$2500 Scholarship vs. College-Sponsored Scholarship

Hi CC!

I have a question about the relationship between the National Merit $2500 Scholarship and the National Merit School-sponsored Scholarship. I have received a $2500 scholarship offer, but if I accept this offer am I no longer eligible for any National Merit-related scholarships sponsored by the first-choice college I indicated? Thanks!

My DD received both a NM Corporate scholarship as well as a school sponsored scholarship without any issues. I did check with the school first before she accepted to see how they would handle it. I was wondering if they would decrease their scholarship by the same amount but they did not. I would recommend writing your school and make sure before accepting.

The large $$ scholarships offered to NMFs by schools like UKy, OU, Bama, UTD, etc. are considered “Unofficial” scholarships and are separate from the “Official” NMF scholarship category. The “Official” scholarships are the one-time $2500 award, corporate scholarships, a few special scholarships, and the smaller “school sponsored” awards. The “Official school sponsored” awards usually consist of something in the $500-$2000/year range.

If you accept the one-time $2500 award, you would not be eligible to receive an “Official school sponsored” award from your first choice school, but any “Unofficial” award would be unaffected.

Example: Our D2 is a sophomore at UKy on the full-ride Patterson Scholarship as an NMF Class of '15. The “Official school sponsored” portion of her scholarship is $500/year. That portion is disbursed to her student account separately from the much larger “Unofficial” portion. Had she been awarded the one-time $2500 scholarship and accepted it, she would not have been eligible to receive the $500/year portion, but would still receive the rest of the Patterson award as normal.

What is the school is question? Do they have a large “Unofficial” scholarship with a smaller “Official” portion, or only a lesser $$ “Official school sponsored” award? If they only offer the smaller award (as many sponsor schools do) you cannot get both the one-time $2500 and the “Official” award.

Sorry - retyping this answer.

That $2,500 can go with you to any college so there is no down side to accepting it. It’s completely detached from the big bucks which are, in fact, merit-aid offered by certain schools in order to attract NMF’s (UCF, OU, Ky, UA, UMN, UTD, etc.).

Hope that’s clear.

My S goes to UMN. He got the $2500 one time scholarship from NM and we asked before he accepted it. UMN gives $1000-2000/yr (plus some much bigger ones to NMFs w/ good school records). The difference b/t the $1k vs $2k is based on financial need. He has the $2500 NM offical one yr 1 and got the $1k one from UMN following yrs. It probably varies from school to school, so call and check (that’s what we did!)

Congrats!

Our D received the $2,500 NMSC scholarship and also accepted OU’s NMF scholarship package. All NMFs at OU get a $5,000 stipend. The only difference at OU was if you get the $2,500 from NMSC you receive that in a check in the freshman fall semester and the second $2,500 comes from OU in the spring semester applied to the student’s bursar account. OU NMFs who didn’t received the $2,500 NMSC award receive the $5,000 spread out over 8 semesters, $625/semester.

My son received the 2500 per year corporate NMF award, PLUS the Bama NMF award. He didn’t get the tiny (at that time) $1k “official” NMF from Bama, but got all the rest (the unofficial)