Hi,
Is this award by national merit applied to ANY US colleges? I have got into schools like Stanford, Vanderbilt, WashU, and Rice. Would these schools give me 2500 dollars in addition to what they have already offered?
Also, I know that Vanderbilt gives 5000 dollars for national merit finalist. Would I get 2500 dollars additionally, getting 7500 total?
Thank you in advance!
There are three types of National Merit Scholarship:
(1) one-time $2500 award funded by National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which can be used towards a baccalaureate degree at any qualifying accredited college (such as Stanford, Vanderbilt, WashU, and Rice, etc.)
(2) 4-year renewable Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarship of varying amounts (usually for children of employees of the sponsoring corporation), and
(3) 4-year renewable College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship of varying amounts funded by the colleges that participate. In order to win a College-Sponsored award, you have to select that college as your first choice on the National Merit Application by a specified date and be admitted to that college. Often the colleges will have additional scholarship money in addition to the “official” College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship. If you look at the NMSC 2013-14 Annual Report pp. 38-40, you will see which colleges sponsor National Merit Scholarships.
http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf
They are the ones that have asterisks and numbers in parentheses. The total number of NMS is to the left of the college name, and the number of those scholarships that were sponsored by the college itself are in parentheses to the right. As you can see, WashU and Vanderbilt sponsor scholarships, Rice and Stanford don’t.
You can only win one of these three types of awards. Each of the three is an official National Merit Scholarship.
See the National Merit Scholarship Corporation website and the National Merit Scholarship Program Wikipedia article for further info. It is a bit confusing, but you will find many threads on CC that clarify the details.
@BunnyBlue Thank you so much! I already accepted the first scholarship so I guess I will be receiving 2500 dollars once in the future.
Congratulations! By the way, I see on the Vanderbilt website that, in order to get the $5000 per year, you have to designate Vanderbilt as your first choice school by the National Merit Corporation deadline. I guess you wouldn’t do this unless you were sure that is where you want to go. I think if you were absolutely sure you wanted to go to Vanderbilt and designated them as your first choice by the deadline, that National Merit might switch your award to the College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship from Vanderbilt. But I don’t really know how this works. I hope someone else who knows will add their advice! You could ask Vanderbilt admissions whether it is necessary to switch the type of NM award or if you can stay a $2500 winner, designate them as first choice, and get $5000 per year, with the first year’s funds coming half from NMC and half from Vanderbilt.
http://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/faq/merit
Also, I want to make a correction on what I wrote above. I just found out that WashU no longer offers a College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship.
Hey! I’m a National Merit finalist going to Vanderbilt next year. In my financial aid award, they gave me $5000 a year. If I were to get one of the National Merit scholarships for $2500, they would supplement it to $5000. So either way I will get $5000, as would you if you chose Vandy!
Oh Okay! Thank you both for sincere replies!
Keep in mind that if you are on financial aid, Vanderbilt will only give you the part of the $5000 that covers you student contribution, typically $2300. BUT, the first semester they might allow you to get the computer with the excess. Unlike at some others schools (PENN) I’ve found the financial aid counselors to be very nice at Vanderbilt so call and they will explain it.
Some college don’t even give you the student contribution. They swap the NMF scholarships out for grants if you are eligible for need based aid.