Colleges with the most National Merit Scholars

Paying for College
1

<p>This is a list of the colleges with the most National Merit Scholars. OU sent it to me, and the paper says it’s from 2006. So, it should be reasonably accurate. Maybe y’all have already seen this somewhere, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, so now I’m eager to explore it.</p>

<li>Harvard (294)</li>
<li>University of Florida (257)</li>
<li>UT Austin (250)</li>
<li>Wash. U in St. Louis (241)</li>
<li>USC (206)</li>
<li>Northwestern (198)</li>
<li>U of Chicago (196)</li>
<li>ASU (189)</li>
<li>Yale (186)</li>
<li>Stanford (153)</li>
<li>Princeton (153)</li>
<li>NYU (145)</li>
<li>UNC - Chapel Hill (144)</li>
<li>U of Oklahoma (140)</li>
<li>Rice (140)</li>
<li>MIT (135)</li>
<li>Vanderbilt (134)</li>
<li>Texas A&M (134)</li>
<li>Duke (118)</li>
<li>Ohio State (115)</li>
</ol>

<p>Obviously NMS flock to these colleges because of prestigious repuatations or fantastic scholarship money… and I’m interested in both!</p>

2

<p>Some of these schools have successfully "bought" their way up in the rankings and are less generous now than they were a few years ago. Only a couple of these offer full rides for NMF. OU had the best package that we saw (down to $1500 laptop allowance!) but I couldn't convince DD to consider a school that big.... and in Oklahoma....</p>

3

<p>I'd love to see a list of per capita NMS Finalists, which would allow meaningful comparisons between large and small schools. Excellent LACs won't end up in the top 20, but their per capita figures are probably comparable, maybe even disproportionate in the top tier.</p>

4

<p>dragonmom - You're right that only a few offer full rides. OU is the only one that I know of with a truly "full" full-ride scholarship, although Texas A&M is within a few thousand dollars of being "full", and I've heard that ASU gives a way some substantial scholarships.</p>

<p>momfromme - I agree that this list isn't exactly fair. I mean, so what that they've got 100+ NMF... that's probably less than 1% of most of their student bodies. Surely there are some smaller schools with much larger concentrations of NMF. However, Rice did make the list with an undergrad student body of about 3000, so obviously it is possible for small schools to make the Top 20.</p>

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<p>Is the above list finalists or winners?</p>

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<p>Oklahoma U's data via OP comes from the NMS annual report for 05-06. (pdf pages 30-32). All schools are listed, not just the top 20.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Good list. I haven't seen one like that yet. </p>

<p>UW-Mad offered me 5k if I put them down as first choice. Now I feel kinda jipped-- only 5k? Wisc isn't even on that list! But even though I am attending, on a survey afterwards I checked the box that said 5k wasn't enough to sway my decision. Maybe it will be higher for the class of 2012!</p>

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<p>In response to momfromme’s question about the concentration of NMS winners on college campuses, I compiled the following data adjusted for one year of undergraduate enrollment. </p>

<p>Rank, School, % of undergrads who are NMS </p>

<p>For National Universities</p>

<p>1 Rice 18.4%
2 Harvard 17.5%
3 U Chicago 16.3%
4 Yale 14.0%
5 Cal Tech 13.4%
6 MIT 13.1%
7 Wash U StL 13.1%
8 Princeton 12.9%
9 Northwestern 9.7%
10 Stanford 9.5%
11 Vanderbilt 8.4%
12 Duke 7.5%
13 Dartmouth 6.8%
14 Brown 6.3%
15 USC 4.9%
16 Case Western 4.9%
17 Columbia 4.7%
18 U Penn 4.1%
19 Tufts 4.1%
20 Brandeis 4.0%
21 Georgia Tech 3.4%
22 U North Carolina 3.4%
23 Emory 3.1%
24 U Florida 2.9%
25 Georgetown 2.9%
26 J Hopkins 2.8%
27 NYU 2.8%
28 U Texas 2.7%
29 Notre Dame 2.7%
30 U Rochester 2.0%
31 Cornell 1.9%
32 Carnegie Mellon 1.5%
33 Tulane 1.3%
34 UC Berkeley 1.2%
35 Wake Forest 1.1%
36 Boston College 1.0%
37 Lehigh 1.0%
38 Rensselaer 1.0%
39 U Illinois UC 1.0%
40 U Michigan 0.9%</p>

<p>For LACs</p>

<p>1 Harvey Mudd 25.1%
2 Carleton 20.0%
3 Bowdoin 9.2%
4 Grinnell 9.1%
5 W&L 6.4%
6 CMC 5.9%
7 Pomona 5.7%
8 Amherst 5.3%
9 Swarthmore 5.1%
10 Hamilton 3.3%
11 Williams 3.2%
12 Haverford 2.4%
13 Wellesley 2.1%
14 Davidson 1.9%
15 Bryn Mawr 1.2%
16 Middlebury 1.0%
17 Smith 0.9%
18 Wesleyan 0.7%
19 Vassar 0.5%
20 Colgate 0.1%</p>

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<p>for the state schools (ASU, Univ. of Florida, etc.), the NMS students are concentrated within the Honors College, so the true percent within that community is more like 20-30%</p>

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<p>Harvard offers nothing extra for NMS. This is true of pretty much all of the Ivies.</p>

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<p>I have to agree with the above posters. Oklahoma was easily the best NMF package I saw. Of the schools to which I applied, Bowdoin was the only one who did anything specific for NM. Finalists get their loans converted to grants, which is very nice.</p>

12

<p>OU's package is not a full ride. See this</a> page, section: Costs. It is a terrific package, but is still a couple thousand dollars shy of being a full ride. OU also claims themselves as being number one per capita, as seen [url=<a href="http://go2.ou.edu/national_scholars/index.htm%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://go2.ou.edu/national_scholars/index.htm]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;]. I do have to say that it was enough for me, since that's where I am. :)</p>

13

<p>Remember that "Scholar" includes those who receive money because a parent works at a sponsor corporation. If a student receives money from a corporate sponsor, he/she may or may not also be receiving money from the school.
The way this scholarship contest is set up is just so confusing.</p>

<p>The more meaningful figures for some purposes would be the number of National Finalists attending each college or university, regardless of whether they are NMC, corporate, or university/college "Scholars", and then what % that is of the student body. I don't think that information is ever released for the whole National Merit Finalist pool..</p>

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<p>thanks hawkette, what is the NMS % for Furman and how does it compare with your list above?</p>