<p>xrCalico23…thank you for your insight. Yes, he is mature and I do admire his carefree attitude. Bitter about losing the “bragging rights”? More like…embarrassed. Embarrassed that he won’t be attending an elite school when he’s totally qualified ( I still don’t get it) and even more embarrassed that I actually feel this way.</p>
<p>"I KNOW of some students who didn’t bother filling out the paperwork because they would only attend an Ivy. "
LOL! boy does THAT sound familiar!, especially at my son’s elite HS! In his 2006 class, over 35 students ended up at Stanford [15 !], Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, MIT… Guess how many NMSF there were? 8. Explain that one…</p>
<p>Thank you, menloparkmom. I appreciate your input. I know it’s going to take me a REALLY long time to accept my son’s decision. As a loving mother, I know I need to support him now, in his decision, and move on. Were you ever embarrassed to say where he decided to go when other people asked you? </p>
<p>I did check with Stanford and Brown about coming from this big U in our state and there have been many graduates from the Honors College he’ll be attending who have been accepted to grad school there. Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>Sorry to nitpick, but pages 36-38 shows the number of NMS, not finalists. Comparing the number of NMF is logical, but the number of scholars is skewed because finalists become scholars by choosing OU and USC that awards national merit scholarships. In addition, students cannot know which college they’ll be attending when they are giving the chance to apply for NMF status, whereas they would know if they’re applying for scholar status later in the school year.</p>
<p>(Also, the charts are showing me that Harvard has 261, not 224, which made me suspect for a moment that Erin’s Dad was referring to a different chart that I wasn’t finding.)</p>
<p>Thank you, calmom. I guess I’m already giving myself a bad name on this forum…PITAMom (the shallow one). There are a few top ranked kids at his HS that either went to the same Honors College at big U last year or are attending this fall with my son…not sure what their reasons are.</p>
<p>“Sorry to nitpick, but pages 36-38 shows the number of NMS, not finalists.”
There IS no compiled list for Finalists. Blame NMSF. That is the ONLY information ever published.
“In addition, students cannot know which college they’ll be attending when they are giving the chance to apply for NMF status, whereas they would know if they’re applying for scholar status later in the school year.”
Sorry, those are their rules. I don’t make them . Don’t shoot the messenger…</p>
<p>PITAmom-the benefits of anonymity!</p>
<p>menloparkmom-</p>
<p>No wait, I didn’t mean to shoot the messenger! Voicing my own confusion here. Thanks for pointing out the pages!</p>
<p>PITAmom-</p>
<p>I’m sure no one thinks less of your son because he didn’t follow the crowd and made his own choice instead, just as no one on this forum even thought you were giving yourself a bad name :)!</p>
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<p>That doesn’t prove anything as maybe most the matriculant to HMSPY + other Ivies from your son’s HS were legacies or sportperson.</p>
<p>If it is of any interest DD class sent 42 matriculants to HMSPY + other Ivies and guess what there were 35 NMSF.</p>
<p>Does that prove something?, not necessarily but at least shows that your conclusions based on your DS’s HS is not valid.</p>
<p>I never mistook your posting of NMS but I had problem with conclusions you reached based on that list. The analogy you used for NMS and the cohort was wrong.</p>
<p>“That doesn’t prove anything as maybe most the matriculant to HMSPY + other Ivies from your son’s HS were legacies or sportperson.” Yeah, and there are a lot of Legacies that all the Ivys’s have generated over hundreds of years, did you ever think if that?
Don’t forget about all the rich DA’s who might also be Legacies! What all those numbers may indicate, is perhaps there really aren’t THAT many more really smart students- [as indicated solely by the numbers of NMS] at the IVY’s overall as some may think. After all- at some smaller Ivys a large [35%] of each class are recruited athletes. And all Ivy’s use the Academic Index to justify admission of many athletes who otherwise might not have been accepted [ since the Ivys’ don’t offer athletic scholarships, yet they do want students on their athletic teams.] At least Stanford is honest about offering Athletic scholarships and requiring athletes to meet academic standards similar to A.I.] …Food for thought, which I’m sure will be thrown back in my face…</p>
<p>“The analogy you used for NMS and the cohort was wrong.”
