Supposedly it’ll show up as a notification upon logging into the portal. I’m too scared to look.
Do it!! We all need someone to see something!
Sigh. Nothing on her portal. The waiting continues until we get at least one hit from someone on here!
@traveler98 has UTD given any direction on what to do if you are offered the $2500 scholarship? OU specifically told their National Merit students to accept anything that was offered to them from National Merit because it becomes a part of what the school gives the students in their package. DS has already accepted the $3k UTD offered as part of their NM package;-)
This is my fourth and last time in the college app rodeo. I’ll stay on CC but I will miss sharing these breath holding moments w likeminded hyper parents around the world.
FYI, the corporate sponsored NMSC award showed up in the portal then several days later the letter showed up in the mail. There was a “Congratulations…” message at the top of the portal after logging in. I just happened to login to my DDs portal and saw it.
"What Merit Scholarship awards will be offered?
About 7,500 National Merit Scholarships of three types will be offered in 2018:
• 2,500 single-payment National Merit $2500 Scholarships for which all Finalists will be considered;
• about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for which Finalists who meet a company or business grantor’s specifi ed criteria will be considered; and
• some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for which only Finalists who will attend their respective sponsor institutions are considered." ← these are max $2k per year
You can only be awarded one NMSC award (corporate, NMSC $2500 or college sponsored). Winners of one of these 7500 awards are National Merit Scholars. The ~7500 not selected for these awards will be notified by May 2018.
See Page 4 here →
The confusing part to me was the large awards colleges grant to NMF students are not NMSC awards. They are not classified as college sponsored NMSC awards. For example, my DD accepted the NMSC corporate award from my company 4 x $1k and is also awarded the Universities large NMF based award. Both awards show up in here financial aid portal with the university.
Evanston IL is in CST – so it might be 1pm EST? Or 1-ish? lol!
@Postmodern , that would be nice but what makes you suggest that? 
Oh the waiting! At this point the waiting is just for someone to post that they see the award, so I can close the door completely on wondering what if. 
:-??
@3scoutsmom, same here. S accepted everything in his UTD portal but saw the instructions to also accept in his NMSC portal. Of course when he checked NMSC days ago there was nothing there; before today only corporation-sponsored awards were in there. S had already accepted his initial UTD scholarship award prior to NMF, and there was no problem with them updating to the NMF package. So my guess is that for those UTD students who get the NMSC $2500 notification today it will be no trouble for UTD to update the scholarship accordingly.
I don’t actually expect S to get an award from NMSC; as far as I can tell from previous press releases, students from his HS never get that scholarship and S isn’t the top NMF from his school. I’d guess he’s in the top half but this year’s crop includes people like the valedictorian who has the “whole package” of high level awards, great SAT, wonderful ECs and multiple leadership roles.
I spoke to the National Merit folks about something else today, and they said portals would be updated at 10am Pacific time with info about the $2500 scholarships.
@traveler98 , your post makes me close to positive that D won’t get a $2500 award. Her grades were stellar but she was an ACT girl, so she took the SAT only to reach the confirming score and therefore will not be high enough if that’s how they choose. Her PSAT was better than her SAT but I doubt that matters. Oh well, good luck to everyone else!
Oh my, @LibbyOK - I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel more nervous than I already did. 12 minutes and we might possibly have news.
Exact same situation with my D, @Kayak24. I’m not expecting her to get anything but it would be nice!
I went back and looked at my daughter’s essay last night (big mistake!) and found a couple things I would have changed on it. Not major errors really, but wording choices that could have been a bit cleaner and clearer. Sigh. I really shouldn’t have looked.
See, this is the part that had me confused about who is or isn’t a Scholar. This bit says there are 4k awards of max $2k/year.
Then it says that only the students who receive one of the 7,500 awards are Scholars. This would seem to imply that students who opt for the larger scholarships offered by colleges are not Scholars?
I trust those of you who have said differently, certificate included, but, well, it still reads funny to me.
*• some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for which only Finalists who will attend their respective sponsor institutions are considered." ← these are max $2k per year
You can only be awarded one NMSC award (corporate, NMSC $2500 or college sponsored). Winners of one of these 7500 awards are National Merit Scholars. The ~7500 not selected for these awards will be notified by May 2018.*
We got the $2500 scholarship! There is a notice once you log in!
Congratulations, chercheur!!
I guess that’s the end of the road for us then.
Congratulations, @chercheur , and thanks for the update! <:-P
Congrats, @chercheur !
Still nothing on ours, as expected. No disappointment, though. We knew this one wasn’t going to happen.
Thanks, everyone! I was surprised, to be honest.