<p>My son notified all his schools, including those that do not offer scholarships. All but one congratulated him and said they would add it to his application file. Even though some don’t offer scholarships, he’s waiting to hear from five so he thought it might help his chances.</p>
<p>^ Absolutely, how could it hurt? Congrats on the honor!</p>
<p>@2collegesplus1- Congrats to your son.</p>
<p>How did your son notify his schools? Did he call/send email to the admission office?</p>
<p>Hi aghaby, sorry I haven’t been on CC for a while. My son sent an e-mail to the admissions counselors that represent NJ for the schools he applied to. You can usually find them on the schools’ websites. Good Luck!</p>
<p>@2collegesplus1-Thank you! Perhaps we should email our schools as well this week or b4 it’s too late.</p>
<p>Shortly after notifying NMF status to all schools to which my son applied, two that previously accepted him informed him that he was to be placed in their honors program. Coincidence? Not sure, but I advise all to send NMF updates.</p>
<p>My school still hasn’t notified us of finalist status. Should I have my parents call and ask? The school should have been notified almost a month ago now.</p>
<p>becca95, by all means call. Did you get your finalist letter? D’s school hasn’t notified anyone yet either, and they have about 20. They do know since when GC was sending midyear reports before we got the letter at home, D asked him if she was NMF so that she could have him add that to the report, and he had the list.</p>
<p>Thanks celesteroberts. I did get my finalist letter and called the school. They said that it had been sitting in my principal’s office and my counselor would give it to me. We have 2 other finalists, though, so I don’t know if they will get theirs unless they call too. It just seems like my school doesn’t understand that this is a pretty big honor.</p>
<p>Myself and the other student in my school who qualified both made finalist - we’re in KS and I got my letter from NMSC on the 8th. School told us a few days later, but still hasn’t officially met with us to give us our certificates - and now it’ll be March in 20 minutes. The day before I got the letter in the mail, I asked my GC if the school had heard anything (since I thought they’d get a letter first), and he actually said to me “Weren’t you commended?” like he had no recollection of me being a semifinalist or of talking about it in the fall at all. Needless to say that’s frustrated me. But what I really wanted to say is thank you to everybody on college confidential. I’ve been coming on here since people were trying to figure out the Class of 2013 cutoff scores by state, and everyone has been really informative and helpful. This is where I learned the possible KS cutoff score first, and where I recently learned how close I cut it on the SAT lol. So again, thank you to everyone for collaborating to provide info. even when my school doesn’t or is delayed. Good luck to you and/or your kids.</p>
<p>I agree Girl123! Without this forum I would not have know how big a deal National Merit could be ie.full tuition and full rides etc. and my son wouldn’t have gotten National Merit at all because he had put the wrong year he was graduating on his PSAT!</p>
<p>Everyone who knows they are NMFs but don’t have the forms in hand should feel comfortable knowing that National Merit is sending its first batch of notices to colleges any day now. So you should be hearing updated information from your first choice college soon and the first round of National Merit 2,500 scholarships should be announced soon. </p>
<p>Something I learned this week was that the Official college sponsored scholarships are in the amount of 2,500 so if you are getting any more than that from a college you still can receive a corporate sponsored scholarship or National Merit Scholorship. How your college allocates the scholarship is up to each college though.</p>
<p>Bethorama33 – those are the official National Merit Scholarship Corporation scholarships that are $2500, not college-sponsored scholarships. If you get a $2500 scholarship directly from NMSC, any portion of a college’s National Merit Finalist package that is the official NMSC (regardless of the amount) scholarship would be subtracted from the package and the $2500 substituted for it. Once an award offer is mailed by NMSC, it cannot be changed.</p>
<p>STEMFamily - There are two types of scholarhips that colleges can offer NMFs, official and unofficial “college-sponsored”. The official scholarships are $2,500. (I’m not sure but I think they can be for less as well, say $1,000) National Merit will only offer 1 of 3 scholarhip types: Official College Scholarship, Corporate Scholarship or National Merit Scholarship. So, my guess is that’s why it’s very important to either leave your First College Choice as undecided until later on or be sure of just what scholarship you’d be getting to list them as First Choice. </p>
<p>As an example. Northeastern University’s Scholarship is a College-Sponsored Full-Tuition Scholarship so this does not negate him from getting a corporate or National Merit Scholarship. My son is eligible for a one time $2,500 Corporate Scholarship through National Merit due to my husband’s employer. I verified with NEU that this does not negate my son from being able to use this $2,500 in addition to full tuition. Other colleges may apply the $2,500 towards whatever scholarship they’ve already offered, it’s up to th college at that point.</p>
<p>Ohhhh, some schools let you add those smaller NMF scholarships to their own? I didn’t know that, good info. Have to check that for D’s schools (NEU is one.) Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Most colleges that offer a huge scholarship offer an official NM one as part of it that would get replaced (rather than stacked) if you get a better one from a different source. The official piece can be up to $1K/year for 4 years, I believe. (If no part of the school’s scholarship is an “official” NM scholarship, then the student isn’t officially a NM Scholar unless they win an official scholarship somewhere else.)</p>
<p>Bethorama, NEU’s website states that any scholarship from NMSC will be supplemented to a full tuition scholarship not full tuition in addition to the award from NM.</p>
<p>From a Scholarship Counselor from NEU:</p>
<p>“Ms &*^%$, any outside scholarship funding *&^%$ receives can be added on top of the full tuition scholarship to help cover other expenses; this includes the NMSC corporate scholarships.”
“Please let me know if you have any other questions about the National Merit Scholarship.”</p>
<p>I have read in another post from student that they received an additional $1,000 a year from National Merit.</p>
<p>I will let you all know in the next couple of weeks what actually happens, so others can use the information to help gauge whether NEU would be affordable for them or not.</p>
<p>DS receives the $1000 official NMF scholarship from USC and also the half tuition Presidential Scholarship given to all NMF who name USC as their first choice. It is my understanding though that colleges cannot give more than $1000 per year in official NMF money. The $2500 comes from corporations or directly from NM.</p>