You just didn’t agree with it, which doesn’t make it wrong, it just means we disagree…understand the difference?</p>
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<p>No it’s not that I disagree with your thought process but the analogy you put forward was WRONG.</p>
<p>What you said and repeated in couple of posts that NMS are the top of NMF. You specifically quoted that in a American Beauty pageant the No 1, is chosen over 2, 3 and so on.</p>
<p>The analogy is just plain wrong. Any NMF who is attending the elite college if have joined USC or public state university would have received the scholarship making them NMS.</p>
<p>Which is not true in the beauty pageant where by changing state No 2, 3, and so on won’t become No. 1.</p>
<p>So understand the difference.</p>
<p>POIH, I think you are mistaken. I’m pretty sure published statistics which differentiate NMF from NMS are based on the $2500 one-time scholarships that are awarded by NM. Students who receive corporation or college sponsored scholarships are also later considered to be NMS --but I don’t think the are reflected in the matriculation statistics.</p>
<p>Calmom: 8400 includes all types of scholarship holders. Here for your reference.</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>
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<p>If you work for Walgreens or UPS then your child will be NMS no matter where he matriculate.</p>
<p>I’m sure that will add to that college cohort.</p>
<p>You’ll be surprised how tiny National Merit® $2500 Scholarships is of that 8400 number. The most scholarships are college sponsored followed by corporations.</p>
<p>I know that. I am saying that the lists of how many matriculate don’t necessarily include all 3 types of NMS. </p>
<p>If you look at the lists of where students are matriculating, they differentiate between NM scholars and institution-sponsored scholars. For example, if you go to page 36 of their annual report at <a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a> and look at Arizona State U., you will see that of 100 NM Scholars who enrolled there, 78 were sponsored by the college for the year reported. That means the other 22 were NM-sponsored. </p>
<p>In any case, there is NO difference academically between NMF’s and NMS’ students. National Merit considers factors like the high school official’s written recommendation, information about the student’s activities and leadership, and the NMF’s essay in making their determination – as well as academics.</p>
<p>I’d also point out that at least from the student’s perspective, the NM-awarded scholarship usually has the least value of the 3 types of scholarships. At least in my family, we came to the conclusion early on that $2500 is less than $8000, and my son was very happy to take the extra money from his college.</p>
<p>Calmom: I think you didn’t pay attention to this total on the same page.</p>
<p>Scholars enrolled
5,086 private institutions
3,206 public institutions
8,292</p>
<p>Colleges attended
217 private institutions
126 public institutions
343 </p>
<p>Also if you look at the same page, the number indicates in the braces the college sponsopred scholars</p>
<p>250* University of Southern
California (196)
157* University of Florida (132)
100* Arizona State University (78)</p>
<p>261 Harvard College
224 Yale University
192 Princeton University
142 Stanford University
136 Massachusetts institute
of Technology</p>
<p>If you now compute properly USC had 54, UF had 25, Arizona 22.</p>
<p>*An asterisk indicates that Merit Scholars whose scholarships are sponsored by the institution are included; the number sponsored by the college is shown in parentheses</p>
<p>I think we should now close the case of NMS, as there are tons of students at HMSPY that were NMF but not NMS because these institutes don’t sponsores scholarship. All these students if had gone to USC, UF like would have become NMS, so comparing the * number is not appropriate.
If you have to compare then normalize by reducing the (n) number from the * number.</p>
<p>"You’ll be surprised how tiny National Merit® $2500 Scholarships is of that 8400 number. The most scholarships are college sponsored followed by corporations. "
Wrong again. There are only 1000 NMS corporate awards, which is far FEWER than the 2500 $2500 NMS awards. </p>
<p>2500>1000, last time I checked…
these figures are from the NMSC annual report pages 8-9
<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>“In the 2010 program, most of the 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships were financed by NMSC with its own funds.”
“This year, the 237 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations
committed over $19 million to finance 1,010 National Merit Scholarships”</p>
<p>The NAS and the Special Scholarships, which are other scholarship funds that NMSC oversees, are NOT included among the approx 8400 NMS totals</p>
<p>""If you work for Walgreens or UPS then your child will be NMS no matter where he matriculate.</p>
<p>I’m sure that will add to that college cohort."</p>
<p>What a snarky, snide, arrogant remark to make. Shame on you for being such a elitist snob. Then it should be SUCH a relief for you to know that not only were you WRONG about how many[ shudder] corporate children are actually NMS, the fact that there are ONLY 1000 children of [ gasp] Walgreen or[ oh dear] UPS employees that elite NMS students would might have to rub shoulders with should provide you peace…</p>
<p>250* University of Southern California (196)
means there are 196 NMS who were awarded 1/2 tuition scholarships at USC AND an additional 54 NMS who won FULL tuition scholarships [ like my son] who all receive additional 1000/ year from NMSC. [this is from the Dean of Admissions and FA at USC, who I spoke to today.] That makes them ALL NMS’s, just as the corporate scholarship winners at any college, including HYPSC, etc are NMS’s .Or did you think that only the children of [ snif snif]Walgreen clerks and UPS drivers are awarded corporate scholarships?</p>
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<p>By just adding the college sponsor awards > 50 listed on the page adds up to 2648. So if you add all the college sponsored awards it will come to around 5000.</p>
<p>If you read the page clearly you will find around 6000 scholarships are sponsored either by colleges or by corporations.</p>
<p>national Merit Scholarship Corporation 2,365 *
National Merit®
$2500 Scholarships
All corporate sponsors also provide grants in lieu of paying administrative fees to help nmsc underwrite national Merit $2500 Scholarships. </p>
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<p>I’m not sure what your problem is but the remark was to indicate that it doesn’t make a difference to a cohort whether or not the person get’s the NMS if the basis of it is the work status of the parent. I’m not sure how come it’s snarky, snide or arrogant.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure how come it’s not clear to you but the explanation on the page clearly indicates 196 are college sponsored awards. How many of the rest are corporate sponsored no one knows.</p>
<p>menloparkmom - I think you are overreacting.</p>
<p>I think the reason POIH mentioned Walgreen and UPS because they are the actual sponsors listed by NMSC on page 33 of table “Sponsors and the scholarships they supported in the 2010 National Merit® Scholarship Program” of the NMSC report.</p>
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<p>Am I imagining things…or is this thread now totally off-topic? LOL!</p>