Could someone please help me clear up this "First Choice School" issue?

Paying for College National Merit Aid
1

I am a National Merit Semifinalist anticipating finalist status, and I would like some clearance on how my “first choice” selection could affect my potential scholarship offerings. From what I understand, there are “official” and “unofficial” portions to scholarships offered to National Merit Finalists. The two schools I am looking at, in regard to National Merit Scholarships, are South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. At Minnesota, it is easy to discern what is official and what is unofficial. Their “unofficial” is 10k/year contingent on first-choice selection by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation deadline, which does not come until May 1. SDSMT does not discern between “official” and “unofficial” and requires a first-choice selection by February 1.

My Questions:

How can I be hurt in this situation? The only way I become ineligible for a scholarship is if I receive an offer, which can only happen on May 1 or later, correct?

Can SDSMT even know that I select them by February 1? National Merit says that they do not refer first choice selections to colleges until March 1.

Can I select SDSMT, change it to UMN by May 1, and not be penalized for it? This question is the most important one. I should be able to choose a school by the end of March.

Below I am including the policies of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and the two colleges. Feel free to read them. Also, will calling National Merit Corporation be helpful? Can they help me sort this out?

OFFICIAL NATIONAL MERIT POLICY:

Schedule specific to college-sponsored awards:

March 1 through May 31, 2015: A Finalist who has reported a sponsor college as first choice by
March 1 will be included in the first group referred to that institution for scholarship consideration.

Periodically NMSC will notify sponsors of additional Finalists who have reported (by May 31) the college
or university as their first choice.

May 1, 2015: NMSC will begin mailing college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offers.

NOTE: If NMSC receives notification of a change in college choice from a Finalist after
mailing a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer to that student, the Finalist cannot be
offered another college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award. This applies even if the new
choice of college is one that also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards. Therefore, a Finalist
who has previously reported a sponsor college as first choice but is uncertain about it may
choose to notify NMSC that he or she is now “undecided” to prevent being made an offer
from a school he or she is uncertain about attending; such notification must be submitted
online at osa.nationalmerit.org before May 1. The Finalist can subsequently report a firm
college choice that NMSC receives by May 31.

May 31, 2015: Deadline date for NMSC to receive reports of a sponsor college as first choice. Because it
is necessary to end the competition in a timely manner, only college choice reports that NMSC receives by
May 31 will be used to identify the final group of candidates to a college or university that sponsors awards.

SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

“The School of Mines offers a $3,000 scholarship renewable for three years to National Merit Finalists who notify the National Merit Corporation that SDSM&T is their first-choice college by the first business day in February. This scholarship would be in addition to other scholarship award(s) from SDSM&T.”

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA TWIN CITIES POLICY

"Preference for the U of M Gold Scholar Award for National Merit Finalists–worth $40,000 over four years–is given to National Merit Finalists who declare the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as their first-choice college by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation deadline.

The University of Minnesota is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program. In addition to the Gold Scholar Award, Finalists may be eligible to receive the National Merit University of Minnesota Scholarship–worth $4,000-$8,000 over four years. Any amount over $4,000 is based on financial need as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

To receive this scholarship, students must become National Merit Finalists and declare the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as their first-choice college by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation deadline and students must not be eligible for a National Merit Scholarship Corporation corporate-sponsored scholarship or National Merit $2500 scholarship."

Thank you all for any advice you can give me. I really appreciate it.

2

I can’t explain how SD School of Mines would know by February 1st either since NMSC clearly states that March 1st is the earliest date for the first pool of names to be sent to colleges.

However, to be safe just put them down now and you are good for that scholarship. If later you decide you would rather go for the Minnesota scholarship, you have until May 31st to designate them because that is the final NMSC deadline. HOWEVER, in the case of changing to Minnesota, you MUST NOT still have SD School of Mines designated as first choice anytime in May because then NMSC would award you that scholarship (they start mailing the college-sponsored scholarship awards on May 1st) and you would then be ineligible for the Minnesota scholarship. To avoid this situation, you should either designate Minnesota or change to undecided by the end of April and then you would have until May 31 to change to Minnesota.

The catch in this is that even though Minnesota says that the NMSC date is the ultimate deadline, it may in effect be earlier because it isn’t clear that the scholarship is guaranteed for ALL finalists. Words like "preference given and “may be eligible” would not indicate a guarantee in my opinion and I think there have been posts indicating that UMN does NOT give this scholarship to all Finalists. If not guaranteed, Minnesota could decide to give all their scholarship money to Finalists in the very first pool and have nothing left for names in subsequent pools. Or they could choose to wait until May and evaluate candidates on a competitive basis. If the package isn’t guaranteed to all Finalists, they can deside the winners on any timeline they choose. I would call the UMN scholarship office and ask how these are awarded.

3

Thank you so much for the reply, STEMFamily. It is nice to have at least one person confirm my thought process. As you said, I think I should be safe in selecting Mines if I want to do so. The part of the scholarship that is subject to cancellation is only the “official” part, correct? I believe that to be the case, and thus being “offered” SDSMT’s scholarship prior to May should not hurt my chances at UMN.

