<p>OK, question. If I put down a school that offers money, am I competing for both the regular scholarship and a scholarship from the school I named? Or if I put down a college that doesn't give out scholarships for national merit, am I out of the running for money?</p>
<p>You're in the running for both. If you put down a college that offers $, you are NOT hurting your chances at the NM scholarship. Therefore, I'd advise you to pick the school you like the most and that gives a substantial scholarship ($2000 or more) for NM.</p>
<p>Also, if you change your college choice in March/April, you may possibly get scholarships offers from multiple schools because NM is slack. For example, I got the NM scholarship at U Chicago and Johns Hopkins. :)</p>
<p>But my current top choice is Swarthmore, and they don't give money...</p>
<p>Then pick another school. Duke (where I enrolled) didn't offer NM scholarships, so I picked my 2nd choice. It's pointless to pick a school that doesn't offer NM scholarships.</p>
<p>OK, so me picking a school that offers scholarships over my top choice won't hurt me? I mean if they see I'm a semifinalist and applied ED but I didn't put them as a first choice...they won't think that's weird that I then applied ED? Or is this solely for scholarship purposes, so they'll understand that I didn't put them...</p>
<p>No. They made the choice not to offer scholarships, so it's their fault. :p </p>
<p>In all honesty, I really don't think top schools care all that much about NM. If you're applying ED, that shows you're committed. </p>
<p>If you get into Swarthmore, hope for the NM Scholarship, because you can use that at Swat. Otherwise you might end up like me, a NM Scholar- but no $. :eek:</p>
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<p>Not so at all. If you get into a school that does not offer NM money, have no chance at a corporate scholarship, and do get into the school you put down, you are then out of the running for the $2500 scholarships that NMSC gives out directly. You should put the type of school (so to speak) that you're most likely to attend; if you need to go to the school that offers money, and they want you enough, you'll probably be able to get that money if you change schools in time.</p>
<p>Nonsense. If the OP gets into Swat ED, then he has plenty of time (until March 1) to change his choice to Swat. I changed mine in March.</p>
<p>For ED that works, yes.</p>
<p>Oh...score. That's easy enough. So I should put down my #2 (which gives aid) for now, and if I get into Swat ED then I should change to Swat in hopes of merit aid?</p>
<p>Yes. Just don't lose that valuable little yellow postcard!</p>
<p>Excellent. Problem solved...thank you gentlemen :)</p>
<p>wait... so, if I put down a top-choice college that is NOT on the list of sponsoring colleges, what scholarship am I running for? Should I change mine to a school that is on the list? I think I may have mis-interperted the directions.</p>