Thank you! It’s a moot point for us, I think, but for clarification…
She’s currently undecided in the NMSF portal. BUT, if she had decided today (if only she WOULD decide haha) to go to say UTD, USC or Alabama, couldn’t she decline this one and then report her preferred college as that one and still get their award? The instructions say “MAY 31, 2022 - Deadline date for NMSC to receive reports of a sponsor college as first choice. Because it is necessary to treat all Finalists consistently and conclude the annual competition in a timely manner, only college choice reports that NMSC receives by May 31, 2022, will be used to identify the final group of candidates to a college or university that sponsors awards.” (I believe some schools may have their own deadline but you see my point?)
Isn’t that actually the exact reason they’re asking if we want to accept it or not? So that we can say, “No thanks, I’d rather have Vandy’s $5k/yr than your one-time $2,500”? Geez, does this really have to be so confusing? 
I believe she is eligible for one award and one award only. All the sponsorship awards come via NMSC, and I don’t think she would get another offer via NMSC even if it originated from a college
Even if she decided to go to UTD or UA, she would have to accept the award from the NMSC in order to become NMS. She would then be eligible for the large UTD/UA money. The difference would be in the relatively small sponsorship award, for example 2.5K via NMCS vs 3K from UTD.
We faced exactly this situation with S20, where he received a sponsorship award from NMSC and also the big merit award from the college of his choice.
There is always a great deal of confusion around the NMSC portion of an award and the school’s National Merit Scholarship. Before you make any huge decisions, talk with the school’s admissions and financial aid people. Even if someone on this forum says, ‘it was this way for my child’ does not mean the school is still handling it the same way.
I’m sharing an amusing story as a thank you to the people participating in this thread.
My child was a Finalist this year and as the month of March progressed and he heard nothing from NMSC, we assumed that our kid was out of the running for being a Scholar. We have no affiliations with any corporate sponsors, and our child had already committed back in mid-December to a college that offers no merit scholarships.
I popped into this thread last week to see how everyone was faring, and read up thread that results were available on the NMSC portals in addition to the email notifications. I suggested that our child check, and lo and behold, our kiddo was named a National Merit Scholar with one of the NMSC $2500 awards. Good thing, too, because the deadline to accept was yesterday! 
Turns out the notification email was marked read but like all the kids in this thread probably, there was just too much junk mail from all the colleges for it to register.
So, thanks guys!
They got an email? LOL - mine never told me that. We went in to change her college pref and saw it. Definitely too much college junkmail (and senioritis) happening! Congrats to your senior on the award.
My son is a freshman at UA on a Nat’l Merit. He had hoped to go to GT for CS, but got deferred and eventually denied. I can say he is loving UA. He is a CS major, will get his masters in 4 (he had a ton of IB/AP credit coming in) and is studying in Rome this summer. He has met great kids, joined some cool clubs (like EcoCar) and has really enjoyed his experience so far. In all honesty, UA wasn’t really even on his radar, but he had a great visit last April and made the decision. It has turned out to be a great one! Best of luck to your daughter!
I copied your reply and sent it to my daughter, assuming NMF 2023. I believe she is leaning toward UA with UCF in 2nd place. (visits will help) Getting a masters in 5 looks appealing to her. How much out of pocket should she expect for a study in Rome? I told her we would attempt 5-10 of those highly selective Full COA’s to Duke, UNC, Miami etc. but short of those miracles it appears UA is it!
Hi there… So my son had a ton of credits coming in from HS, so he actually is using a semester of scholarship to study in Rome. I don’t think much if any out of pocket since he will use stipend for Flight. I haven’t seen all the financial details yet (he handles all of scholarship stuff himself), but once I see the actual bill and how scholarship applies, I’ll reach back out with details.
So the semester (tuition/fees)studying in Rome is paid for by UA?
I think the best answer is that it depends on the program. My understanding is the summer programs may not be fully covered. Fall and spring likely are because of the vagaries of the “school year”. Remember, the scholarship is for tuition and housing. There is a stipend for overseas study, but summer programs may not always be covered. For example, my son is doing the STEM path to MBA. There will be required summer semesters. We will have to pay out of pocket for those summer semesters. In the grand scheme, it is not much, but it is a cost. We guesstimate that our total out of pocket costs for five years (during which S should earn two degrees and study abroad) is $50K or less. That’s pretty good and could not be beat anywhere else.
question: if a student qualifies for NMSC 2500$ award and then gets the sponsorship award by colleges do they have a choice between the two? if they decide to go for the college award would the 2500$ NMSC award be then offered to another student?
I guess what iam trying to ask is at this point my son is without any award …is there any chance of him getting the 2500$ because another student didnt accept it for a better award? there is no chnce tht he will get a corporate award or a college award since his ivy school doesn’t offer any national merit scholarships
Theoretically, there could be some unclaimed NMSC awards, but the scenario you mentioned above won’t happen. There is simply at most only 1 sponsorship award. If a student is sponsored via NMSC, the college simply cannot offer a sponsorship award.
Here is a direct quote from the NMCS publication
Consideration for a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award is limited to Semifinalists who qualify as Finalists and who also:
- report to NMSC that a sponsor college is their first choice (see Sponsors of National Merit Scholarships in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program);
- have applied for admission to the sponsor college; and
- have not been offered any other National Merit Scholarship (corporate-sponsored, National, or another college-sponsored award). No student will receive more than one scholarship offer from NMSC.
If you accept the $2500 as undecided, can you then select a NMF sponsored school and still get the school offer? My daughter is afraid to accept the $2500 because she is affraid it will cancel any big scholarships that she might decide to take. Today is the last day to accept the $2500.
It likely depends on the school.
The best for her peace of mind would have been to contact each school and confirm, but here is the general outline.
Since she was already offered the NMSC sponsorship, your daughter is not eligible for any college sponsorship award given via NMSC, but those awards are relatively small (usually $500-2K/year).
She will still be eligible for the big money awards that are offered by the college itself and not dispensed via NMSC. Keep in mind that colleges with big awards like to publish the number of NMS (National Merit Scholars) that enrolled. The only way to become a NMS is to accept a sponsorship award offered via NMSC in her case the $2.5K.
S20 was in this situation and accepted 2.5K from NMSC and still received his full ride scholarship. He did contact the college NMF coordinator at that time and was told to accept the $2.5K.
If you don’t mind naming specific schools, I am sure there are BTDT students/parents.
University of Tulsa is the one we don’t know about. She had a coach contact her on Wednesday and the coach is finding out what the TU NMF package is, but we haven’t heard yet and she has to accept the $2500 today.
Ouachita Baptist University and University of Alabama Birmingham are the other two schools she is looking at, but she has had two coaches contact her last week because she hasn’t committed anywhere yet.
This showed up on D22’s financial aid page as well both for UTD and UM. She has decided on UTD.
A heads up - my D22 received her National Merit Scholar certificate in the mail this weekend. Sadly, not the check!