We called them today to inquire about USC. They sent out the list to USC on May 4th. Guessing that the other colleges were sent out on the same day.
Great! My son’s first choice is USC too. Thanks for the confirmation. I hope that we will both hear from USC soon.
We were getting a bit worried. Financial aid had told us that that they had not heard from National Merit in a very long time. Is your son interested in McCarthy housing as well?
My S21 received the 25k presidential scholarship from BU and accepted their admission too. Having received this one, will there be a guarantee that he’ll receive their college sponsored national merit money as well? ($500-$2k per year) When do we know that information? Anyone who accepted the admission at one of the NM sponsoring colleges and received the college based merit money as of now? If not, when’ll that happen? Thanks for your time!
My daughter was awarded the $2500 onetime NM scholarship. Does anyone know whether it will be paid directly to her or her school next fall. The NMSC site implies it will be sent to her.
Thanks
Last year, the NMSC award was sent directly to the school. I believe that was the only option how to receive the money.
S21 just now received an email from NMSC that they have awarded him a college sponsored scholarship from BU in the amount of $1000 per year! Yay!!! So happy for him 
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So is the University of Iowa’s National Merit/Provost Scholarship a college-sponsored National Merit Scholarship? Sounds like it is, and it showed up in DD21’s updated financial aid award letter from UI this week, but we never received a notification from NMSC like @Suave123 mentioned above. Just curious if we should be looking in local papers for notices to clip for scrapbooks 
or maybe this isn’t an official “college-sponsored” national merit scholarship???
Some schools award scholarships for National Merit even though it is not through NMSC. If there is a NMSC portion, they will send a “you need to accept your scholarship” email from NMSC. I seem to recall that’s how it happened for my son.
The same thing happened for us with USC. We never received anything from NMSC. An additional NM scholarship showed up expectantly in the freshman financial aid award then, in spring of freshman year, NMSC sent a letter asking for confirmation for sophomore year.
May I ask when it showed up in the financial aid package? My son designated USC as the first choice school on 5/1 and received a notice of the half tuition, but not the NMS yet. He called NMSC and was told it’s a decision by USC.
It doesn’t have a date listed next to the line item. It just says National Merit College Sponsored Scholarship $1000.
Thanks. So every NMF will receive it automatically at some point, right?
I can’t speak for the university but it seems that the extra $1000/yr is awarded to those who did not receive a $2500 scholarship from NMSC or a corporate scholarship through NMSC. Basically National Merit Finalists who did not become Scholars.
My son didn’t receive the $2500 or a corporate scholarship. My understanding is that he is eligible for the college sponsored scholarship, but it seems that neither USC nor NMSC would confirm anything.
NMSC doesn’t know and I had a very difficult time finding anyone at USC who knew. Certainly the people in financial aid at USC did not know. An admissions officer whose NMF child attended USC was the person who was able to explain it to me.
So did the scholarship show up in your portal after you spoke to the admission office who knew the situation? I am just worried that my son won’t get it automatically if we don’t find the right person at USC. This is quite frustrating.
No, I spoke to the other AO (not our AO) before admission decisions were released. Someone here had posted about the extra scholarship so I was trying to find out if it indeed existed. I asked multiple people in the FA office and each only knew about the Presidential scholarship and nothing more. I think all of the scholarships were posted prior to May 1 but I can’t say that with 100% certainty.
The $1000 National Merit College Sponsored Scholarship for USC appeared on my D’s FAST account the same day as the Presidential Scholarship.
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My son reached out to the financial aid office for multiple times but never got a concrete answer. It’s amazing that they don’t know the process even USC recruits over 300 NMF every year. We will just check again. Thanks for sharing your experience.