And as for whether the UMN scholarship is guaranteed, it may not be. However, I have already been formally offered their scholarship contingent on my reaching Finalist status, so I don’t feel I have much to worry about. I will plan to select them by May 1 and not deal with waiting later anyways. I am waiting until I can size-up total scholarship packages before making a decision, and thus, I should have my choice made by early April at the very latest.

4

Yes I believe you are correct, although it isn’t really the case that you get “offered” the NMSC part of scholarship before NMSC mails the award letter after May 1st. This school tells you that it will be included in their package but the offer of that part is not official until NMSC sends you a letter.

It is only the “official” parts that are subject to the NMSC rules of not being offered more than one scholarship. So I do think that if you had SD still listed as first choice on May 1st and NMSC sent you a letter and then you changed to UMN you would still get the unofficial part of UMN’s scholarship but definitely not the official part that is funneled through NMSC. However, the best thing would be not to put yourself in this position as you mentioned.

5

@mom2collegekids‌ Could you confirm this to be correct? If you could, that would be awesome. Planning to change choice tomorrow.

6

@mh3353 I went back and read the Minnesota requirements again and I am going to disagree with myself on middle sentence of the last paragraph of post #3.

This could very well be interpreted to mean that they require you to be offered the official part in order to get the rest of their package.

Just play it safe, and make sure you have the school you plan to attend listed as your First Choice by May 1st. Or if you are truly undecided, have “Undecided” listed by May 1st until you decide. But NMSC MUST know your Final Choice BEFORE May 31.

7

Just read this sentence:

In addition to the Gold Scholar Award, Finalists may be eligible to receive the National Merit University of Minnesota Scholarship–worth $4,000-$8,000 over four years.

I think I should be receiving the Gold Scholar (if I become NMF and declare by May 1) regardless of whether I receive the smaller, NM official, college-sponsored scholarship. Also, I am pretty sure I would want to select UMN before May 1. May 1 is their deadline to confirm enrollment. The Gold Scholar Award has already been “offered” to me. As is my understanding, if I choose UMN by the National Merit deadline, I get that 10k scholarship regardless of whether or not I am awarded an “official” (whether it be the college-sponsored 1-2k or the one time 2.5k) national merit scholarship.

And in all honesty, at this point, I hope to be able to decide by the end of this month. I just need to have a good idea of total financial aid packages before I make my final decision.

BTW, I just kind of realized that SDSMT isn’t even an official college sponsor. Their whole scholarship (3k/year) is unofficial, just like UMN’s Gold Scholar Award. I really haven’t found any reason to think my scholarship eligibility at UMN could be compromised by selecting SDSMT now, as you have agreed with me.

8

It sounds like you have a solid plan but the SDSMT website implies that the $3000 per year is an official NMSC scholarship, at least in part. Otherwise there would be no reason to involve NMSC regarding First Choice at all.

There certainly are strange and confusing things about this scholarship. First, it specifies a February 1st date for First Choice when NMSC doesn’t even start notifying colleges of Finalists who have listed them as First Choice until March 1st. Second, SDSMT does not show up in the NMSC annual report (at least for 2012-2013) as having any 2013 National Merit Scholars enrolled, let alone sponsoring any themselves. But the absence of SDSMT in the annual report could be because they don’t have any Finalists at all who enrolled that year.

9

'It sounds like you have a solid plan but the SDSMT website implies that the $3000 per year is an official NMSC scholarship, at least in part. Otherwise there would be no reason to involve NMSC regarding First Choice at all."

On this point, UMN’s Gold Scholar Award, officially, has nothing to do with National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Minnesota decided to award this scholarship to some students, giving preference to NMFs. SDSMT’s scholarship, from my understanding, is in the same category. It seems schools make their own rules about when you have to declare first choice, since these are their own scholarships, not official national merit college-sponsored scholarships.

http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_Sponsor_Leaflet.pdf

If SDSMT had an official college-sponsored NM scholarship (1-2k year for four years), wouldn’t they appear on this list?

10

I agree that would be logical to assume. BUT then this paragraph from the SDSMT website makes no sense.

Why would you be required to notify NMSC that SDSM&T is your first choice if they don’t sponsor a scholarship? Why would NMSC be involved at all?

If it really makes a difference to you, I would say you should call SDSM&T.

11

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However, to be safe just put them down now and you are good for that scholarship. If later you decide you would rather go for the Minnesota scholarship, you have until May 31st to designate them because that is the final NMSC deadline. HOWEVER, in the case of changing to Minnesota, you MUST NOT still have SD School of Mines designated as first choice anytime in May because then NMSC would award you that scholarship (they start mailing the college-sponsored scholarship awards on May 1st) and you would then be ineligible for the Minnesota scholarship. To avoid this situation, you should either designate Minnesota or change to undecided by the end of April and then you would have until May 31 to change to Minnesota.


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this sounds right to me, too.

I don’t know how Mines would know about the Feb 1st selection, though. But, I think another school (USC??) also has an early req’t…again, don’t know how they know.

Definitely remove Mines as your choice BEFORE May 1st if you want to change to another school.

12

Ok. Thanks for the confirmation. The most important thing is that selecting Mines now won’t hurt my eligibility at UMN for the next couple months, and we seem to have confirmed that. There is definitely a good chance that I will end up selecting UMN, and if I do I would certainly select UMN before May 1 and will have a solid decision made by then. Thank you both again for helping me sort through this stuff.