Many schools still have honor rolls and publish them in the local paper. If a school is using FERPA as a reason to not recognize academic achievements they are just looking for an excuse to not recognize them.
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Yet most, if not all, schools have valedictorians.
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Definitely not all, and not sure if most (havenāt seen the evidence one way or the other). At our public HS, one of the ones that consciously doesnāt acknowledge academic achievements like NM, there are no valedictorians. Or class rankings. And graduation speakers are selected by a committee, totally disconnected from academic record or achievement. Usually are not the exceptionally academic students. They donāt acknowledge any of the cum laude levels either ā they used to quietly do that in the graduation program with an asterisk but stopped years ago. There literally is nothing at graduation that relates to academic achievement. They separately have an awards night but for the most part none of the awards are tied to academic accomplishment either, except in some cases incidentally.
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Fairfax County, Virginia has no valedictorians or class rank. This is a school system with 180,000 students.
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Okay, not all. My point is, does naming someone a valedictorian, or class rank, or any of the other acknowledgments mentioned above, violate FERPA?
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Is the additional $4k from USC offered automatically to NMFs who choose USC as #1, are accepted and donāt get the $2,500 NMSC award? Or is the $4k only given to those selected through NMSC? The reason I ask is because the NMSC awards scholarships to only half of the NMFs, either directly, through corporate sponsor, college sponsor, and Iām assuming USC is offering the $4k through NMSC (unlike the 1/2 tuition which is independent). TIA!
If NMSC does not award $2500 to the student, and there is no corporate NMS scholarship, USC will automatically award the extra $4K ($500/semester). The NMS $4K stacks on top of either the half-tuition Presidential or full-tuition Trustee scholarship. The USC $4K is considered a college sponsored scholarship and turns a Finalist into a Scholar.
NMSC does not determine who receives the USC scholarship. The only way they are involved is, if a student receives the NMSC $2500, the student will not receive the USC $4000.
EDIT: At some point, USC notifies NSMC that the student received an award because the studentās status changes from NMF to NMS. Personally, we have not found that the NMS status (as opposed to NMF) means anything other than receiving funds.
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I gave permission for the school to announce the NMF designation. Even though she is 18 years old, they were careful to ask.
If a finalist receives a college-sponsored NM scholarship, does that student become a Scholar even if they donāt end up attending that school?
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Thank you, thatās great!
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This is my question too. For example, if already accepted to and offered an NMSF scholarship at a school, can a student pick a different school as their number one. Or is that already winning.
Hi My son is a national merit scholarship finalist. Do all of his colleges get a notification of him being a national merit scholarship finalist directly from the NMS? or do we have to individually inform the colleges about his NMF status? I am mostly wondering if those colleges to which he has applied and hasnt gotten a admission decision yet, will consider his NMF status
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Congratulations! I was referring to the portal the kids use to apply for National Merit Finalist. Itās a separate portal you will set up after being notified as Semi-Finalist.
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Welcome! My understanding is that NMSC does not send an announcement to all schools. There is a press release sent to the media and Iām sure there ways for schools that care to find out. My student was contacted by one of the schools they were admitted to (Cal Poly SLO) asking for my student to confirm their NMF status. SLO gives scholarships to NMF but are not part of the āfirst choiceā process.
Starting in March, National Merit Scholarship Corp (NMSC) will send out regular updates to colleges, notifying them of which students have reported that school as their first choice.
From the NMSC pdf,
To be considered for college-sponsored awards, Finalists must meet all three of the following conditions.
Finalists:
ā¢ must have notified NMSC that the sponsor college is their first choice;
ā¢ must have applied for admission to that institution; and
ā¢ must not have been offered any other National Merit Scholarship.Every college-sponsored award is offered with the condition that the Finalist has been admitted for the fall term and will attend the sponsor college. Because every college-sponsored award can be used only at the institution financing it, the scholarship is canceled if the winner changes college choice. (See page 4 of the Requirements and Instructions for Semifinalists document for more information about naming a first-choice college.) Also, if a Finalist informs NMSC of a change in college choice after a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer has already been posted to the studentsā OSA dashboard, the change will not be processed and the student cannot be offered another college-sponsored awardāeven if the new college choice also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards. (See page 4 of the Requirements and Instructions for Semifinalists document, which is posted online in the āCompetition Instructionsā section of the OSA or at www.nationalmerit.org/resources.)
Early in March, NMSC will begin notifying each sponsor college about Finalists who have reported that institution as their first choice.
College officials will choose all winners of their Merit Scholarship awards from among these Finalists.
A sponsor college may decide to offer a Merit Scholarship award to every Finalist who is admitted or choose to limit the number of awards it provides. Students should contact the sponsor college directly if they have questions about the collegeās selection process.
A college-sponsored scholarship is renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study at the sponsor institution. Each college sponsor chooses the annual stipend their institution offers to award recipients, within a range of $500 to $2,000 per year. All college-sponsored scholarship recipients at the institution will receive the same stipend amount as determined by the college.
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See the section that I bolded in the post above. If a student is awarded a college sponsored NM scholarship and it has been posted to the OSA dashboard, they cannot be offered another college-sponsored award. The big question is, does a student need to accept a scholarship for it to be posted to OSA dashboard or does NMSC receive notification from the college as soon as the scholarship is offered?
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Thank you for your response. appreciate it.
Did anyone attend this event?
We would love to know how it went, what your student learned, etc.
Thank you!
Do you know if a NMF designating USC as their first-choice school at this point boosts admissions odds?
My now-NMF son (hooray!) is down to three final schools: UCF, UT-Dallas, and Raikes School at Nebraska. All with a CS major. Tulsa was also on the list for a long time, but he decided he wanted to go somewhere bigger than his high school. (Too bad ā I think it could have been a good fit.) Visited UCF and Raikes last month, going to the first NMF day of the year at UTD this weekend.
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No, it does not. The only benefit to listing it now is that the Presidential half-tuition scholarship will show up in their FAST if/when they are admitted. If they wait, it will show full-tuition until the student declares USC as first choice and NMSC sends an updated list to USC.
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