“…this fall there are also 1,088 students recognized as National Merit Scholars, the most ever to attend the Capstone and 16% more than a year ago. The freshman class alone includes 322 National Merit Scholars, a 15% increase from last year.”
Big gains over the last few years:
I’ll start with the statement that I like Alabama, and believe they are doing a great job of attracting high stats students. Illinois, where I live, is losing a lot of good students to Alabama.
The issue of the number of National Merit Scholars at Alabama sometimes comes up here on CC, and it’s important to note there are around 50,000 National Merit Scholars each year (a worthy achievement).
That number then gets whittled down to commended scholars (~34K most recently), National Merit Semifinalists (~15K-16K), and finally National Merit Finalists (~14K).
Just wanted to bring some perspective to this, but also acknowledge Alabama is doing well at attracting high stats students, enrolling 322 National Merit Scholars in this year’s class.
There aren’t 50,000 National Merit Scholars. From your link, there are 50,000 National Merit “High Scorers”, which split into 34,000 National Merit Commended Students and 16,000 National Merit Semifinalists. The 16,000 Semifinalists turn into 15,000 Finalists, and then those become around 8,000-9,000 National Merit Scholars, the last winnowing down. The end distinction is a little…weird in some ways, since every student who gets a college National Merit scholarship is a National Merit Scholar – meaning that every National Merit Finalist at Alabama is a National Merit Scholar, but not every finalist at Harvard is.
You can see comparing the 2020 number from Alabama’s literature and the Alabama’s number from the National Merit Annual Report (page 39) that it is their matriculating students of those 8000 Scholars that they’re counting.
(No particular opinion on Alabama one way or the other – my kid’s more likely to go to UT Dallas – but I though it was interesting how many Finalists/Scholars they had.)
Yes, I see your point. Thanks for the correction.
There is a huge benefit to knowing that is you are a NMF you are getting in Alabama and you know the cost, when the merit scholarship selection process at so many other schools seems murky and arbitrary.
My DD is a NMF at UA, and the experience has been fabulous for her! If I am being honest, UA was a school we had never considered. We visited during C19 when it was one of the few schools that were giving tours, and we had planned to tour and cross it off the list. We didn’t want to rule out a school with such a great NMF package without at least looking. But we toured and were very pleasantly surprised!
The tour and our visit was very organized. The facilities were well maintained, And we felt as if there were many opportunities for those who were inclined to seek them! Plus, I was very impressed by our tour guide - so personable and well spoken. We also got the sense that my DD would have academic peers.
Anyway, she started at UA this past fall, and it’s been amazing. She’s doing well socially and academically, and she had the time to step out of her comfort zone and try something completely new. She walked on to one of Alabama’s D1 athletic teams (this was never a consideration for her). She’s also serving on the leadership team of one of the local churches. She couldn’t be happier, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that UA is depositing a check in her bank account every semester! I highly recommend taking a tour.