<p>DS situation is very similar to momwquestions’ son. I am also interested in advice on how to proceed.</p>
<p>I believe that if your sons name a school that they might not attend, and that school AWARDS them a scholarship on that basis, they will be out of the running for the $2500.</p>
<p>There are only a few situations where it would make sense to name a school early, when the student doesn’t yet know where they want to attend. </p>
<p>One such case may be that the favorite out of the schools that gives NM Scholarships either has an early notification deadline and/or a competitive scholarship that you need to find out about to help make the decision. (Note that if you name a school with a competitive scholarship and don’t win the scholarship, you change your first choice and name a different school.)</p>
<p>Otherwise I’d just confirm with the NM school what your DS will be entitled to IF he names them his first choice, and when the deadline is for him to do that, but if at all possible, wait until he has made his final decision to do the naming.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you! That’s helpful advice.</p>
<p>I’m struggling with this too because one of my DS’s schools has a notification deadline in early April, when he won’t have made a decision, most likely (his April break and opportunity to visit/revisit RD colleges where he was accepted with enough money is after that deadline). We are going to visit <em>that</em> school plus a couple of other EA schools he was admitted to with money during his February break, and hopefully that will help clarify where that school falls in the pecking order.</p>
<p>First choice school has no effect on eligibility or selection for the $2500 scholarships. All NMF are considered, and the winners are selected in January.</p>
<p>January doesn’t sound right. Finalists aren’t even notified until February.</p>
<p>Also all NMF who have not yet received a different scholarship are considered. If a student has already been awarded a corporate or school-sponsored scholarship, they are NOT considered for the $2500.</p>
<p>The committee decides the $2500 winners in January. They are not notified until later (March I believe). The $2500 is the first decided and nothing rules anyone out from receiving it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarifications.</p>
<p>BobWallace, can you say where you got your information? If that’s the case, it would seem to make sense to put down the school that DS is considering with NM scholarships as his first choice now. But I would hate to knock him out of the running for the $2500 if he ends up going Ivy. I’ve looked all over the NM site and it clearly says you can only receive one NM, regardless of the source, but I couldn’t find much information than that. Thanks!</p>
<p>NMF are only awarded one scholarship, but the college-sponsored scholarships are the very latest to be officially awarded (May/June), long after the $2500 scholarships have been announced.</p>
<p>Some schools have an early notification deadline and make their decision about competitive (or not) scholarships as soon as they get notification that the student named them as first choice. Is it definitely the case that these are not officially awarded until at least May? If so that would simplify the dilemma of schools that require early naming.</p>
<p>So suppose my son names Northeastern by April 11th as they require, and suppose they inform him on April 14th that he will be awarded their guaranteed (if you name them by the 11th) $30K NMF scholarship. But then suppose he does some college visits later in April and changes his mind. Can he in late April decline that Northeastern scholarship, and name another school his first choice, and still be awarded a NM scholarship by that new first choice school, or will that NEU scholarship have been “awarded” on the 14th, disqualifying him from any other?</p>
<p>In your example, the Northeastern scholarship is NOT an official award of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation college-sponsored scholarship. The part that is directly from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (usually only a small part of these larger packages based on National Merit Finalist status) is not officially awarded until after the May 1st deadline for naming your first choice.</p>
<p>In your example, your son could change his first choice multiple times before May 1st but whatever school is on file on May 1st is the one that the National Merit Scholarship Corporation will use for eligibility for an official National Merit college-sponsored scholarship.</p>
<p>Last year my D had named ASU as her first choice in February. She was still awarded a corporate-sponsored scholarship in March even though she had already named ASU as her first choice and had been notified that she qualified for their National Merit Finalist Package and the breakdown on the accompanying letter included a small part from NMSC. This did NOT qualify as the official NMSC award and she was never officially awarded the NMSC college-sponsored scholarship. Other students who did not win one of the $2500 awards or a corporate-sponsored award were notified in the summer that they had been awarded a college-sponsored scholarship if they had listed a participating school by May 1st.</p>
<p>Thank you for clarifying that, STEMfamily. That is really helpful!</p>
<p>Does anyone know if the PSAT score is considered when awarding the $2500 scholarship? I’ve heard that the SAT score is more often looked at and the PSAT is meaningless as long as you qualified for semifinalist but I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>Rating…No one knows for sure what criteria NMSC uses to award the $2500 scholarships, and NMSC will not divulge any info on those scholarships even when directly asked (I tried 
).</p>
<p>They did say that the decisions regarding the $2500 scholarships are made without any regard to whether or not the student has a first-choice school named. So it’s possible that a student may have named a first-choice school and be anticipating that school-sponsored “official” NMF scholarship (usually around $1000/yr) only to be awarded a one-time $2500 instead. Different schools handle that situation in their own way; some will “make up” the difference between the two awards ($4k total versus $2.5k - Ok State is one that does this) while other schools won’t (Northwestern for example). You’ll want to ask each school directly how they’d handle this situation if they offer a school-sponsored award.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that there’s apparently no known way to better “position” a student to receive a one-time $2500, and no one knows if there’s any hard and fast criteria. My guess would be that it’s a somewhat holistic process and not strictly stat-based, but that’s just a guess. Our D1 was an NMF Class of '11 with a 236 PSAT and 2400 SAT and “normal” ECs and wasn’t offered a one-time $2500. She received the $1k/yr school sponsored award from UMinn that she was hoping for in the first place, so it certainly worked in her favor. :)</p>
<p>Here is the link to the page in the NMSC report talking about the three types of scholarships:</p>
<p>[National</a> Merit Scholarship Corporation - NMSP](<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php#winner]National”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsp.php#winner)</p>
<p>The link in the last line of the paragraph titled “College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship Awards” takes you to a pdf file that actually lists the schedule for mailing for ALL types of awards:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_R&I_Leaflet.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_R&I_Leaflet.pdf</a></p>
<p>The important dates are the dates that NMSC mails the award letters. These are the dates that constitute the official award by NMSC.</p>
<p>Thank you again, STEMFamily. That is extremely helpful.</p>
<p>STEMFamily, this is really helpful. Thank you!</p>
<p>I don’t think the PSAT score has much weight on the $2,500 scholarship. My S won the $2,500 in 2012. Low PSAT (right on the borderline). His stats are on page 1 of this thread.</p>
<p>My son has a 217 PSAT (which was barely a qualifying score in our state) and we submitted his May SAT score of 2170 as part of the NM application process. He retook the SATs in October and scored a 2290 (1560 CR+M) which I have not submitted to the NMSC since I thought you just needed a verifying SAT score.</p>
<p>Now that I’m reading that high SAT’s may be a help in getting the $2500 scholarship, I’m wondering if I should send in his better SAT score. Or is it too late?</p>