<p>Tampa Tribune:</p>
<p>May 10, 2005</p>
<p>Colleges Pursue Merit Scholars
By GARY HABER
Marty Fernandez, 17, is a senior at Plant High School and a National Merit Scholar. She has opted to go the Univeristy of Florida and pursue molecular biology because the university offers a National Merit Scholarship.</p>
<p>TAMPA - Marty Fernandez, a super-smart senior at Tampa's Plant High School, had a tough choice.
Fernandez's high grades and SAT score - 1520 out of 1600 - were high enough to get her into Columbia University, an Ivy League school. </p>
<p>But the University of Florida offered Fernandez, who plans a career in medical research, a scholarship worth about $22,000 because she is a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship program. Columbia doesn't offer separate scholarships to National Merit Scholar finalists. </p>
<p>Fernandez will be heading off to Gainesville....</p>
<p>Each year, universities hand out scholarships worth millions of dollars to attract National Merit Scholar finalists, expected to raise a school's academic reputation. Schools court them with the kind of lavish scholarships usually reserved for star athletes. ..."</p>
<p>The scholarship money the state schools in Florida offers NM Finalist is definitely hard to turn down. The biggest challenge is convincing son/daughter that this is a good option vs. going out of state an paying big bucks. I would be curious to hear what other non-Florida state universities are agressively recruiting NM Finalist from Florida?</p>
<p>What honors programs at other state universities should I be looking at that offer big bucks to out of state kids?</p>
<p>Anybody know anything about honors programs at following schools?</p>
<p>Georgia
South Carolina
Clemson
Texas
Texas A&M
Arizona State
Penn State
Michigan</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>The honors program at U Texas is pretty impressive, but remember that it's also more selective than some top 25 universities and their scholarship for NMS finalists is only about half their tuition cost much less room and board. The out-of-state tuition waiver that goes with it could be very important, though.</p>
<p>Do you know if they automatically waive out of state tuition for students accepted to the program?</p>
<p>Ohio State offers NM finalists in the top 10% of their class a 4-year award of full tuition, plus $4500 each year - must maintain a 3.2 GPA while there to keep it year to year. Assuming no other outside scholarships, you could go for about $5000 per year out of pocket, including books.</p>
<p>UT doesn't automatically waive out of state tuition to all honors program students. However, All NM finalists get an out-of-state tuition waiver, and each department in the university is allowed to give out a certain number of tuiton waivers. </p>
<p>Plan II (the UT honors program) will not be free to NMFs, but compared to other programs of equal caliber, its is a great deal.</p>
<p>My d will be attending Plan II at UTAustin as a National Merit Finalist. Their scholarship gives NMF's 4,000 the first year and 3,000 each year after that. Not a lot but the tuition is reasonable. So d figured that Plan II was such a good deal she couldn't pass it up even with full ride offers at other schools. Her reaches didn't offer her much. </p>
<p>The out of state portion of tuition is automatically waived for NMF's as mentioned above.</p>