<p>I received a $2500 National Merit Scholarship last month.
Now I'll be attending Northwestern, which offers $2000/year to National Merit Finalists. As a finalist that eventually won the merit scholarship, I thought I'd get the college-sponsored award that finalists are offered.</p>
<p>But when I called the NMSC today, I learned that this isn't the case. </p>
<p>BY VIRTUE OF BEING ALREADY OFFERED $2500, ONE IS NOT ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE THE COLLEGE-SPONSORED AWARD.</p>
<p>I'm quite a bit frustrated with this development and wanted to know if anyone else had this kind of problem. Was anyone aware of this policy?</p>
<p>These threads always concern me. I have no idea how this works. My ds will likely be a National Merit Finalist. I do understand that you can only get one. But how does that work? The wording the OP quoted was by virtue of being OFFERED the $2,500 scholarship. Did he receive a check and cash it? Do you just not cash the check if you have the opportunity to get more $ elsewhere? And not everyone who is a finalist receives the $2,500 check, right? I don’t want us to make a mistake and lose $$ because of it.</p>
<p>My understanding, and I’m still learning, so it’s not perfect, is that MOST schools will make up the difference so you still get all the money if you get one of the $2500 scholarships. </p>
<p>If a school was offering $2K/year (which is the maximum official NMF scholarship a school can officially offer), most of them would certainly rather you take 2500 of NMF’s money the first year, and then they would give you $2K of their own money in a non-offficial-NMF scholarship the next 3 years. It saves them $2K and the student ends up netting $500 extra. win-win.</p>
<p>Note that if a school is offering a HUGE scholarship, like full tuition or 20K/year or whatever for NMFs, at most 2K/year of that is the official scholarship. Even if the school’s position is that you would lose all 8K over 4 years if you got the $2500 scholarship, you would STILL be eligible for the rest of the big scholarship. So at the 20K school, you’d still get 18K/year. It would definitely stink to lose the extra 2K/year because of a one-time 2.5K scholarship, but it’s reassuring to know that you’re not out of the running for the big awards if you somehow mess it up.</p>
<p>I <em>believe</em> that it is possible to turn down the $2500 scholarship when you are named a winner, but I’m not 100% sure on that. And depending on the timing, you might not know if you’re up for a better scholarship, if the other scholarships you’re hoping for are not guaranteed.</p>
<p>I will say that the while NMS process is the most unnecessarily convoluted, complicated scholarship process I’ve ever heard of!</p>
<p>All official NMSC scholarships are funded through your school, including the $2500 NMSC award. Larger awards from many schools are not “official” NMSC awards and can be awarded in addition.</p>
<p>That doesn’t sound right, BobWallace, about the $2500 being funded by the school. Or are you just saying that the money is sent by NMSC directly to the school, and not as a check to the student? Certainly the corporate NMS awards are not funded by the schools.</p>
<p>Hoggirl…Unfortunately, we don’t have all the facts in this case. Did the OP have Northwestern listed as their first-choice school with NMSC? If so, when did they list it as such? From Northwestern’s website:</p>
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<p>If the additional $5500 in scholarship money were that critical to the OP being able to attend Northwestern, then he/she should have listed it as their first-choice school from the outset. Northwestern clearly states in their policy above that they will not make up the difference as some other schools (Ok State for instance) clearly state that they will.</p>
<p>Is it possible that a student can have a first-choice school listed early in the process in anticipation of a school-sponsored award and still be awarded a one-time $2500 award by NMSC? Certainly, but I don’t think anyone could tell you how often. I doubt that it’s a widespread issue, and I think the OP is just an unfortunate victim of the particular combination of schools to which they applied.</p>
<p>I understand that not every student knows early on in the process which school they plan on attending, but they also need to understand that there are possible consequences (as in this case) of delaying and/or changing their first-choice schools late in the process. Is that what happened in this case? Again…we haven’t been given all the facts.</p>
<p>Look at it from the school’s perspective. They want to know that a student is truly interested in attending their institution, and in some cases have “first-choice naming” deadlines earlier than NMSC’s cutoff. That’s their prerogative, as is whether or not to make up the difference between a one-time and a school sponsored award. </p>
<p>My recommendation to any potential NMFs would be to call the schools you’re interested in and speak with their financial aid officers. Explain to them that they’re among the final few schools you’re deciding between, and ask them what their policy is should you be awarded a one-time $2500 scholarship. Northwestern’s policy in this instance was clearly stated, as is NMSC’s policy on “official” scholarship offers. I can understand the OP is upset about “losing” $5500 but it’s not NMSC he/she should be upset with in this case…it’s Northwestern.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that your first-choice school has any decision on $2500 NMSC scholarship decisions. </p>
<p>I was under the impression that students named for this $2500 award could turn it down if necessary, though as I posted earlier, usually it is not necessary and schools will tell you to accept the $2500 and they will make up the difference because that costs them less. However, a student should always check with any schools they are hoping to receive a NMF scholarship from to see how that would be handled. </p>
<p>I don’t know what happened with this student, but it sounds like maybe they waited too long to turn down the $2500 (not realizing that it would jeopardize any other NMF scholarships the student might be in the running for) and when Northwestern went to hand out their scholarships on May 1, they found the student ineligible by virtue of winning another scholarship.</p>
<p>The OP didn’t follow up, so we don’t know if Northwestern agreed to give them a non-official scholarship to make up the difference or not.</p>
<p>First choice school has no impact on selection of the $2,500 scholarship winners. From NMSC’s student handbook: “All Finalists compete with all other Finalists in their state or other selection unit.”</p>
<p>mathmomvt…I just spoke with NMSC out of my own curiousity, and what BobWallace posted regarding the $2500 scholarships is correct. Those scholarships are considered and awarded without knowing whether a student has a first-choice school listed or not. NMSC’s opinion is that the $2500 are more flexible because of their transferability to any accredited university, and that many students might find that preferable.</p>
<p>I also asked if the student could decline the $2500 in order to be considered for the higher total amount college-sponsored award, but that won’t work either. NMSC’s limitation is that each Finalist can only be OFFERED one type of scholarship, not that they can only be AWARDED one type of scholarship. Once you are offered the $2500 scholarship, if you choose to decline it you will not receive any “official” money from NMSC. You would still be eligible for any of the large $$ “unofficial” scholarships from the university itself, but the typical $500-$2K per year official college-sponsored awards would be off the table.</p>
<p>Basically, the only way to avoid this type of situation is to research the schools the NMF student is interested in (website or call directly) and find out what their policy is regarding supplementing a one-time $2500 award. If a school (like Northwestern) specifically states they will not supplement and the difference in funds is a show-stopper for attending, then you can always take that school off of the list.</p>
<p>Northwestern is the first school I’ve heard of that specifically refuses to augment $2500 winners to the same amount as their college sponsored NM scholarship winners receive. Personally, I find that policy to be foolish and I know how it would affect my choice of whether to apply or not. I certainly wouldn’t view NMSC in a bad light in this instance since it’s Northwestern’s policy that is costing the student money. The folks I talked to at NMSC wouldn’t name individual schools, but they said it’s only Northwestern (since I brought up that example) and a few others that have a “non-augment” policy. I guess the answer is to do the homework before applying, and decide if the possible few thousand dollar difference is a go/no-go issue.</p>
Sorry to be so dense.</p>