Super sound advice! Thanks. Most kids in Utah stay in Utah.Last yr approx 110/150 semifinalists remained in Utah for college. Also, not many comparables here to base admissions on. Wonderful to have some outside perspective and information.
How many NMF actually became Scholars and were rewarded money from the foundation? Any numbers for this year? Most I heard from are getting scholarships from parent’s employers or lower tier colleges.
“Athletics, ECs, volunteer hours and leadership don’t matter.”
They might for the actual NMSC-sponsored scholarship. But only 2,500 out of 15,000 NMF’s end up with that scholarship. NMF’s can pursue much bigger bucks from the schools themselves.
@RW1 be sure to bookmark the 2019 NM thread and any others that pop up around September or shortly before. You’ll find an awesome support group there. Good luck to your student!
@JBStillFlying Good point. Yes, they might.
National Merit released a press release on April 18 which said the following: “This is the first announcement of National Merit Scholars in 2018 by National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). NMSC will name recipients of National Merit® $2500 Scholarships on May 9, and winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards on June 6 and July 16. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,500 academic champions will have won
National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million.”
Those recipients will have been notified on their portals well before those dates. The $2500 recipients are notified in March/April. The college sponsored recipients beginning May 1. Not sure about corporate recipients but there are only about 1000 of those.
The release dates above are press release dates.
“How many NMF actually became Scholars and were rewarded money from the foundation?”
about 2400 .
@CupCakeMuffins of the 15,000 finalists, half are awarded direct NM scholarships. 1000 corporate, 2500 one time NMSC and 4000 college sponsored. However, many more are awarded merit aid from the colleges themselves, and the amounts are significantly larger.
@JBStillFlying In that case if you are not going to a NM participant college(almost no top college gives merit scholarships) or have a parent working for a participating corporation then chances are very low as NM foundation only selects 2500. What is their criteria of selection?
Being a ‘National Merit Scholar’ is not a huge financial benefit. It’s generally $1-4K, whether that comes from a school, a corporation, or NMSC. The big $$ is in the scholarships awarded because a student has achieved NMF status. These are the scholarships at schools like UT Dallas, UCF, UK, and Texas A&M. I have no idea what criteria NMSC uses for their $2500 awards, but if you attend a sponsoring school you generally get the school NMF scholarship and will be named a National Merit Scholar. In my D’s case, she will attend USC on the half-tuition Presidential scholarship, but also received $1K/year as an NMF component to her financial aid.
As for top colleges not offering NM scholarships, many of the schools are state flagships that will offer a great education, and we would have been happy if our daughter had chosen to go there. With the expansion of the Benaquitos scholarship to OOS students, NMFs can get full COA at UF and a significant scholarship at University of Miami. On the west coast, USC admits lots of NMFs, but is still expensive even at half tuition.
Well at least being a National Merit Scholar makes sure that if parents can’t or won’t pay, you can still get free education at many schools.
Actually, being a National Merit Finalist is what guarantees a low cost/no cost option for college. Being a Scholar just adds a few thousand dollars.
^^ Not only that but a few elite schools give a couple thou. per year in college sponsorships. My daughter is at one of them and her college-sponsored scholarship enabled her not to have to do work-study. She was offered quite a bit of money at her state flagship as well.
She was also looking at other elite schools that don’t offer anything to NMF’s. However, she knew that her options would be much better overall if she made National Merit so that’s what she set her sights on doing, even if she wasn’t sure where she truly wanted to go at the time she took the PSAT (or even when she applied to colleges!). This honor just expands your options.
@CupCakeMuffins the criteria for the $2500 is the following, which is from my daughter’s documents when she was applying for NMF:
" How are National Merit $2500 Scholarship
winners selected?
Every Finalist is considered for one of the National Merit $2500 Scholarships. Most of these one-time scholarships
are supported by NMSC’s own funds. Business organizations that provide corporate-sponsored awards help
underwrite a portion of these scholarships with grants they provide to NMSC in lieu of paying administrative
fees. As in the designation of Semifinalists, these awardsare allocated on a state-representational basis according to
the state’s percentage of the national total of high school graduates; winners are also named in the other selection units established for the competition. Each Finalist competes with all others in the state/unit that includes the high school in which the student is enrolled when winners are chosen.
In late January 2018, a committee of experienced college admission offi cers and high school counselors will meet to choose the winners of National Merit $2500 Scholarships. Committee teams analyze and evaluate all Finalists’ scholarship applications based on information supplied by students and their schools, which includes:
• the academic record;
• the school’s recommendation of the Finalist;
• a student essay;
• extracurricular activities; and
• scores on the PSAT/NMSQT and SAT®.
Because every Semifinalist who qualifies as a Finalist has an excellent academic record and outstanding test scores, the school official’s characterization of the student and the student’s essay play an important part in the process
of choosing Merit Scholar designees. Activities, awards, and employment are also considered. Winners in each
state (or other selection unit) will be the Finalists judged by committee members to have the most distinguished
credentials and potential for academic success, without consideration of financial need, college choice, or major
and career plans."
On average only 50 students per state. That’s quite an honor!
^^ Given their allocation method many states will have no more than a couple. So yeah, it’s definitely an honor. Kids chasing the bigger bucks tend not to worry about a one-time $2500 scholarship, but every little bit helps and, once you get past SF, the amount of incremental effort needed to procure an NM scholarship isn’t all that taxing, so the payoff is good even if the dollar amounts don’t look overly-impressive. You would need to work a lot of hours to clear $2500 via a part-time job!!
Does anybody know anything about AP credits counting towards 120 credit limit of Benacquisto at UCF?
It seems that total number of credits you can take under this scholarship is severely limited.
If you are coming to UCF with a lot of AP courses in your transcript, I heard that they automatically count them for your limit, regardless of you want them transferred or not.
Last 2 days to decide…
Anybody knows anything about this policy at UCF? Please explain it further so that we can understand what this is.
re-post your question on the UCF forum.
This thread is about national merit scholarships.
@menloparkmom The Benacquisto scholarship is a national merit scholarship, Florida just gave it another name for I’m guessing legislative purposes. There are a handful of other UCF NMF’s on this thread that I was hoping would have the answer to to question. @College2Bound , I’m going to send Luke an email and will hopefully get a response tomorrow.
IMHO The Benacquisto pays for 10 Semesters or until you reach your Bachelors Degree, which ever comes first. If you had 20 AP’s and continued through 8 semesters (totaling 120 hours) but still hadn’t reached your BA or BS, I believe you could continue until you reach that Degree or 10 semesters total.
“This program will provide funds for 100 percent of the number of credit hours required to complete a baccalaureate degree program, or until completion of a baccalaureate degree program, whichever comes first.
A student is eligible to receive an award for a maximum of 10 semesters…”
@FSUdad93 That’s exactly how I interpreted it. I still sent the email though just to be 100% sure!