spend some time thinking about what you might like to do if it turns out the pre-med isn’t your thing. Investigate the different academic departments at your top choices.
My next suggestion is to place a bit less emphasis on ranking and average intellectual rigor. Honors colleges at mid-ranked schools mean you’ll be among your intellectual peers, and there will be lots of them. You’ll be a top student. With a student body of 60K, that means there are still 3,000 students in the top 5%. Those are the students in the honors classes, in the Honors College, in the rigorous majors and programs.
Rankings are averages, and you don’t need averages. You need specific information. How good is the pre-med advising? How good is the honors college? How hard do they weed? How easy is it to find shadowing / clinical opportunities? That’s the stuff you need, and it’s not covered by USNWR rankings.
Example: Yes, UNM has a ranking in the 190s or so. Its film school, however, is in the top 5 in the nation, and that’s not the only high-ranking program attached to the school. Its medical school is rated #3 in the nation for Rural Medicine, #11 for Family Medicine and #18 for Primary Care. Hmm, guess it’s not too shabby once you investigate some specifics.
If you have some idea of your specifics (e.g. what you might like to major in, what you might like other than pre-med), take a deeper look.
Any of the schools you mention are probably fine, by the way. I mentioned our search more for the thinking involved than as a suggestion of those specific schools.
I tweeted Senator Galvano in Florida about how things were going on SB#4 (Benacquisto) in the house. No answer yet. LOL. Last I heard they were 100% for it but the budgets were $600 million apart. It becomes effective immediately once signed. I have March 9th down as the date we should know by. That’s when they break for the summer. 100% COA at UF would be very hard to pass up even when compared to Ivey’s for us. My sons #1 choice is UCF (Computer engineering) as is mine due to the reasons you mentioned. Also having a Professor to mentor you should help with letters of recommendation for Med school when the time comes.