I received an email that I received corporate scholarship. Now I am not sure if I can still receive merit scholarship that certain schools offer if you are NMF like Northeastern, BU, USC etc. I have my first choice school as Northeastern as of now. Any cons on receiving corporate scholarship instead of the other two?
Yes. The bigger scholarships from the universities are extra scholarships awarded in addition to the corporate scholarship.
1 Like
Thank you!
Yes, our employer is a participant. I don’t know if there’s a limit on the amount that corporations can give out, but ours has several scholarships to distribute worth 2k a year for four years.
We have the exact same question. My teen received a hefty NM scholarship if we designate Northeastern as 1st choice college. And they also got a much smaller corporate NM scholarship offer today.
Who do we contact for clarification?
I encourage you to contact the NMSC directly to get clarification. They are super helpful and patient with all questions. You can also contact Northeastern to clarify their policies.
I’ve already written to NU.
I read this in the corporate NM terms & conditions:
“… Also, you cannot be offered or receive more than one Scholarship administered by NMSC.”
However, I don’t believe the Northeastern scholarship is administered by the NMSC. I believe it is an “extra” scholarship that Northeastern offers in addition to the small scholarships administered by the NMSC. Scholarships administered by the NMSC typically do not amount to more than $2,500 per year. Corporate scholarship amounts will vary, of course. You need to actually call NMSC and speak to someone to allay your concerns and get clarification. Same for Northeastern. You need to speak to someone about this specific issue. This is a confusing area for many. I would hate for you to lose the corporate scholarship because you turned it down based on a misunderstanding about how this works.
1 Like
He should have been notified by email on March 10th. Another way to have him check is to log in to his portal and see if the scholarship is listed there. Last but not least, call NMSC.
I’m waiting to hear back from NU. I was wondering why it was $5000 (on top of Honors scholarship) instead of $2500.
You DO have to designate NU as #1 NM school choice to get those $. That’s the gray area.
The NMSC phones were busy this afternoon. Will try again Monday.
It’s not much but the $4000 over 4 years corporate scholarship will offset some of the high cost of Boston living. Every little bit teaches kids about value of money.
Thanks!
1 Like
The college sponsored stipend administered through NMSC should not be $5k. I have not heard of the college sponsored stipends more than $2 or $2.5k. Getting clarification from NU is really imperative to figure out which is the college sponsored stipend administered through NMSC and which is the award solely through their university. Also, asking them about what their policy is re: corporate awards would be a good idea.
I did, I did get in touch with NU. Like I mentioned twice before, waiting for their response.
1 Like
I am a little bit late to provide my input, but like @usma87 we have a son at ASU/Barrett and I totally agree that you may want to give ASU more thoughts despite the physical distance.
We live in New Jersey and ASU is super easy to get to. There are multiple direct flights per day from Newark International to Phoenix Sky Harbor and going from Sky Harbor to ASU is a short $2 ($1 for students) light rail ride. Starting from our home one can be at ASU faster than it takes to drive to a remote college on the East Coast. And due to the number of airlines that fly that route (United, American, JetBlue), prices are reasonable (in the order of $300 r/t in Economy for a direct flight).
1 Like
Did Northeastern contact you regarding the NMF scholarship? I am also waiting to hear back from Northeastern. I have received a decent merit scholarship from them already and picked Northeastern as my first choice as of now as waiting to hear back from them. Not sure when I can expect to hear if they can offer me any more $. Did anyone hear from any schools if received more merit money since being a National merit finalist? Unfortunately, I haven’t heard back from any schools that can offer me more.
We haven’t accepted admission yet.
If you’re a NMF, and if you designate NU as your #1 school choice, there’s a good chance they’ll increase merit by $5000. (That’s just our experience. Individual cases may vary.) Hopefully you’ll hear from them soon.
The first time I asked a question, it was resolved in 2 business days. I’m hoping for a reply on Monday.
1 Like
Thanks so much for the info. I have a lot of family in AZ… but we are in NC and my son just has seen a lot of AZ during the hot months and says he prefers to stay a little bit closer to home. We will visit Alabama on our spring break and see what he thinks. Lucky for us, our state school NCSU has a really good engineering school. So no bad options!
2 Likes
My son got the corporate scholarship through my work on Wednesday and he accepted it promptly. $2500 renewable for four years. On top of that, he designated USC as college of choice and we hope he will get their half-tuition scholarship if accepted. AFAIK, the two scholarships are independent, and it’s possible to get both. Hope I am not mistaken
1 Like
Yes, you are correct. The half tuition scholarship is separate from the NMSC administered scholarships. There is an additional stipend offered by USC that is administered through NMSC, and I believe it is $2K, if I recall correctly. The corporate scholarship would just take the place of that stipend. @lkg4answers knows more about the specifics about that.
Congratulations to your son!
1 Like
If one is a NMF and doesn’t get NMS through NMSC or corporate scholarships, USC will give an additional $4K divided over 4 years (ie. $1K/yr) to make the Finalist student a Scholar. I don’t know a lot about NMS corporate scholarships but, in our experience, USC has been extremely generous in allowing students to keep outside scholarship money on top of USC scholarships. A NMS corporate scholarship should be icing on the cake on top of the half-tuition scholarship.
1 Like
Thank you for the information. Now there is the small matter of getting accepted 
2 Likes
Thinking positive thoughts for you. 