NMSC says: NMSC will not process any college change requests for a Finalist once a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer has been posted to their OSA dashboard. The change in college choice will not be reported to the newly selected college and the Finalist cannot be offered another college-sponsored award from NMSC. This applies even if the new college choice also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards.
Some schools offer separate scholarships for National Merit Finalists. E.g, USC will provide
half tuition waiver for NMF students, as long as the student is admitted and designates
it as first choice before May 31. Boston University has similar program with $25,000 tuition
waiver. Alabama has even more generous package. If a student designates BU as the first choice and applies to both BU and USC. In April, both schools admit him. He also receives BU’s college sponsored scholarship from NMSC. He then decides to accept USC’s offer. He needs to change the first choice to USC in order to receive the half tuition waiver. In this scenario, will NMSC process the change and report the new choice to USC?