<p>@IAmNotBenji Yep. As NMSC puts it:</p>
<p>All National Merit $2500 Scholarships and almost all corporate-sponsored awards (explained in
the Information about the National Merit Scholarship Competition document) are transferable from one
regionally accredited U.S. institution to another, but college-sponsored awards are not (as explained in thenext section).</p>
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<p>Yes, but students offered college-sponsored National Merit scholarships aren’t counted in divideofzero’s statistics as NM Scholars regardless of where they enroll … not unless they also get the NM $2500 or corporate-sponsored awards. </p>
<p>Example:<br>
For 2012-13 the University of Chicago labeled 314 students “National Merit Scholars”(which would make it #1 in its absolute number of NM Scholars), but of these, 217 were NM “Scholars” only by virtue of Chicago’s own college-sponsored award. So DoZ (rightly in my opinion) would have counted only 97 of them for that year. The other 217 would not quite have met the standards to be labelled “Scholars” regardless of where they attend.</p>
<p>As for financial aid, I’m not sure that is a major confounding factor at all. True, some high-achieving students are persuaded to attend a school only due to a cost advantage, not necessarily because they believe it has the very best academics of all their alternatives. Regardless, at that point they become part of the student body; this presumably has positive effects on the academic atmosphere (pace of instruction, quality of discussion, etc.)</p>
<p>@tk21769 “Yes, but students offered college-sponsored National Merit scholarships aren’t counted in divideofzero’s statistics as NM Scholars regardless of where they enroll … not unless they also get the NM $2500 or corporate-sponsored awards.”</p>
<p>To my knowledge, a student can get only one kind of National Merit Scholarship. Correct me if I am wrong.</p>
<p>Even though the $2500 NM scholarship seems to be the most selective among the 3 kinds of NM scholarships, it is a one-time award, not renewable. Both the corporate and the college scholarships may offer more monetary reward. </p>
<p>Also @tk21769: “For 2012-13 the University of Chicago labeled 314 students “National Merit Scholars”(which would make it #1 in its absolute number of NM Scholars), but of these, 217 were NM “Scholars” only by virtue of Chicago’s own college-sponsored award.” </p>
<p>According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, U of Chicago offers about 60 NM college scholarships (<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf</a>, page 19). I wonder if all the 217 NM scholars could get the college scholarships if they chose to attend U of Chicago and claimed it to be their 1st choice school.</p>
<p>Turns out I made a mistake. National Merit Scholars and National Achievement Scholars are not mutually exclusive groups. The “%Scholar” data might be slightly misleading since any of those 789 Achievement Scholars could also be a Merit Scholar and get counted twice.</p>
<p>The numbers in the NMSC report are the minimum the college offers, not the maximum.</p>
<p>Counting where these NMSC and corporate scholars attend still involves money. Many may choose merit scholarships not tied to NMF status, and others may choose based on need-based financial aid offered. </p>
<p>Also in addition to the problem of the much lower standard generally applied for the corporate scholarships, the NMSC $2500 awards are prorated by state the same as NMSF, so there will be regional biases in the sample towards underperforming states.</p>
<p>True; it’s tough to avoid those biases.</p>
<p>Went through again. 713 of those 789 Achievement Scholars might be double-counted since there’s no way for me to tell whether they were also National Merit Scholars.</p>